Dear SSS community:
I am delighted with the response to this year’s Southern Sociological Society meeting theme, The Sociology of the Future and the Future of Sociology. Program Chair Lisa Walker and her amazing program committee have been hard at work organizing what I think is going to be an exciting program. In particular, I would like to call your attention to three plenary sessions that will feature conversations focused on that theme.
Sociology of the Future. Sociologists have important insights and tools to bear on some of the significant challenges facing our society – the changing landscape of gender and racial dynamics, climate change, human migration patterns, technology and surveillance, misinformation/political polarization. On Thursday, April 10, there will be a panel that will highlight work by four early career scholars doing cutting edge research on some of these daunting questions. These researchers will tell us a bit about work they are doing and then have a conversation about how sociology can be used to help our society navigate some of its biggest challenges. These panelists include Malissa Alinor, Assistant Professor of Public Policy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Scott Duxbury, Associate Professor of Sociology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Matthew Facciani, Postdoctoral Researcher, Computer Science and Engineering, University of Notre Dame, and Thoa Khuu, Postdoctoral Fellow, Population Research Institute, Pennsylvania State University. The conversation will be moderated by Jody Clay-Warner, Meigs Professor of Sociology, University of Georgia.
The Future of Sociology as a Profession. Sociology is facing some significant challenges of its own as a profession. On Friday, April 11, there will be a panel of sociology luminaries with significant leadership experience at in ASA, SSS, as well as across departments and institutes, who will discuss the many shifts that are changing the nature of the sociology as a profession and as an identity. These panelists will include ASA President-Elect Shelley J. Correll, Michelle Mercer and Bruce Golden Family Professor of Women’s Leadership at Stanford University, SSS President-Elect Kendra Jason President-Elect and Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, past SSS President Larry Isaac, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of Sociology & Political Economy at Vanderbilt University, and past ASA Vice President Brian Powell, James Rudy Professor of Sociology at Indiana University. This conversation will be moderated by past SSS President and ASA Vice-President Lynn Smith-Lovin, Robert L. Wilson Professor of Arts and Sciences in Sociology (and Psychology and Neuroscience) at Duke University.
The Future of Sociology as a Discipline. The expanding role of AI, the move toward open science, changes in traditional publication models, among other developments are also changing the nature of our fundamental tasks as researchers and teachers. On Saturday, April 12, there will be another panel of leaders in our discipline who will have a conversation about how our activities as sociologists are being transformed by these opportunities and challenges. These panelists will include past SSS President Stephanie Bohon, Professor and Head of Sociology at the University of Tennessee, past ASR-co-editor, Omar Lizardo, LeRoy Neiman Term Chair Professor of Sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, past SSS-President Barbara J. Risman, Fellow at the Hanse-Wissenschaftskolleg Institute for Advanced Study in Germany, and Donald Tomaskovic-Devey, Professor of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, past SSS President and current co-editor of ASR. This panel will be moderated by Lisa Slattery Walker, Professor of Sociology at University of North Carolina at Charlotte and current coeditor of SPQ.
Please come and join these conversations about where we are headed and how we can use our sociological superpowers to cultivate the futures we would like to see.
To do that, make sure you renew your membership, register for the conference, and book your hotel room.
In the meanwhile, I wish you all a wonderful holiday season!
Dawn T. Robinson
SSS President