Southern Sociological Society
2025 Annual Meeting
CALL FOR PAPERS
Sociology of the Future and the Future of Sociology
April 9-12, 2025
Sheraton Charlotte Hotel
Charlotte, North Carolina
Submission Due Date: November 13, 2024
President
Dawn T. Robinson, University of Georgia
Program Chair
Lisa Slattery Walker, University of North Carolina – Charlotte
Theme: Sociology of the Future and the Future of Sociology
Our social landscape is experiencing rapid and profound shifts fueled by technological advancements, climate change, health crises, and political dynamics. Advances in generative artificial intelligence are changing the social organization of nearly every social institution – including medicine and health care, employment opportunities, workplace structures, surveillance and punishment, media production and consumption, political interactions, and transportation. Climate change is creating shifts in all aspects of social organization – shaping patterns of migration, economic livelihood, access to natural resources, exacerbating existing economic inequalities and posing the need for social and political responses that are both globally and locally informed. We know the consequences of these changes will vary across groups in crucial ways. Sociologists can help society navigate these transformations. Sociological research can generate models and insights into the future of work, relationships, health, politics, crime, identity, immigration, knowledge, and so on. Sociologically produced knowledge can serve as the foundation for evidence-based policies and interventions to respond to these tides of change.
Closer to home, changes in population demographics, higher education, academic publishing, funding streams, and politics raise the possibility of significant transformations to sociology as a discipline and profession. Technology-driven changes are fostering exciting new opportunities for research, access to novel data sources, new analytic tools and abilities, and new ethical challenges. New scientific norms regarding transparency and access are disrupting old practices and old funding models. These are creating the opportunity for a greater democratization of knowledge, broader engagement with publics, but also new fights over intellectual control and greater pressure on individuals and institutions learning how to comply with these new norms. Declining numbers in the traditional college-aged population, the student debt crisis, challenges to the traditional funding models of higher education, the expanding reach of online and hybrid modalities, and increasing political involvement in the content and operation of higher education, are posing significant changes to the teaching of sociology in our colleges and universities.
At the 2025 Meetings of the Southern Sociological Society, we welcome research that showcases how to bring our best analytic tools to use in understanding these social dynamics. We will look ahead and outward at how sociology can help us understand how to adapt, resist, and thrive in the face of this changing social landscape. We will look ahead and inward at the future of sociology as a discipline, a practice, and a profession. Presidential panels will focus on the future of sociological research, the future of sociology as a discipline, and the future of higher education. We invite thematic submissions on the future of … everything!
Submission Details
The SSS annual meeting is constructed entirely out of member submissions. Submissions are considered from the breadth and depth of the discipline regardless of the theme of the conference. There are six submission types: individual papers, poster presentations, full session proposals, flash talks (new), roundtables, and special sessions. To submit to SSS 2025, please visit our membership portal, and after logging into your account, click “Submit a Paper or Session” on the left side.
Important notes: The information provided through the submission portal will appear exactly as it is entered (including capitalization) by the submitter. Therefore, enter your paper title, author names, and affiliations as you wish it to appear in the program. Also, time slots are limited, thus, participants may serve in no more than two presentation roles (author of a paper, panel participant, workshop leader, poster presenter, etc.). There are no restrictions on the number of times a participant may serve as a session presider or discussant.
1) Individual Papers: You may submit extended abstracts of individual papers for potential inclusion in a regular paper session. These abstracts will be organized into sessions by Program Committee members based on common themes. All regular 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 300-450 (max. 450) words and organized with the suggested three section headings: Objectives, Methods, and Findings. See helpful hints on writing extended abstracts here.
2) Poster Presentations: You may submit abstracts for inclusion in a poster session. All poster 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 300-450 (max. 450) words and organized with the suggested three section headings: Objectives, Methods, and Findings. See helpful hints on writing extended abstracts here. Posters should display relevant information in a way that is accessible (readable from a distance of six feet) and visually appealing. Easels, clips, and backing boards are provided by SSS. Your poster should not exceed the size of the foam backing board (30” x 40”).
