With less than 5 weeks until the submission deadline for the SSS 2025 meeting in Jacksonville, FL, now is the time to consider organizing a session(s) around various themes, including but not limited to the conference theme (Empowered Sociologists: Agency and Action Towards Social Change), that represent the richness of sociology.
For the full list of SSPs for SSS 2025, visit our website.
Hotel Information
Book your room at the Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront using this link. Web-based reservations are preferred, but you may also call (888) 627-7033 to reserve a room – mention that it is for the “Southern Sociological Society 2026 Conference,” and the Group Code is G-SSS6.
The SSS conference rate is $199/night. The deadline for booking within the SSS Annual Meeting room block rate is March 1, 2026. However, the room block often fills up well before this cut-off date.
Visit Jacksonville created an information microsite just for SSS! Check it out here and start planning your conference trip today!
Sessions Seeking Papers (as of October 10, 2025)
Submit a Session Seeking Papers (SSP) using this form. We encourage members to submit their SSPs by Sunday of each week to appear in the following week’s digest. For any individual submissions to SSS 2025, please click here.
Student Poster Session!
As you may recall, this year in Charlotte, we hosted a wonderfully successful student poster session, where over 60 students presented their research to conference attendees. We love it and plan to do it again in Jacksonville, FL! Students, please consider submitting a poster to present at our annual conference using the individual submissions link. If you are a faculty mentor, encourage your undergraduate and graduate students to submit their work by November 7th. There will be snacks, drinks, and prizes!
Fat Studies/Body Politics
This session will highlight scholarship in the general theme of body politics/fat studies. In alignment with the conference theme of “Empowered Sociologists: Agency and Action Towards Social Change”, we will highlight papers that consider how sociological knowledge on bodies/embodiment and fat studies can be utilized to resist oppression and create institutional change. Areas of study may Disciplining/Policing bodies, Size discrimination; and Bodies, borders, and boundaries (transnational bodies).
All paper submissions should include: (a) the title of the paper, (b) names, affiliations, and contact information for each author, and (c) an extended abstract. Extended abstracts should be approximately 400-450 words and organized with the following three section headings: Objectives, Methods, and Findings. These section headings may not apply to all submissions, so authors may modify as needed.
The information provided in your submission is what will appear in the program, so please include your name, affiliation, and contact information exactly as you want it to appear in the program. Please submit materials by October 31, 2025 to Ariane Prohaska (aprohaska@ua.edu).
Screen Media Teaching: Using Film and Television to Teach Sociology
Quite common in pedagogical practice is the utilization of film or television to teach key sociological themes and concepts. As sociologists have long noted, screen media both reflects AND creates culture. Thus, the use of these in courses can help students analyze the depiction of social life on screen as well as highlight sociological thinking. With the contemporary ease of streaming films and television shows, the inclusion of these media likely enters most sociology courses on some level. This session will explore examples and best practices of how a deliberate use of a film or television show can be an effective teaching tool to enhance students’ critical thinking skills and further allow a critique of their social world.
If you are interested in participating in this session, please submit your information by October 27, 2025 to Jean-Anne Sutherland (sutherlandj@uncw.edu).
Surviving & Maintaining Stability in Shifting Times
This mini conference will reflect the various challenges that many of our southern colleges are currently facing. As several of our home departments shift to accommodate new accreditation and board demands, disappearing DEI, downsizing/combining departments, and shifting course content/requirements while still maintaining sociological integrity, sociologists across the south are finding new ways to survive and thrive in the academy. This mini conference serves as a collective way to collaborate, strategize, and support one another in these precarious times for sociology as a discipline.
If you are interested in participating in this mini conference, please submit your information by November 2, 2025, to the JEDI Committee at lackeydn@wofford.edu.
Race In/And Appalachia
This session aims to compile scholarship in the sociology of race and ethnicity within the Appalachian region.
We are interested in work that contributes to the scholarly discussion of race and racism in Appalachia regardless of theoretical, methodological, or epistemological orientation. Potential paper topics include, but are certainly not limited to: • Racial identity construction and navigation in Appalachia • Appalachian movements for racial justice • Race, space, and place in Appalachia • Race, racism, and politics in Appalachia • Appalachian racial formations • And so much more…
All paper submissions should include: (a) the title of the paper,* (b) names, affiliations, and contact information for each author,* and (c) an abstract. Abstracts should be approximately 350-450 words and organized with the following three section headings: Objectives, Methods, and Findings. These section headings may not apply to all submissions, so authors may modify as needed.
The information provided in your submission is what will appear in the program, so please include your name, affiliation, and contact information exactly as you want it to appear in the program. Please submit your materials to session organizers Jacob Robinson (jrob1855@vt.edu) and David L. Brunsma (brunsmad@vt.edu) by October 27, 2025.
Sociology of Immigration
We are organizing sessions on the Sociology of Immigration for this year’s Southern Sociological Society annual meeting in Jacksonville, Florida. We invite submissions that examine all aspects of immigrant life, particularly those that illuminate the lived experiences, structural challenges, and institutional contexts shaping the lives of migrants. We also welcome submissions from those teaching immigration courses on how they are approaching these topics inside their classrooms.
Areas of interest include, but are not limited to: • The experiences of asylum seekers and refugees • The role of immigration law and policy in creating carceral subjects • The targeting and disciplining of international students • The rise of detention centers as an immigration enforcement apparatus • The criminalization and parallel transience of immigrants, the unhoused and incarcerated populations • Research on ICE workers and immigration enforcement practices • Public perceptions on immigration enforcement • Community responses, activism, and the role of civil society in migrant justice • Methodological reflections on conducting research with immigrant populations • Pedagogical approaches to teaching about immigration in divisive times
We welcome a wide range of methodological approaches and theoretical perspectives. Graduate students, early-career researchers, and scholars from underrepresented backgrounds are especially encouraged to submit. Submission Guidelines: Please submit an abstract of 300–450 words along with your name, institutional affiliation, and contact information to Katie Acosta (kacosta@gsu.edu) by November 3, 2025.
Education’s Long Reach: Benefits Over Time and Across Generations
This paper session will explore the multiple ways that educational attainment and school experiences shape people’s lives and the lives of others linked across generations. We are especially interested in papers that speak to the conference theme of agency and empowerment.
Please send your submissions to John Reynolds (john.reynolds@fsu.edu) by November 3, 2025. Please include: (1) a title, (2) three keywords, (3) an abstract containing objectives, methods, and findings, and (4) your contact information.
Obstacles and Opportunities for High Achieving Disadvantaged Students
This paper session is focused on the educational experiences of high achieving students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds. We are seeking studies that explore the social and organizational factors that empower students to prevail in their educational journeys despite obstacles or hostile climates, as revealed through diverse methodological and conceptual approaches.
Please send your submissions to John Reynolds (john.reynolds@fsu.edu) by November 3, 2025. Please include: (1) a title, (2) three keywords, (3) an abstract containing objectives, methods, and findings, and (4) your contact information.