Following a school shooting in Winder, GA, the New York Times ran a story on gun laws in Georgia, noting that the state does not have a “red-flag law”–a measure allowing judges to order a temporary confiscation of firearms if there is a credible risk of harm. Jeffrey W. Swanson (Professor in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Duke University) commented that transitioning between adolescence and young adulthood is “a relatively high-risk time, particularly for young men, for not just mass shootings, but violence and aggression” and that red-flag protection law “is an important policy because it’s nimble, it’s risk-based and focused on individual circumstances.”
Scott Thumma (Professor of Sociology of Religion at Hartford International University) appeared on PBS News, discussing megachurches (religious congregations with 2,000+ worshipers) and the recent resignation of several high-profile pastors . Thumma explains that “many people flock to them because they [have] all of the amenities that people were looking for in a congregation. They had robust Sunday school programs, youth programs and exciting worship.” About 40% of megachurches are nondenominational, making them “accountable only to themselves.” Thumma notes that “we don’t have really good data on congregations and the incidence of misconduct across all congregations, but certainly anything that happens in a megachurch…gets amplified because they have such a high profile.”
The New York Times ran a story on escalating tensions in many labor unions between union leaders and left-leaning union members calling for the union to take a stance on the war in Gaza and other issues outside the workplace. Ruth Milkman (Professor of Sociology at the City University of New York) commented that “insofar as the new energy [in the labor movement is about young people] — and it mostly is — part of what comes with that is Gaza being a high priority.” Milkman added that union leaders have generally aligned their unions with Democratic politicians and may be reluctant to “take strong stands on anything that might risk political capital” or their access to party leaders.
Earlier this summer, a 17-year-old killed three girls and injured ten people in a knife attack at a Taylor Swift-themed dance class in Southport, UK. Following the attack, false rumors spread online that the attacker was an asylum seeker or Muslim immigrant. The misinformation–linked to the far-right movement–prompted a series of violent riots across the UK, in which mosques and a hotel used to house asylum seekers were targeted. Stephanie Alice Baker (Reader in Sociology at City St. George’s, University of London) commented that the UK has “a wide populist movement that is being sowed and cultivated both online and offline.” However, Baker emphasized that “there is never one reason or cause for a riot,” but rather “a complex web of social, political and economic” factors. “There is no doubt that people across the country are experiencing a cost-of-living crisis, mortgage rates and rents have skyrocketed. People are struggling to make ends meet,” Baker explains. “At the same time, there has been a rise in immigration, which many perceived to be the cause, but obviously is a scapegoat.” This story was covered by City University of London.
Ruth Horowitz’s (Professor of Sociology at New York University) new book, Passionate Work: Choreographing a Dance Career, studies dancers in the corps de ballet and how they sustain a passion for dance through a profession characterized by uncertainty. In an interview with Pointe Magazine, Horowitz highlights the camaraderie of being in the corps: “Being in the corps brings people together in ways other positions in the company can’t, because you can’t do a triple pirouette if everyone else is doing a double. So while ballet can be very competitive, being in the corps requires a lot of teamwork and a certain amount of cohesiveness that is a building block for some of these deep-seated relationships.”
The Nation ran an article on Michael Sierra-Arévalo’s (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas – Austin) recent book The Danger Imperative. Sierra-Arévalo examines police culture and how it shapes interactions with the public. He describes the “danger imperative” as “policing’s governing institutional frame,” which includes a preoccupation with violence and officer safety, leading officers to treat every interaction as a potential emergency.
The New York Times ran a story on a prominent video creator of the homesteading movement (which focuses on living self-sufficiently and off-the-grid) who broadcasts the lifestyle to millions of social media followers. Jordan Travis Radke (Director of the Collaborative for Community Engagement at Colorado College) commented that members of the homesteading movement have varied backgrounds and political alignments, but agree that while “the societal systems and structures in which they were embedded could not be changed anymore,” their lifestyles could be changed. “The modern homesteading movement’s big idea is that, rather than trying to change the world collectively and publicly, people are trying to reshape their private sphere — their worlds, their homes, their own tiny network,” Radke said. “They’re changing their lives, but they want other people to see it, because they want others to follow suit.”