3) Full Session Proposals: All full session proposals must include an abstract (max. 450 words) detailing the theme of the proposed session. This should include a brief description of the session’s prospective broad appeal and/or connections with the 2025 meeting theme of Sociology of the Future and the Future of Sociology, if relevant. All areas of sociology are welcome! If the session is being submitted on behalf of an SSS Committee (or multiple committees), include this information in the session title. Additionally, you must include full details for all participants including submission title, submission type, abstract, three keywords, name, institution, email, and position. Participants include the presider and organizer, in addition to the presenters or panelists, and discussant, if included. See also the Sessions Seeking Papers approach to creating full sessions at SSS 2025 below.
4) Flash talks: You may submit extended abstracts for potential inclusion in a flash talk session. New to SSS, flash talks are no longer than 5 minutes. These abstracts will be organized into sessions by members of the Program Committee on the basis of common themes. All flash talk 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 300-450 (max. 450) words and organized with the suggested three section headings: Objectives, Methods, and Findings. See helpful hints on writing extended abstracts here.
5) Roundtables: You may submit extended abstracts of individual presentations for potential inclusion in a roundtable session. These abstracts will be organized into tables by members of the Program Committee on the basis of common themes. All roundtable 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 300-450 (max. 450) words and organized with the suggested three section headings: Objectives, Methods, and Findings. See helpful hints on writing extended abstracts here.
6) Special Sessions: Members can submit ideas for a range of other special sessions, including workshops, mini-conferences, and Author-Meets-Curious-Readers (AMCR), among others. AMCR sessions spotlight books with broad enthusiasm across SSS membership. AMCRs may be self-nominated and should include three to four potential ‘curious readers.’ Proposals for workshops on a range of topics like social change, pedagogy, methodology, networking, and publishing, for example, will be considered too. Proposals for AMCRs and workshop sessions should be sent directly to the program chair for consideration and follow the guidelines described above under Full Session Proposals.
Members can also make a call for papers for a session they want to organize. To do so, submit to “Sessions Seeking Papers,” which will be updated and subsequently circulated as a digest on a weekly basis. If you see a session that you would like to join, you should email the person organizing the session (their info will be included in the weekly digest). The organizer will let you know if they will add you to their session, and if so, request your submission title, abstract, three keywords, name, institution, email, and position. They will then submit the full session for all participants in the session.
Submission and Registration Procedures
Anyone attending the meeting or listed in the program must be a current dues-paying member of SSS (with the exception of undergraduate observers and presenting undergraduate affiliates of SSS Departmental Members). All program participants (presenters, presiders, discussants, panelists, etc.) must also be registered for the annual meeting. Please note that conference attendees are strongly encouraged to pre-register for SSS 2025 on or before March 1, 2025. Those who register after this date will pay increased on-site registration fees. You may join/renew your SSS membership, submit abstracts, and pre-register for the conference from our website: https://www.southernsociologicalsociety.org/
Hotel Information
The 2025 Annual Conference will take place at the Sheraton Charlotte, 555 S. McDowell Street Tower, Charlotte, NC 28204. Rooms are available at the conference rate of $209/night at the Sheraton Charlotte/Le Meridien Hotel for April 8-13, 2025 through this booking link. The booking deadline for this rate is March 18, 2025. However, please note, the room block often fills up well before this cut-off date.
Our Collective Responsibility at SSS 2025
At SSS 2025 all members will adhere to the SSS Anti-Harassment policy. Our annual meeting is convened for the purposes of professional development and scholarly educational interchange in the spirit of free inquiry and free expression. Harassment of colleagues, students, hotel staff or other conference participants undermines the principle of equity at the heart of these professional fora and is inconsistent with the principles of free inquiry and free expression. Consequently, harassment is considered by SSS to be a serious form of professional misconduct. For more information about SSS Advocates and/or processes for reporting incidents of harassment see here.
We look forward to seeing you at SSS 2025!
Please direct conference program questions to: program@southernsociologicalsociety.org.
Questions regarding membership or registration should be directed to: webmaster@southernsociologicalsociety.org.