Event: Grad Student Hangout (9/3)

If you’re looking for a fun activity to end your holiday weekend, join the rest of your colleagues tomorrow at the Patriot’s Cafe in Fairfax for a drink or two!

• Who: All grad students (especially new ones!)
• What: Grad student hangout
• When: Monday, September 3, 7:30 PM
• Where: Patriot’s Cafe, 10376 Lee Hwy, Fairfax, VA, 22030

Event: Grad Student Hangout

Welcome back, everyone! Join us after the department reception to have a drink and (re)connect with grad students at Fat Tuesday’s, in University Mall just off campus.

• Who: All grad students (especially new ones!)
• What: Grad student hangout
• When: Thursday, August 23, following the department reception that starts at 6:00 PM
• Where: Fat Tuesday’s, 10673 Braddock Road  Fairfax, VA 22032

ASA 2012 Preview

Check out this detailed preview of the 2012 ASA annual meeting, addressing the “Real Utopias: Emancipatory Projects, Institutional Designs, Possible Futures” theme and program, which was obtained recently by Jason Smith.

From the preview:

The 2012 ASA annual meeting will explore a wide range of substantive problems connected to these kinds of empirical and theoretical real utopia agendas. A number of different kinds of sessions are being planned around this theme:

1. There will be three plenary sessions, during which nothing else is officially scheduled at the conference.

2. Twenty thematic panels are organized around specific proposals for real utopian institutional designs, with one primary speaker and one commentator. The descriptions for each of these twenty real utopia proposal sessions can be found at the end of this document.

3. Fifty thematic panels are organized around broad topics with 3-4 presentations. Many of these sessions were proposed by ASA members.

4. A special presidential panel to explore that broad problem of progressive social change in the 21st century.

Below is a brief sketch of each of these elements of the program…

Download the pdf file here. For more about the meeting, visit the ASA’s info page here.

Event: 11/4

We have a great event planned for this Friday, as Drs. Davis and Hattery lead a discussion about how to build a great CV during your time in grad school. Hope to see you all there!

Regardless of desired career trajectory, one of the key products of graduate school is the Curriculum Vitae (CV).  How does one go about figuring out how to do the right things so that the CV is as full and complete as it can be at graduation?  How do you make decisions about conference attendance and presentations, find teaching and professional development opportunities, and “get your name out there”?  In this brown bag discussion, we will provide some suggestions about timing of events throughout the graduate school life course and how to get involved in activities that show your professional dedication as well as becoming lines on your CV.  Q&A to follow.

• Who: All grad students
• What: Brown bag, “How to Get Lines on Your CV Without Even Trying (Sort Of),” moderated by Shannon Davis (GMU, Sociology) and Angela Hattery (GMU, Women and Gender Studies)
• When: Friday, November 4, 12:00-2:00 pm
• Where: Women and Gender Studies Center (Johnson Center, Room 240K)

Recurring Events

There are two recurring events that will be occurring on Thursdays throughout the remainder of the fall semester: a brownbag series at the Center for Social Science Research presenting research from ongoing studies at GMU, and a teaching workshop for grad students currently or interested in teaching.

The CSSR’s brownbag series will occur weekly at the CSSR on Thursdays at 12:00-1:15. Faculty and students alike will be presenting the preliminary results of their ongoing projects with the aim of fostering collegial discussions that provides learning opportunities for the presenters as well as the audience.

The teaching workshops will occur every other week in the SOAN conference room (Robinson B 313) on Thursdays at 1:30. The workshops will be led by sociology professor Nancy Hanrahan and will focus on various topics related to teaching sociology.

Both events begin tomorrow–the CSSR brown bag will feature research conducted by Ph.D. student Jean Boucher, while the teaching workshop focus on preparing instruction for a class. Be sure to stop by both events tomorrow and plan to hear more about exciting research and teaching events on Thursdays for the rest of the semester!

Conference and Newsletter Update

Two big announcements. First, a new edition of our student newsletter, In the Field, has been published and can be downloaded here. The new edition features an interview with our own John Dale as well as lots of student news, contributions, and announcements.