Vice President Kamala Harris announced Minnesota Governor Tim Walz as her running mate for the upcoming presidential election. Republicans are criticizing Walz’s response to the mass protests following the 2020 police murder of George Floyd, saying Walz “let Minnesota burn” by not bringing in the National Guard quickly enough. In an article for USA Today, Michelle Phelps (Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota) explains that National Guard activation had to be requested by the mayor, as managing unrest was the city’s responsibility. “To say that [Walz] let Minnesota or Minneapolis burn is just a wild misconstruing of the facts,” Phelps said. “It was a response to a really unusual set of circumstances, and I think they responded as fast as was reasonably possible, given the scale of the operation.” In an article for BBC, Phelps added that a more forceful response could have backfired: “There’s a vision in which if we had had a more conservative governor that escalated the state response in the way that President Trump wanted, we would have seen more violence and more destruction,” she said.
Francisco Lara-García (Assistant Professor of Sociology at Hofstra University) was recently interviewed in The Markup discussing the “virtual wall” of digital surveillance along the US-Mexico border and the relationship to surveillance among those who live in border towns. “One thing that is kind of a paradox about living and having lived on the border is that there are moments when you can’t not be aware of the intense amount of enforcement and surveillance and activity across the border. But at the same time, it also just becomes a fabric of your life that you don’t notice, or you just don’t pay attention to it,” Lara-García said. “Part of that is because it gets normalized, but also sometimes because there’s surveillance and enforcement that actually just doesn’t impact your life at a particular moment.”
The New York Times ran a story on the “step gap” in senior care. A 2021 study led by Sarah Patterson (Research Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan) found that among older adults needing assistance, about half of adults with biological children received care from them, while fewer than a quarter of adults in blended families received care from their step-children. “We have more reconfigured families than ever before, and these families may increasingly rely on someone who’s not a biological child. In general, those relationships tend to be less close,” Deborah Carr (Director of the Center of Innovation in Social Science and Professor of Sociology at Boston University) commented. Merril Silverstein (Professor of Sociology at Syracuse University) added that relationship quality also depends on the age at which a step-parent enters a child’s life: “When a new father comes in and you’re in your 50s, are you going to call him Dad?” Silverstein asked.
In her forthcoming book, Stolen Pride: Loss, Shame, and the Rise of the Right, Arlie Russell Hochschild (Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley) interviews residents of Pikeville, KY, a small city located in the whitest and second-poorest U.S. congressional district where 80% of 2016 voters supported Donald Trump. Hochschild finds a pervasive sense of loss. “There’s a regional story, and that’s that coal jobs are out. They have blamed the liberal war on coal for that loss. Opiate addiction has come in big time and hasn’t stopped,” Hochschild told Democracy Now. “And now many are leaving the region, the young, the most educated. And so, this becomes an area of loss.” Hochschild describes how economic loss can spark shame and describes Donald Trump as the ‘shame president’: “He comes in with an anti-shaming ritual that relieves them of this. And I think that’s a lot of the steam behind the MAGA enthusiasts for the Republican ticket.”
On July 13th, former President Donald Trump survived an attempted assassination at a campaign rally in Butler, PA. Katherine Stewart (author and journalist) and Samuel Perry (Professor of Sociology at the University of Oklahoma) appeared on Vanity Fair’s Inside the Hive podcast to discuss the political impact of Christian Nationalism and how the assassination attempt may reinforce Trump’s messiah-like image among followers. “Everybody’s saying it’s providence, he was saved by God,” Stewart said. “A sector of the movement has, frankly, consistently framed the contemporary political landscape as being one of spiritual warfare.” Perry added that the Republican Party has powerfully harnessed religion as a uniting message and that Democrats need to define a shared value system: “‘What unites us as a people?’ Well, in their mind, it’s this Christian heritage and ethnic culture that they adhere to. But for the rest of Americans, what does unite us?”
