Cinco de Mayo should bring about excitement, as should “May the Fourth Be with You” and May Day, for that matter. But around here, they’re signaling the winding down of a semester and the ramping up of all those projects shunted aside when professors and students are too busy in classrooms to tie up the loose ends on their dissertations and articles and books (oh my!). The good news is that this brings a bumper crop of great material for TSP, too, and we have lots of great articles coming your way in the next few weeks—so long as we manage to get our next two book manuscripts to press! In the meantime, here’s what’s going on across our (luckily) vast site.

The Editors’ Desk:

“Donald Sterling Sociology,” by Doug Hartmann. “I still have no idea how this guy was set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award from the NAACP in L.A.”

“Why Shaming Sterling Wasn’t (and Isn’t) Enough,” by Max Fitzpatrick. “Instead of merely being what Marx sarcastically called “critical critics,” we should bring attention to—and [work] to change—the poor social conditions and institutional discrimination disproportionately faced by people of color.”

There’s Research on That!

“The Culture of Cosmos,” by Stephen Suh. Religion vs. science, coming at you weekly on a local Fox affiliate.

“The Culture of Cosmos II: Space and Race,” by Stephen Suh. deGrasse Tyson has made it clear: there aren’t enough opportunities for minorities in STEM fields. This makes his own presence as a major media authority on science extra important.

Citings & Sightings:

“‘Brown Eggs’ and the Hush-Hush Infertility Gap,” by Letta Page. Married black women have twice the infertility problems of their white counterparts—why aren’t we hearing more about it?

Scholars Strategy Network:

“Health and Access Improved after the 2006 Massachusetts Reforms that Paved the Way for Federal Health Reform,” by Philip J. Van der Wees. Take heart! Eight million newly insured Americans? It’s not going to make health outcomes worse.

A Few from the Community Pages:

• Sociological Images gets in the way-back machine to look at the fantasies ads are selling.
• Cyborgology on the meanings of words and thoughts on drones post-TtW14.
• ThickCulture on measuring the health of democracies (hey! you! don’t duck the question…).
• Girl w/ Pen! on how women and the GDP are linked (and not just in that way where women produce stuff and things).

Last Week’s Roundup

Signup for Inbox Delivery of the Roundup