Second, the preliminary program for the first Public Sociology Graduate Conference has been posted. The conference will feature a keynote address by Gregory D. Squires from George Washington University as well as 22 student presentations divided into 6 panels:

• Challenging Hegemony
• Information Politics in an Age of Digital Media
• Engaging Contemporary Latin America
• Nation, Violence, and Race in the United States
• Public Sociology in a Globalizing World
• Race and Poverty in Urban Contexts

The full program is printed below. For more information about the conference, check out the conference website and be sure to RSVP at our Facebook page!

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Public Sociology Graduate Conference Program [Preliminary]

9:30-10:00      Registration/Reception (Research Hall Lobby)

10:00-10:15    Opening Remarks (Research Hall, Room 163)

10:15-11:45    Panels 1 & 2

Panel 1: Public Sociology in a Globalizing World (Research Hall, Room 163)  Discussant: TBA

• A Phoenix Reborn: Revolution, Democracy, and Governance in Latin America and the Middle East (Johnnie Lotesta, George Mason University)
• The Anomic Effect of Globalization: Modern Day Guilds as the Solution (Anne E. Rankin, Stephen F. Austin State University)
• Collaboration Not Co-Optation: Challenges in Efforts to Transform State Systems to Integrate Gender and Public Health (Basha Silverman, Bryn Mawr College, and Joanna Champney, Stand Up for What’s Right and Just)
• Toward a Global Ecological and Social Transition through Feminist Political Economy (Julia Wartenberg, University of Virginia)

Panel 2: Race and Poverty in Urban Contexts (Nguyen Engineering Building, Room 1103)  Discussant: TBA

• Racial Diversity and Racial Residential Segregation: A Case Study of the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan Area (Joanna Pinto-Coelho, University of Pennsylvania)
• Preserving Affordable Housing and Building Wealth in an Economic Recovery: Limited-Equity Cooperatives as an Alternative to Tenant Displacement (Katie Kerstetter, George Mason University, and John Robinson, Northwestern University)
• In Too Deep: Consequences of Water Bills in a Poor Southern City (Siri Warkentien, Barbara Condliffe, and Stefanie DeLuca, Johns Hopkins University)

12:00-1:30      Panels 3 & 4

Panel 3: Engaging Contemporary Latin America (Research Hall, Room 163)  Discussant: Nicole McCoy, George Mason University

• Exhibiting the Nation: the Indigenous in Chile’s National Museums (Magdalena Gil-Ureta, Columbia University)
• Transnational Solidarity: International Human Rights Accompaniers in Post-Coup Honduras (Gregory S. Harris, University of Pennsylvania)
• Social Justice in Extreme Situations: The Case of Child Soldiers in Colombia (Randy Salm, George Mason University)
• Intergenerational Family Transfers in Latin America: Effects of Economic and Socio-Demographic Change (Elizangela Storelli, Boston College)

Panel 4: Nation, Violence, and Race in the United States (Nguyen Engineering Building, Room 1103)  Discussant: TBA

• Law-Abiding Citizens: Guns, Masculinity and Race under the War on Crime (J. Dawn Carlson, University at California-Berkeley)
• Violence in Family of Origin and Criminality in Adolescence and Young Adulthood: A Longitudinal Study (Marcie Hambrick, Georgia State University)
• All the Gays are White and All the Racists are Straight: The Intersections of White Privilege and Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Queer Identities (Megan Rolfe, University at Albany-SUNY)
• The Moral Discourse of the United States (Amy Stuart, The New School for Social Research)

1:30-2:15        Lunch

2:15-3:45        Panels 5 & 6

Panel 5: Challenging Hegemony (Research Hall, Room 163)  Discussant: TBA

• How Men and Women Challenge the Ideal Worker Norm in High Status Work Occupations (Julie L. Armstrong, Emory University)
• Garden Sharing: How Civil Society Creates Alterity Against the Dominant Food Production System (Dionne Banks, University of Florida)
• Eco-Terrorists Unite!: Reclaiming the Commons through Public Performance (Michael Loadenthal, George Mason University, and Jenny Grubbs, American University)
• Reclaiming the Social of the Sociological Imagination: Public Sociology, Pedagogy, and Engaging Undergraduates in the Classroom (Margaret Austin Smith and David Paul Strohecker, University of Maryland-College Park)

