NEWS & EVENTS
News Archive
ASHLEY MEARS TO JOIN FACULTY
The Department of Sociology looks forward to welcoming Ashley E. Mears, who will soon complete her PhD at New York University, as our new Assistant Professor, specializing in the Sociology of Culture. Her dissertation, entitled “Pricing Beauty: The Production of Value in Fashion Modeling,” it is already under contract with University of California Press. The core of her research centers on how culture is produced. Her work on fashion modeling examines how that industry creates ideas about beauty and what factors shape the social production of the resulting advertisements and popular media images. Among the new courses she will introduce in our curriculum will be a 200-level introduction to the Sociology of Popular Culture. Mears’ combination of cultural sociology with economic sociology includes attention to race, class, and gender, as well as a comparative perspective on how cultural products are created. We anticipate her arrival in early August and look forward to her work in the Department
AFRICAN AMERICAN STUDIES CENTER HONORS ADELAIDE CROMWELL
Sociology Professor Emerita Adelaide Cromwell, who helped to found BU’s African American Studies Center, was honored at the Center’s 40th Anniversary celebration in April. Department Chair, Nancy Ammerman, spoke at the opening reception about Prof. Cromwell’s contributions to Sociology, and Professor Emeritus James Teele participated in the weekend Symposium on “African Americans in Boston: From Slavery to Today.”
SUSAN ECKSTEIN CONTINUES IMPORTANT WORK ON CUBA
Prof. Eckstein has recently returned from a large international conference which she helped to organize, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Cuban revolution. Funded in part by the Ford Foundation, the conference was held at Queens University, Kingston, Ontario. In October, she will host a major conference on U.S.-Cuba Policy here at BU, which will be funded in part by the Christopher Reynolds Foundation. Her longstanding attention to Cuban politics and society has made her an oft-quoted source for news organizations, as well
FACULTY AND GRADUATE STUDENT TRAVELS AND PRESENTATIONS
Costa Rica and Texas. In February and March, respectively, Prof. Susan Eckstein conducted lectures related to her new book “The Immigrant Divide: How Cubans Have Changed America and Their Homeland” (Forthcoming).
She is also co-organizer of a large conference on the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution at Queens University in Canada, May 7-10, where she will also give a paper.
Grenada. In February, Professor Liah Greenfeld was invited to deliver the Annual Arts and Sciences Lecture at St George's University in Grenada, entitled "American Nationalism and Obama's Victory." In addition, Professor Greenfeld conducted a week long Visiting Professor Master Class on the subject of Caribbean Identity. She was told that, following this class, several students have decided to apply to the graduate program in Sociology at BU.
Baltimore, Maryland. Eastern Sociological Society meetings, March 19-22. Prof. Sigrun Olafsdottir presented “Gendered Welfare Support? Exploring Public Attitudes towards State Involvement across 15 nations.”
Sonali Jain participated in a Panel Discussion entitled, “Homeland Security”: Second-generation Indian Americans and their motivations to ‘return’ to India”.
Thanh Nguyen presented “The American Dream with a Vietnamese Mind: A Case Study of Vietnamese Manicurists in the Nail Industry”
Cincinnati, Ohio. In March, Prof. Laurel Smith-Doerr presented at the annual meetings of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics, "NSF and the Recent Ethics Mandate".
Colorado Springs, Colorado. In March, Itai Vardi presented a paper at the "Images of Technology in Media, Literature, and Society," The conference was organized by the Society for the Interdisciplinary Study of Social Image (SISSI) at Colorado State University. His paper was titled "Auto Thrill Shows, Demolition Derbies, and Bumper Cars: The Aesthetics of the Intentional Car Crash in America"’
Uppsala, Sweden. On March 26, Prof. Nancy Ammerman delivered a keynote address, titled “Pillars, Practices, and Polities: Religious Organizations and Religious Action in Diverse National Settings,” for the conference on “Welfare and Values in Europe” at Uppsala University.
Germany. In April, Prof. Stephen Kalberg will present at University of Mainz and University of Tuebingen, the name of the lecture will be “Work, Achievement, and Assimilation: American Society from the Puritans to Barack Obama”.
Bergen, Norway. In May, Prof. Laurel Smith-Doerr will present “Social Science and Ethics Education” at the World Science Forum
New Mexico. In March, Prof. Julian Go presented a paper called “The British and American Empires in Comparison,” at University of New Mexico.
Also in March, he presented a paper called “Culture in Colonialism: Theorizing Transformation in Puerto Rico and the Philippines during US Occupation” at University of British Columbia’s Department of Sociology.
Finally, he presented two papers at Boston University; one was at the Asian Studies Center titled, “Meaning and Power in the US Occupation of the Philippines”, and the second at the School of Social Work Colloquium titled “Repertoire Expansion as Cultural Transformation.”
