NEWS & EVENTS
News
SOCIOLOGISTS AT THE SOCIETY FOR THE SCIENTIFIC STUDY OF RELIGION ANNUAL MEETING
This year’s meeting of the SSSR, in Denver, featured a dozen BU contributors. Presenters included students and faculty from the Psychology and Religion departments, as well as Sociology. Sociology graduate student Roman Williams presented “Lived Religion Beyond Borders: Evangelical Christianity in the Everyday Lives of International Students in the USA.” Mia Diaz-Edelman presented “A Burning Issue: Motivating Factors for Activists in the Immigrant Rights Movement.” Amy Moff Hudec and Chair, Nancy Ammerman, each convened sessions, and Sociology/Social Work student Sarah Garlington presented “The Role of Religion in Conceptions of the Welfare State.” In addition, Steve Offutt (PhD 09) presented “Exporters of Religion: Evangelicals in the Global South.”
PROF. YEAGER WEIGHS IN ON DEFENDANTS’ RIGHTS
Writing in the October 26 Boston Globe, Prof. Peter Yeager argues for the rights of defendants to challenge crime lab evidence against them. Read his letter to the editor in the Boston Globe: <link to Yeager article>
SYLVIA DOMINGUEZ RECEIVES FORD FELLOWSHIP
Sylvia Dominguez (Sociology/SSW PhD 05) has received the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Diversity Fellowship for Achieving Excellence in College and University Teaching. The Fellowships are given to individuals who have shown superior academic achievement, are committed to a career in teaching and research at the college or university level, show promise of future achievement as scholars and teachers, and are well prepared to use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students. Dominguez has received the fellowship award to finish work on her book, Social Flow: Immigrants and Social Mobility. Based on three years of ethnographic research in two public housing developments in two neighborhoods in Boston, it describes the way in which Latin American immigrant women get ahead. Congratulations Sylvia!
For more on this story,
http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=692&id=54136
PARREÑAS LECTURE BROADCAST ON WBUR
The Sept 24th lecture by Prof. Rhacel Parreñas -- "The Gender Revolution in the Philippines: Children and Transnational Mothers" -- sponsored by the BU Center for the Study of Asia and co-sponsored by the Sociology Department Seminar Series, was broadcast on WBUR, Sunday October 11th at 9 pm on “The World of Ideas” http://www.buworldofideas.org/.
PROFESSOR EMERITUS MARK G. FIELD HONORED
Harvard University recently announced the establishment of the Mark G. Field Honorary Fund, in recognition of the breadth and excellence of Prof. Field’s work at Harvard in the sociology of medicine. An anonymous $1 million gift will benefit especially continued scholarship in Public Health. Prof. Field served for many years on the faculty of BU’s Sociology Department, maintaining, as well, an affiliation with Harvard’s Davis Center. He is renowned for his scholarship on health care in the Soviet Union and its post-Communist transition.
PROF. KIBRIA REMEMBERS SENATOR KENNEDY
Prof. Nazli Kibria has written a moving remembrance of Senator Ted Kennedy, published in the Dhaka Daily Star. http://www.thedailystar.net/newDesign/news-details.php?nid=103405
PROF. SMITH-DOERR WINS NSF AWARD
Before ending her two-year stint as a Visiting Scientist at the National Science Foundation, Laurel Smith-Doerr was presented with the "Director's Award for Collaborative Integration." The award recognized her "outstanding work in nurturing the development of the Ethics Education in Science and Engineering program, and leadership in NSF's implementation of the ethics education requirement in the America COMPETES Act." Congratulations, Laurel!
Prof. Smith-Doerr returned to full-time teaching in the Department this fall.
XIAOSHUO HOU ACCEPTS POSITION AT ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY
Dr. Hou (PhD 08) began this fall in a tenure-track Assistant Professor position in St. Lawrence’s Sociology department. She also married in August and returned to China for the wedding reception. Congratulations Xiaoshuo!
COLLEEN BUTLER-SWEET TEACHING AT CONNECTICUT COLLEGE
Dr. Butler-Sweet (PhD 08) will began a 3-year teaching position at University of Connecticut. Best wishes, Colleen!