Panel 6: Information Politics in the Age of Digital Media (Nguyen Engineering Building, Room 1103)  Discussant: Zeynep Tufekci, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill

• Internet Infrastructure: ‘Access’ Rhetoric, Neoliberalism, and Informational Politics (Dan Greene, University of Maryland-College Park)
• Academic Marginalization in the Age of Social Media (P.J. Rey, University of Maryland-College Park)
• Social Media and Revolutionary Movements: Toward Research and Activist Agendas (Mina Semeni, Randy Lynn, and Jason Smith, George Mason University)

4:00-5:00        Keynote Address (Research Hall, Room 163) 

• “Fox TV, Cybersegregation, and Public Sociology:  Is Neil a More Desirable Tenant than Tyrone or Jorge?” (Dr. Gregory D. Squires, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy, George Washington University)

Welcome back!

Hope everyone had a great summer!

The GSSA is kicking off the new school year with a social gathering on Thursday at 7:30 pm (or earlier if the 4:30 classes end early) at the Auld Shebeen in old town Fairfax. (If you’re new to the area, click here for directions.) All new and returning students are welcome!

If you’d like to be involved in planning/organizing a slew of interesting fall events (in addition to our public sociology graduate conference in October) and you’re not on our e-mail list, e-mail us. We’ll be meeting to plan the upcoming semester very soon and want to hear your ideas!

If you’re new to the GSSA, here’s a quick tour of a few of the resources and highlights available on our website:

• A regularly updated calendar that includes GMU academic deadlines, departmental events, other events around GMU of interest to sociologists (e.g., Women & Gender Studies, Cultural Studies, etc.), sociological events of note in the DC metro area, submission deadlines and conferences (local and major regional/national) to which you might submit your work, and GSSA events.
• A comprehensive list of over two hundred sociology and social science journals to which you might submit your work, complete with h-indexes measuring reach/prestige.
• The most recent issue of our newsletter, In the Field, published last fall. (A new issue will be published soon.)

For more about us and what we do, check out our About page, our Members page, and a list of past events we’ve sponsored.

Official 2011 ASA Bingo Card

From Orgtheory. Hope to see many of you there!

Keynote Speaker: Public Sociology Graduate Conference 2011

The GSSA is very happy to announce that Gregory D. Squires, Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University, will deliver the keynote address at our first Public Sociology Graduate Conference on October 22, 2011 at George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. The preliminary title of his talk is, “Fox TV, Cybersegregation, and Public Sociology:  Is Neil a More Desirable Tenant than Tyrone or Jorge?”

From Dr. Squires’s bio:

Gregory D. Squires is a Professor of Sociology and Public Policy and Public Administration at George Washington University. Currently he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Woodstock Institute, the Advisory Board of the John Marshall Law School Fair Housing Legal Support Center in Chicago, Illinois and the Social Science Advisory Board of the Poverty & Race Research Action Council in Washington, DC. He has served as a consultant and expert witness for fair housing groups and civil rights organizations around the country including HUD, the National Fair Housing Alliance, the National Community Reinvestment Coalition, and many others. He also served a three-year term as a member of the Consumer Advisory Council of the Federal Reserve Board. He has written for several academic journals and general interest publications including Social Problems, Social Science Quarterly, Urban Affairs Review, Journal of Urban Affairs, The Nation, The American Prospect, New York Times, and Washington Post.

In addition to these qualifications, Dr. Squires also served on the American Sociological Association’s Task Force on Institutionalizing Public Sociologies.

Click here to visit the conference website. In upcoming weeks, we will be updating this site with information on accommodations and transportation, and in August we will post a preliminary program. We hope to see many of you there!

Submission Deadline Extension: Public Sociology Graduate Conference

The deadline for submissions to the Public Sociology Graduate Conference at George Mason University (to be held on October 22, 2011) has been extended to June 15, 2011.

Click here to visit the conference website.

Click here to submit an abstract and reflexive statement.

Click here to download the call for papers.