Callum Cant (Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Oxford) wrote an opinion piece for The Guardian on the narrow defeat for union recognition for Amazon employees in the U.K. Following a wave of strikes in U.K. warehouses in 2022, Cant describes that Amazon “had to use every trick in its extensive union-busting playbook to secure the result.” Cant argues that Amazon’s razor-thin victory indicates that global efforts for union recognition are at a tipping point and, under harsh economic conditions, “workers may find that they have no other choice but to get organized.”
Chua Beng Huat’s (Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Anthropology at the National University of Singapore) recent book, Public Subsidy / Private Accumulation: the Political Economy of Singapore’s Public Housing, offers an analysis of housing in Singapore and the increasingly visible problems with Housing Board flats. Huat argues that the government faces a delicate balancing act between curbing runaway housing prices that are preventing young, first-time buyers from buying their first flat and maintaining the value of homes as a primary asset for older owners. Huat also notes that buy-sell-repurchase cycles of Housing Board (HDB) flats may contribute to inequalities: “The younger generation is more calculative about making a profit from HDB, but in practice, only those with higher income among the residents are able to upgrade.” This story was covered by The Straits Times.
Sherry Turkle (Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) was interviewed for NPR’s Body Electricto discuss her latest research on people’s experiences with generative AI chatbots. Turkle describes how some individuals she interviewed formed emotional or romantic connections to the chatbots. “What AI can offer is a space away from the friction of companionship and friendship,” Turkle said. “It offers the illusion of intimacy without the demands. And that is the particular challenge of this technology.”
In France’s recent parliamentary election, the left-wing New Popular Front coalition won more seats than both the centrist Ensemble Alliance and far-right National Rally party (which was predicted to emerge with the most seats). Safia Dahani (Postdoctoral Fellow in Sociology at the European Centre for Sociology and Political Science) commented to the New York Times that “at every election, racist, antisemitic, sexist or homophobic comments made by National Rally candidates” raise suspicion among voters, despite the party’s efforts to sanitize its image. However, as Dahani commented on The Conversation Weekly, the election was not a total defeat for the National Rally party: “They gained more seats than they had in 2022. They are the third force represented in the National Assembly … So it means that they are here and they are settling in to French political life.”
Terry Shoemaker (Associate Teaching Professor in Religious Studies at Arizona State University) wrote an article for The Conversation applying sociologist Robert Bellah’s concept of “civil religion” to the Summer Olympics and describing how the Olympic Games provide a sacred arena to perform patriotism.
In a new study, Sofia Hiltner (PhD Candidate in Sociology at the University of Michigan) found that there is little focus on climate change in leading sociology journals, conference sessions, faculty biographies and course listings in top-ranked U.S. sociology departments in the U.S. “This deficit threatens sociology’s relevance to human welfare,” Hiltner said. “It also limits our understanding of the climate crisis as a social problem and our ability to imagine responses.” This story was reported by Phys.Org.
Jessi Streib (Associate Professor of Sociology at Duke University) wrote an article for The Conversation describing how hiring practices (and luck) can equalize opportunities for college graduates of different socioeconomic backgrounds. Many prospective employers hide key job information (salary range, detailed job descriptions, criteria for evaluation, etc.) and refuse to negotiate with new hires. This can lead to less income disparity for new hires, as all students are navigating their job searches with limited information.
In a New York Times audio essay, Matthew Desmond (Professor of Sociology at Princeton University) interviews a resident of the Water Street Mission shelter in Lancaster, PA – a shelter striving to “address not just people’s material needs, like housing and employment, but the whole person, including their emotional, even their spiritual needs.” Desmond calls for mobilizing resources to alleviate poverty and homelessness: “When it comes to abolishing poverty or solving the homelessness crisis, America’s problem has never been a lack of resources. Our problem has been a lack of moral clarity, moral urgency.”