THREE DEPARTMENT FACULTY AWARDED TENURE
On July 21, the BU Board of Trustees made it official – tenure and promotion to Associate Professor has been approved for Prof. Emily Barman, Prof. Julian Go, and Prof. Alya Guseva. Their promotions will take effect September 1. This is the culmination of a year-long process of review that included strong support from reviewers outside the university, enthusiastic endorsements from the department, and the concurrence of committees at the College and University level. The final recommendation to the Trustees was made by Provost Campbell and President Brown. We all agree – each of these colleagues is a scholar, teacher, and academic citizen who merits the recognition that tenure and promotion represent. Congratulations to each of them!
JULIAN GO WINS BOOK AWARD
Congratulations to Prof. Julian Go on being named co-winner of the 2009 Mary Douglas Prize for Best Book from the Culture Section of the American Sociological Association! This award recognizes the significant contribution to the Sociology of Culture made by Prof. Go's book, American Empire and the Politics of Meaning:
Elite Political Cultures in the Philippines and Puerto Rico during U.S.
Colonialism.
SIX NEW GRADUATE STUDENTS ARRIVE THIS FALL
Six new students entered the Department’s graduate programs in the fall. Read more...
LIAH GREENFELD'S THEORIES FEATURED AT NEW YORK CONFERENCE
At the April, 2009, Conference of the Association for the Study of Nationalities, at Columbia University scholars -- including sociologists, historians and political scientists -- of Africa, the Balkans, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Latin America participated in a panel on “A World of Nations: Applying the Theories of Leah Greenfeld to Comparative Politics.” The panel was also chosen to be showcased in the upcoming issue of the Association's journal, and a similar panel is planned for the 2010 meetings of the London-based Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism (ASEN) at the London School of Economics.
CONGRATULATIONS TO GEORGE PSATHAS!
Professor Emeritus George Psathas received this year’s Lifetime Achievement Award from the Section on Ethnomethodology and Conversation Analysis of the American Sociological Association. George remains active in the Department and continues as Editor-in-Chief of Human Studies: An International Journal for Phenomenology and the Human Sciences.
S. M. MILLER WINS ASA AWARD
Prof. S. M. (Mike) Miller, received the 2009 ASA Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology. Miller, who retired from the BU Sociology Department in 1989, continues to be active in the practice of sociology, writing blog entries about the Obama administration (see his recent column in Dissen), working with United for a Fair Economy and with Race Research Action Council. Congratulations Mike!
The above images are from the Boston University reception held during the 2009 American Sociological Association annual meeting in San Francisco, California.
Events
SOCIOLOGY ALUMNI RECEPTION
October 24,
4:30-6:00
Sociology Department Lounge
96-100 Cummington St., 2nd Floor
Re-connect with old friends and former professors and hear about today’s Sociology Department. Join us during Alumni Weekend for this special departmental reunion. Register on-line at (www.bu.edu/alumniweekend) or sign up once you arrive on campus. We look forward to seeing you.
FALL SEMINAR SERIES
Each semester the Department of Sociology invites renowned scholars to participate in its Seminar Series. Meetings take place in Sociology 241 at 12 PM (noon) unless otherwise noted.
Thursday, Sept. 24 (4 PM, GSU 320-321)
RHACEL PARREÑAS Brown University
The Gender Revolution in the Philippines:
Children and Transnational Mothers
September 25
NITSAN CHOREV Brown University
Gates Governs the Global?
On the Transformation of International Health Politics
October 9: CANCELLED
HINNERK BRUHNS
Ctr. National de la Research Scientifique
October 16
GEORGE PSATHAS Boston University
Alfred Schutz: Philosopher and Sociologist
November 13
MICHAEL BURAWOY UC Berkeley
Who's Afraid of Pierre Bourdieu?
Reflections on Sociology as a Combat Sport
December 4
ELIZABETH ARMSTRONG Princeton
The Woman in the Pregnant Body: Metaphor and Image in Obstetrics
News Archive
GRADUATING SENIORS HONORED