Digest #6: Sessions Seeking Papers

Excitement for SSS 2025 is building with diverse and unifying themes across the total of 30 Sessions Seeking Papers (SSPs)!

Guidelines for submitting to the SSPs vary. Please visit https://www.southernsociologicalsociety.org/sessions-seeking-papers/ for details. To submit your individual submissions or full sessions, please click here.

We look forward to receiving abstracts of your papers on a variety of important topics!

Sessions Seeking Papers (as of October 28, 2024)

The final new sessions seeking papers are listed below. The full list of Sessions Seeking Papers for SSS 2025 is available here.

Memorialization and Racist Violence

This panel will bring together scholars whose work broadly engages with debates surrounding public memorialization and racist violence. This can include, but is not limited to, theoretical and empirical work discussing the broad relationship between past violence, its memory in the present, and the legacy or effects it continues to have on society. Last year we had two panels, one focusing on memorials/monuments broadly and one more squarely on legacies of racist violence of all kinds (e.g., slavery, sundown towns, lynching, the KKK). We are particularly interested in receiving submissions from students and young scholars as we aim to expand engagement with this sub-area, but we, of course, welcome seasoned scholars to submit as well if they have work that fits the topic.

If you are interested in participating in this session, please submit your information in a Word document by Monday, October 30, if not sooner, to Heather A. O’Connell (hoconnell@lsu.edu) or Sarah N. Gaby (gabys@uncw.edu). In your document please include: 1. Each author’s name, affiliation, position, and email address 2. Title of the paper 3. Three keywords 4. Extended abstract (400-450 words) – Please note that the SSS guidelines suggest, if applicable, that the abstract should be organized with the following section headings: Objectives, Methods, and Findings.

“Just Give Me My Money”: Successfully Applying to Fellowships, Grants, & Awards

The Committee on the Status of Students is organizing a special session with scholars at various stages of their careers (PhD Candidates, teaching and tenure-track faculty, and awardees) to share tips, tricks, and best practices for crafting successful research Fellowship, Grant, and Award applications/materials. Increasingly, academics are experiencing pressure across units to secure external funding for research projects and expenditures like conference travel. Research monies are also becoming increasingly significant to job candidacy as a way for applicants to stand out amongst other candidates–especially as evidence of receiving funding becomes a way to rank/sort job applicants. Similarly, receiving paper or article awards positions candidates well to not only stand out in candidate pools for jobs but are also ways to increase access to financial awards later. Receiving both financial and merit awards are significant at all stages of one’s career. Additionally, graduate students experience situations where they need to secure external funding to complete their degrees. Thus, the purpose of this interactive expert panel workshop will be to provide graduate students (and others) with some best practices for crafting applications for funding, as well as successful uses of received funds. Panelists will discuss both challenges and successes in the application process.

If you are interested in sharing your strategies with interested parties, please email ajstone1@memphis.edu by November 2.

Group Processes Mini-Conference

We are seeking submissions for the following three separate sessions of the Group Processes Mini-Conference at the 2025 meetings of the SSS: (1) status, (2) identity, and (3) power, exchange, and justice.

If you are interested in this session, please submit an extended abstract to Will Kalkhoff (wkalkhof@kent.edu) by Nov. 1st. In your submission, please also include your name, title, and affiliation.