Public Books interviewed Allison Pugh (Professor of Sociology at the University of Virginia) about her new book The Last Human Job: the Work of Connecting in a Disconnected World. In the book, Pugh discusses the value of “connective labor” ( the “collaborative work of emotional recognition”) and discusses how technological advances and mechanization threaten this work.
The New York Times ran an article on the increasing mainstream popularity of drag performance in the Philippines. Athena Charanne Presto (Sociologist at the University of the Philippines) described the tension between evolving social values and the “entrenched legacies” of Roman Catholic religious views: “While more globally oriented younger generations may drive liberalization, the church’s influence remains. [But] many Filipinos find a way to reconcile faith and support for diverse identities,” Presto said. Jayeel Cornelio (Professor of Development Studies at the Ateneo de Manila University) added: “What we are seeing is a transformation of what it means to be Catholic or Christian for the youth, who are looking for authenticity. Sometimes they find this outside the institution or traditional practices.”
Jessica Calarco’s (Professor of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison) new book, Holding It Together: How Women Became America’s Safety Net, describes how our lack of an effective social safety net pushes U.S. women into undervalued labor–particularly care work. “We can’t really get by without a social safety net, but we’d like to pretend that we can, and that’s where women’s labor comes in,” Calarco told Esquire. “We maintain the illusion of a DIY society by relying on women to fill in the gaps. Women do the unpaid and underpaid labor that holds everything together.” Calarco was also interviewed about the book in Salon and Fast Company.
Thomas D. Beamish (Professor of Sociology at the University of California-Davis) wrote an article for the Conversation on how Americans’ understanding of tragic events has changed in the 21st Century. Tragedies were often explained in reference to “God, fate, bad luck, blameless accidents or…individual responsibility” in the 20th Century. Now there is a focus on assigning social blame (where “societal institutions such as the government, industry, civil society and even American culture are held responsible”). Beamish emphasizes that tragic events are now politically polarizing, rather than unifying.
In his new book, The Last Plantation: Racism and Resistance in the Halls of Congress, James R. Jones’ (Assistant Professor of Sociology and American Studies at Rutgers) new book argues that the lack of racial diversity among congressional staffers perpetuates inequalities. “The unequal racial makeup of congressional staff is one of the most important problems subverting our multiracial democracy,” he writes. This story was covered by Politico.
Anna Akbari’s (former Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at NYU) recent memoir, There is No Ethan: How Three Women Caught America’s Biggest Catfish, describes her experience being emotionally manipulated by an online catfisher. The New York Times review of the book notes that although Akbari’s dissertation focused on “aspirational identity,” she withholds her sociological perspective until the epilogue. There, “she poses fascinating questions: What are the ethical boundaries of digital platforms? Is lying to create intimacy a violation of consent? When does inauthenticity become evil? And how should the law handle people who engage in virtual offenses that are not financially motivated…?”
The Minneapolis Reckoning: Race, Violence and the Politics of Policing in America, a new book by Michelle S. Phelps (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Minnesota), argues that Minneapolis is a “secret bellwether city for understanding race and policing in America” and “a test case for both the possibilities and limits of liberal police reform.” Phelps appeared on MPR News, discussing the origin of her research, interviews with Minneapolis residents, and the potential impact of court-imposed reform measures. Reason Magazine called the book “a valuable piece of research on how fights for police reform are won and lost, and what reform means to the people who need it most.”
The U.S. Department of Justice recently filed an antitrust lawsuit against Live Nation Entertainment (the parent company of Ticketmaster) for monopolization of the concert industry. In an interview with The Conversation, David Arditi (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas – Arlington) discussed how musicians are now more dependent on tour revenues to make a living and how Live Nation and Ticketmaster changed the ticket purchasing experience for consumers.