DEATH OF FORMER PROFESSOR JOSEPH HELFGOT
Former BU Sociology Professor Joseph Helfgot, died April 7, at age 60. The son of Holocaust survivors, he grew up on the Lower East Side of New York and went to State University of New York at Stony Brook. There he received bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate degrees in sociology, and at the precocious age of 23, he joined the BU Sociology faculty. He was a popular teacher, but his ideas about market research soon pulled him away. He left academia and founded MarketCast, a movie research firm, in 1985, and it became a leader and innovator in assessing consumer preferences in entertainment. He sold the company to Reed Business Information in 2000, but stayed on as president. He made extraordinary contributions with his life, even in his death. Not only was he an organ donor, but he became one of the few persons in the U.S. to donate his face, as well. His story was featured in the Boston Globe: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/04/15/gift_of_a_face_a_testament_to_donors_enduring_values/
Laura Ruggerio was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa on Saturday morning, May 16, at 10:00 in the Tsai Performance Center.
Harvey Sham won this year's CAS senior class speech competition and delivered the student speech at the Class Day exercises Saturday, May 16, at 3 p.m. in Morse Auditorium. His speech was entitled, 'Learning? Virtue? Piety?'
Matt Grace won the College Prize in Sociology and delivered the student speech at the Department’s graduation ceremony on Sunday Morning, May 17, at 9:00, in the School of Management Auditorium.
PROF. GUSEVA TO PRESENT AT BU INSTRUCTIONAL INNOVATION CONFERENCE
Prof. Alya Guseva will explain her “Use of Social Network Software to Analyze Students' Own Social Networks” as part of the Center for Excellence in Teaching’s first annual conference on innovations in instruction. For more information, see
http://www.bu.edu/cet/
PROF. OLAFSDOTTIR RECIEVES TWO NEW GRANTS
Along with Jon Gunnar Bernburg (University of Iceland) and Tom Smith (National Opinion Research Center), Prof. Olafsdottir has been awarded a 3-year grant of approximately $100,000 from the Icelandic Research Fund to collect data in Iceland that will add modules on Social Inequality (in 2009) and on the Environment (in 2010) that will be linked to the ISSP (International Social Survey Programme) data on the same issues. The ISSP currently has 44 member countries, as diverse as the U.S., Sweden, South Africa, Japan, Croatia, Brazil and Russia, and this grant creates the possibility for a membership for Iceland in the ISSP.
In addition, along with Jason Beckfield, Nancy Krieger, Mauricio A. Pabon, and Claus Wendt (all currently at Harvard), she obtained a $35,000 Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health & Society Scholars Seed Grant for the project “The Comparative Political Economy of Health Inequities, 1960-2005.” This grant makes possible the collection of data on the political, cultural, and economic environments linked to health inequalities in 12 advanced, industrialized nations.
SOCIOLOGIST ONE OF TOP 10 JOBSCareerCast.com names sociologist as one of the nations best jobs in its 2009 Jobs Rated Report.
NEW BOOK FORTHCOMING
Immigration and Race Relations in the US will be published in 2010 by Polity Press. The co-authors include BU Sociology Professor Nazli Kibria, Masayo Nishida (PhD 2007), and current PhD students Cara Bowman and Megan O’Leary. Congratulations to all!
PROF GUSEVA INTERVIEWED BY EUROMONITOR INTERNATIONAL
Global intelligence firm, Euromonitor International, features Professor Alya Guseva’s research on the birth of the Russian credit card market as part of their featured interview series. For the complete interview, click here
PROFESSOR EMERITA, DR. PAULE VERDET, RECEIVES DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARD
The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops presented the Distinguished Service Award in July, 2008, to Dr. Paule Verdet, Professor emerita. This award is presented to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding service in their pastoral ministry with immigrants, refugees, migrants and people on the move. Prof. Verdet began working with refugees in Boston in 1975 when she encountered Vietnamese and Hmong who could not speak English and needed housing desperately. She twisted the arm of a rich friend who bought multifamily houses and allowed Paule to fill them to maximum capacity with newly arriving Hmong families. She sponsored the resettlement of numerous Hmong families in Boston and was an avid vocal advocate on their behalf to the point that the Hmong community began calling her “Mother.” She continues to work with refugees in Bosto
PROF. JEFF COULTER PRESENATION AT PROVOSTS'S COLLOQUIUM ON DARWIN
Prof. Jeff Coulter will be featured as part of Boston University’s observance of this year’s bicentennial of Darwin’s birth and the sesquicentennial of the publication of the Origin of Species. His lecture, entitled, "Reflections on the 'Darwin-Descartes' Problem" will be part of the Provost's Colloquium: The Impact of Darwinism on the Human Sciences, Thursday, February 12, 2009. This day-long Symposium will be held inThe Metcalf Trustee Center, One Silber Way, 9th floor. Prof. Coulter’s presentation will be during the afternoon session. For further details, click here.
