With less than 5 weeks until the submission deadline for the SSS 2025 meeting in Charlotte, NC, now is the time to consider organizing a session(s) around various themes, including but not limited to the conference theme (Future of Sociology and the Sociology of the Future), that represent the richness of sociology.
For the full list of SSPs for SSS 2025, visit our website.
Sessions Seeking Papers (as of September 30, 2024)
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. Our weekly digests will continue until October 22nd. For any individual submissions to SSS 2025, please click here.
Zionism as a Global Project of White Supremacy: A Call for a Race-centered Approach
In light of the current genocidal context in Rafah and beyond, Zionism and Israel, the satellite state of the United States Empire, call into question the origins of Zionism and its relation to dehumanization. The international community has failed to address the ongoing genocide, which many sociological studies have highlighted in terms of its cultural marginalization (Lamont et al., 2016). In 2001, the UN organized a conference to address the racism embedded in Zionism. Fast forward 24 years, and the situation remains unaddressed, highlighting the urgency of centralizing race as an organizing principle in global and transnational racial dynamics, which is more pertinent than ever. This also calls into question the paradox of Theodor Herzl, who himself harbored antisemitic sentiments (Kamczycki, 2020).
This session invites submissions for the upcoming annual meeting of the SSS, dedicated to the critical study of Zionism. It seeks papers that analyze the ongoing genocide against Palestinians through the lenses of Critical Race Theory (CRT), Whiteness Studies, and Postcolonialism to understand a broad racial landscape and historical context. This session aims to explore the sociological intersections of race, colonialism, and national identity in the context of Zionism, with particular attention to how racial hierarchies, whiteness, and settler-colonial logic have shaped both historical and contemporary manifestations of Zionist ideology.
Contributions are encouraged to engage with questions such as: How do frameworks of Critical Race Theory (CRT) and Whiteness Studies illuminate the racial dimensions of Zionism? In what ways have notions of whiteness, racialization, and ethnic identity played a role in constructing the modern racialized schema in the Middle East? How does Zionism interact with broader global histories of settler colonialism and racialization through comparative-historical approaches? What can be done to resist white dominance and U.S. imperialism in Palestine? How does Israel function as a satellite nation-state of the U.S. empire to subjugate, racialize, and brutalize Palestinians, Mizrahi Jews, Ethiopian Jews, and other marginalized groups within Israel/Palestine? How might race scholars critically interrogate Zionism using anti-racism and decolonial thought? I welcome pluralistic approaches—interdisciplinary framing is encouraged to enhance current theories of race in Sociology for understanding Zionism today. However, all theoretical, historical, and empirical research should engage with the following: CRT, assimilation studies, postcolonial studies, and comparative-historical studies.
If you are interested in participating in this session, please submit your information by October 25th to Joong Won Kim (jkim182@utk.edu).
Fulfilling the Promise of Sociology: Using Paradigms to Solve the World’s Threatening Problems
The purpose of this session is and 3) To use paradigms to help sociologists to achieve their professional and personal goals (which will help them to solve social problems).
If you are interested in participating in this session, please submit your information by October 28th to Andy Plotkin, Ph.D. (plotkina@westerntc.edu).
Racial Conceptualization, Appraisals, and Attitudes
This session examines how people think about race and racism. It includes papers on (a) racial conceptualization, appraisals, or categorization; and (b) public opinion and attitudes about race and racism. Papers may be primarily empirical, theoretical, or both; qualitative and quantitative approaches are both welcome.
To be considered, please submit a PDF or Word submission to Raj Ghoshal, rghoshal@elon.edu. Your submission should include name, title, department, university or institution, and email for all authors, and abstract or extended abstract (150-500 words). Additional information is welcome but not required. Please include “SSS” in the email subject line. Please share this session information with potentially interested colleagues. Submissions by Oct 30 will receive full consideration; submissions by November 1 will receive consideration if time permits.
Sociological Perspectives in Policy Work
The Committee on Sociological Practice is looking for sociologists or other social scientists who have used sociological perspectives or theories when doing policy work. Also known as policy sociology, we are seeking to understand how you apply sociological research to solve concrete social problems. We encourage presenters to share how they have applied sociological knowledge to solve problems defined by clients such as firms, local/state/national governments, or organizations (non or for profit). We would also encourage potential presenters to apply their expertise to garner discussion on issues of public policy.
If you are interested in presenting in this session, please submit the following information by Monday, October 21, 2024 to the session organizer, Jamekia Collins (jcollins@hsri.org) : (1) the title of the presentation; (2) contact information (name, affiliation, position, email address, phone number) for each presenter; and (3) an extended abstract of no more than 450 words.
Sociologists Practicing Activism (panel sponsored by the SSS Committee on Sociological Practice)
Share how you’re combining your social science expertise with social justice activism and practice. We solicit submissions from sociologists or kindred social scientists who have used their expertise – either broadly or as scholars of race/ethnicity, class, gender, sexuality, social movements, politics, work, human rights, peace, violence, crime, globalization, or other specialties – as activists and social practitioners. Note that this panel is not for presentation of empirical research, unless that research was integral to the activism or to serve the activism’s purpose directly.
The individual’s activism may have been undertaken either explicitly in their role as a social scientist or simply informed by their social science expertise. The session’s focus is on progressive activism, broadly conceived. Relevant activities include what commonly would be labeled social movement activism; or running for and holding elected office; or anywhere in between or proximate to those examples. We anticipate panel participants will have participated in local community or campus efforts, or regional-, national-, or international-scale activism in the U.S. or elsewhere – i.e., a wide range of settings are appropriate for this panel.
Participants will share their experiences and how their expertise played a role in their activism/practice. Two or more participants engaged in directly related activism may submit a single proposal to co-present. Graduate and undergraduate students and social scientists in nonacademic positions are invited, as well as faculty, as long as they linked social science knowledge to activism.
If you are interested in presenting in this panel, please submit the following information by Monday, October 21 to Sociological Practice committee member Dale Wimberley (dale.wimberley@vt.edu): (1) the title of the presentation; (2) contact information (name, affiliation, email address, phone number) for each presenter; and (3) an extended abstract (no more than 450 words) describing the type of activism, group, or setting, and the presenter’s use of social scientific expertise in that context. Prior inquiries are welcome! Including “SSS” in the subject line of your email is helpful.