In a new book, Between Us: Healing Ourselves and Changing the World Through Sociology, forty-five sociologists share personal stories of the impact of sociology. “I’ve always believed that sociology helped save my life and can do the same for others,” said co-editor Elizabeth Anne Wood (Professor of Sociology at Nassau Community College). “Instead of feeling hopeless and helpless, I found strength in understanding the social structures that constrain and hurt us,” co-editor Marika Lindholm (sociologist and founder of Empowering Solo Moms Everywhere) explained. This story was covered by PR Newswire.
Benjamin Shestakofsky (Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania) wrote an article for Zócalo Public Square describing how venture capital business models “help create products that succeed in short-term disruption—with questionable or even dangerous long-term effects” and the various alternatives to the venture capital model. “By promoting and investing in businesses with alternative ownership structures,” Shestakofsky argues, “consumers, workers, activists, and governments can challenge venture capital’s winner-take-all model, creating ecosystems of smaller, more localized and specialized platforms that are more responsive to the people who use them and to the communities in which they are embedded.”
The Telegraph ran a story on the rise of the ‘work from home’ husband, describing the post-pandemic phenomena of U.K. men working from home while their wives return to the office. Heejung Chung (Professor of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Kent) commented that there is more opportunity to work remotely in male-dominated jobs. “The three big occupations or sectors where remote work is still limited are healthcare, education, not all education but mainly primary and secondary, and then the third is retail. Those are very female-centric occupations, where remote working is not possible,” Chung said.
In response to protests on university campuses calling for divestment from Israel, NHPR ran a story on how social media has changed protest movements. Zeynep Tufekci (Professor of Sociology and Public Affairs at Princeton) commented that protests organized using social media “get very big very quickly,” but are not necessarily more effective in generating policy change. Non-digital movements of the past “facilitated face-to-face relationships and cohesive group problem-solving.” For example, Tufekci describes that during the Civil Rights Movement, it “took them six months just to organize the logistics of the March on Washington because you couldn’t just put it on a hashtag on social media. But that meant that [the] organizational structure they built helped them navigate what came afterward.” However, Tufekci also notes that movements utilizing social media may be evolving, citing the “message discipline” (or, clear boundaries around what is said as a group) of the protests at Yale, where organizers limited the group to approved chants.
Beth Linker (Professor in the Department of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania) recently released a new book: Slouch: Posture Panic in Modern America. “With the rise of eugenics in the early 20th century, certain scientists began to worry that slouching among “civilized” peoples could lead to degeneration, a backward slide in human progress,” Linker described in an interview with the New York Times. The book investigates this “posture panic,” the rise of posture correction in medical science, and how the “postural defects” became a social marker of “character, intelligence and physical ability.”
The New York Times ran a story on how the COVID-19 pandemic affected American gun violence. Nicole Kravitz-Wirtz (Population Health Sociologist at the UC Davis Violence Prevention Research Program and California Firearm Violence Research Center) commented on the effects of violence beyond the direct victims: “Neighborhoods that have persistently elevated levels of violence have lots of trauma across many people. That impacts relationships between neighbors and translates into collective senses of fear.” Kravitz-Wirtz noted the racial disparities in geographic proximity to gun violence.
A new dating app with selective membership, The League, aims to connect individuals who are equally successful–financially, socially, and in their careers. “Data shows that men and women are increasingly dating and subsequently marrying individuals who share similar backgrounds,” Jess Carbino (Online Dating Consultant and former Sociologist for Tinder and Bumble) commented. “So on one hand, The League has been criticized for perpetuating existing social inequalities, but on the other, you can say it’s helping people do what statistically, they’re already doing, which is basing their preferences on certain markers.” This story was covered by Yahoo! Life.