PROF. PETER YEAGER PANEL DISCUSSION, BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY
Prof. Peter Yeager will participate in a panel discussion following the free community screening of “Tulia Texas: A Small Town’s Search for Justice.” Site of one of the most controversial and destructive episodes in the “war on drugs,” Tulia was also the site of a remarkable mobilization to seek justice. BU faculty and students are welcome to attend.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
6:00pm – 8:00pm
Rabb Lecture Hall, Boston Public Library
PROF YEAGER ELECTED TO LEAD THE WHITE COLLAR CRIME RESEARCH CONSORTIUM
Prof. Peter Yeager has recently been elected vice president and president-elect of the White Collar Crime Research Consortium, the research scholars arm of the National White Collar Crime Center. The Center is a Congressionally-funded organization of regulatory agencies and law enforcement authorities nationwide that deal with white-collar crime generally and as it relates to homeland security. Congratulations Prof. Yeager!
MEDICAL COMMUNITY TAKES NOTE OF BOOK BY PROF. RIEKER
Prof. Rieker’s 2008 book (with Chloe Bird), Gender and Health: The Effects of Constrained Choices and Social Policies , is getting significant attention from the medical community. The two leading journals of medical research – New England Journal of Medicine and the Journal of the American Medical Association -- have each published reviews! Congratulations Pat!
AMMERMAN ARTICLE SELECTED FOR 50TH ANNIVERSARY JOURNAL ISSUE
Review of Religious Research has just published a special issue commemorating the 50th anniversary of the journal. A team of past editors selected two articles from each decade of the journal’s history to include in this special edition, including Prof. Nancy Ammerman’s 1991 article "Southern Baptists and the New Christian Right." Based on research done as today’s Republican evangelical base was still taking shape, this article outlined the tactics by which political and religious elites joined forces
PROFESSOR BARMAN ELECTED TO ARNOVA BOARD
Congratulations to Prof. Emily Barman on her election to the board of the Association for Research on Nonprofit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). This international organization of scholars is the leading forum for research on philanthropy, volunteerism, and the nonprofit sector. Prof. Barman’s research on nonprofit organizations is obviously gaining increased visibility among her peers. Her 2006 book Contesting Communities: The Transformation of Workplace Charity was recognized with the 2007 Skystone Ryan prize from the Association of Fundraising Professionals
NEW ARTICLE BY PROFESSOR GO FEATURED BY ASA
The American Sociological Association regularly features important new publications in the “Hot off the Press” section of the ASA website. Currently featured is Prof. Julian Go’s new article in Sociological Theory, “Global Fields and Imperial Forms: Field Theory and the British and American Empires.” Congratulations!
EASTERN SOCIOLOGICAL SOCIETY CALL FOR PAPERS FOR 2009 MEETING IN BALTIMORE
The Fall edition of ESSays, the newsletter of the Eastern Sociological Society, is now available on the web. You can get to it by going to the site. This issue looks back to the spring 2008 meeting and forward to the 2009 Annual Meetign upcoming in March in Baltimore. The call for papers is included (abstracts due October 15) are as calls for the various ESS awards and officer nominatons. 9.17.08
THE DEPARTMENT OF SOCIOLOGY INVITES APPLICATIONS FOR A TENURE TRACK ASSISTANT PROFESSOR POSITION
The Department of Sociology at Boston University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position, beginning Fall 2009, subject to final budgetary approval. We seek a colleague whose research and teaching focus on the Sociology of Culture, especially Popular Culture, the Internet and/or related new media of communication. We would be especially interested in someone whose approach includes the production of culture and/or comparative or global perspectives. Boston University expects excellence in teaching and in research and is committed to building a culturally diverse faculty and a multicultural learning environment. Women and minorities are especially encouraged to apply. Applications should include 1) a letter describing your teaching and research interests and professional experience; 2) curriculum vitae; 3) two samples of your scholarly writing; and 4) names of three persons who will send letters of reference. Review of applications will begin October 1. Boston University is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer. 09.02.08
The department of sociology announces its Fall Seminar Series
WELCOME GRADUATE STUDENTS
The department of sociology is delighted to welcome six new graduate students to our program. We are very proud of incoming student Adrienne Lemon, who has been awarded the Martin Luther King, Jr fellowship as she pursues her PhD with us. 08.29.08
| ALUMNI NEWS: EMILY VOGEL RECEIVES M.D. | |
|
Emily Vogel (BA, 2003), is now Dr. Emily Vogel, M.D. Emily, our student speaker at her Sociology graduation, earned her medical degree in 2007 at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine, where she was a member of the AOA Honor Society and president of her medical school class. She is presently a resident at the Hennepin County Medical Center in Minneapolis. 08.22.08 |
PROF. OLAFSDOTTIR RECEIVES ASA AWARD
Prof. Olafsdottir received the ASA Mental Health Section Best Dissertation Award for her thesis titled “Medicalizing Mental Health: A Comparative View of the Public, Private, and Professional Construction of Mental Illness.” Her dissertation presents “an elegant multi-method, multi-level, crossnational examination in 19 advanced, industrialized nations of issues of social construction, political systems and professional power on processes of medicalization of mental health measured by institutionalization and use on psychiatric medications. Her paper represents a most ambitious and synthetic theoretical and empirical approach to global trends in mental health care systems” (ASA Mental Health Section Newsletter). 08.07.08
08.07.2008
FORMER BU FACULTY TAKE ASA HONORS
Evelyn Nakano Glenn, professor at BU in the 1980s and now at UC Berkeley, is the new American Sociological Association President.