Erin Cech (Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of Michigan) and Elana Goldenkoff (Doctoral Candidate in Movement Science at the University of Michigan) wrote an article for The Conversation assessing how prepared engineers are to face ethical dilemmas regarding AI. They discuss how engineers often are aware of ethical dilemmas, but feel unprepared to deal with them and how ethics training is often placed on the backburner in STEM education. However, engineers who do receive ethics training “were 30% more likely to have noticed an ethical issue in their workplace and 52% more likely to have taken action.”
The Times Union interviewed Richard Ocejo (Professor of Sociology at John Jay College) on his new book Sixty Miles Upriver: Gentrification and Race in a Small American City, which tells the story of how “the people who were gentrified out of [New York City] are threatening the very environment they sought in this small river city [Newburgh].” The book emphasizes how racial demographics and racialization factor into the speed of gentrification of cities.
Robert Bullard (Distinguished Professor and Director of the Robert D. Bullard Center for Climate and Environmental Justice at Texas Southern University) recently won a TIME Earth Award in recognition of his work in environmental justice. “My sociology has taught me that it is not enough to gather the data, do the science, and write the books in order to get transformative change. In order for us to solve this climate crisis…we must marry [our data] with action,” Bullard said in his acceptance speech. “I am optimistic. I do have faith. But as my grandmother told me, faith without work is death. We are a live movement.”
Stephanie Alice Baker (Senior Lecturer in Sociology at City University of London) wrote an article for The Conversation on how wellness influencers are contributing to misleading information about birth control on social media sites. Baker describes how “the pill has been re-framed from a source of liberation to harmful by some female wellness influencers” who tend to prioritize “native expertise – knowledge derived from intuition and experience rather than professionals.”
Josh Greenberg (Professor of Journalism and Communication at Carleton University) wrote an article for The Conversation on the resurgence of the vinyl LP, describing “how seeking, acquiring, collecting and displaying one’s music collection…are sociocultural activities that enable the creation and expression of identity.” Greenberg also discusses how vinyl marketing appeals to our ‘hyperaesthetic culture’ and how listening to vinyl is a social practice for many collectors.
Chizuko Ueno (Professor Emeritus at the University of Tokyo) was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2024 by Time Magazine. As a prominent scholar of semiotics, capitalism, and feminism, Ueno has advocated for gender equality in Japan throughout her career. Now Ueno’s work has also “propelled feminist ideas into mainstream Chinese society, a rare bright spot amid worsening political repression.”
SRN News ran an article on how O.J. Simpson’s trial still reflects the realities of racial divisions in America. Darnell Hunt (Executive Vice Chancellor & Provost and Professor of African American Studies & Sociology at UCLA) commented that, at the time of the trial, Black Americans were four times as likely to think that Simpson was innocent and Black media outlets tended to raise broader questions about racial disparities in the justice system in their news coverage. “The case was about two different views of reality or two different takes on the reality of race in America at that point in history,” Hunt said. Camille Charles (Professor of Sociology, Africana Studies & Education at the University of Pennsylvania) commented that, despite the fact that systemic racism in criminal justice is still an issue, Black Americans are seemingly less likely to support famous defendants “as a show of race solidarity,” citing R. Kelly and Bill Cosby as examples.
Jacobin interviewed Ashley Mears (Professor and Chair of Cultural Sociology and New Media, University of Amsterdam; Adjunct Professor of Sociology at Boston University) on her book Very Important People: Status and Beauty in the Global Party Circuit. The book examines “the world of VIP clubs and its rituals of garish waste and exploitation of women” and the construction of status in elite spaces.
Artūras Tereškinas (Professor of Social Sciences at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas) was quoted in an LRT article about the Eurovision Song Contest and how Lithuanians react to their representatives. Tereškinas discussed how the contest embraces the camp aesthetic and highlights LGBTQ+ performers, triggering conservative Lithuanians’ “prejudices against LGBTQ+ people, sexuality in general and the open expression of sexuality in Eurovision.”
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