John McKinlay, professor in the Sociology Department until the mid-1990s and now at the New England Research Institute, is the 2008 winner of the Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology from the American Sociological Association. This award honors a person whose work is widely recognized outside the discipline for its significant impacts, particularly in advancing human welfare.
BU SOCIOLOGISTS AT THE ASA
Many Department of Sociology faculty and graduate students will participate in the American Sociological Association's annual meeting in Boston (August 1-4).
PROF. BARMAN RECEIVES GRANT FOR STUDY OF NONPROFITS
The Boston Area Nonprofits Study, of which Prof. Emily Barman is Co-Director, has been awarded a grant from The Boston Foundation, in the amount of $18,000, to assist in research on the use of outcome measurement by nonprofit organizations; the extent of partnerships between nonprofits and other nonprofits, government agencies and for-profit firms; and nonprofits’ programming, financial status and human resources practices. The Boston Foundation (www.tbf.org) is one of the oldest and largest community foundations in the nation and sponsors initiatives to address the community’s and the region’s most pressing challenges. Working with colleagues at UMass, Boston, and at the University of Chicago, Prof. Barman will be extending her pathbreaking research on how nonprofits do their work.
CONGRATULATIONS 2008 GRADUATES!
Sixty-four Sociology majors completed Bachelors degrees this May, and 5 new Sociology PhD’s have been awarded in 2007-08:
Colleen Butler, "Race and Family Matters: Identity Development in Monoracial, Biracial, and Transracial Families." Colleen was an AAUW American Fellow during 2007-08, and has accepted a Visiting Assistant Professor Position at Connecticut College.
Xiaoshuo Hou, “Capitalist Collectivism: Contradiction or Synthesis?” Xiaoshou will be a Visiting Assistant Professor of Sociology at UMass, Amherst this fall.
Rogerio De Souza Medeiros, "Between Conflict and Cooperation: Dilemmas in the Relations Between Non-Governmental Organizations and the State in Brazil".
Yuichi Moroi, "Ethics of Conviction and Civic Responsibility: Conscientious War Resisters in America During the World Wars". He will assume a teaching post at Temple University in the fall.
Masayo Nishida, "Migrants of Choice: Contemporary German and Japanese Professionals Living in the United States." She will continue her research on integration of highly skilled migrants as a post-doc fellow at the European University Institute, in Florence, Italy.
FACULTY PRODUCE SIX NEW BOOKS AND OVER 40 ARTICLES IN 2007-08!
The books include
Jeff Coulter, Brain, Mind and Human Behavior in Contemporary Cognitive Science
Julian Go, American Empire and the Politics of Meaning: US Colonialism and Political Culture in Puerto Rico and the Philippines.
Alya Guseva, Into the Red: The Birth of the Credit Card Market in Postcommunist Russia
Stephen Kalberg, Ed. Max Weber: 'The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism' and Other Writings on the Rise of the West
Nazli Kibria and S. Kukreja, Eds., Globalization and the Family.
Patricia Rieker and ChloeBird, Gender and Health: The Effects of Constrained Choices and Social Policies.
SOCIOLOGY GOES INTERNATIONAL
Nancy Ammerman taught in the Fourth Summer Institute for the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Shanghai University, July, 2007.
Jeff Coulter was guest lecturer at Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan, March 24-28, 2008.
Stephen Kalberg was “Scholar in Residence,” at the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, in Paris, in April, 2008.
PhD Candidate Roman R. Williams has been awarded a “Graduate Research Abroad Fellowship” to conduct dissertation research in Asia this fall.
