Laboring in the Shadow of Empire: Undergraduate student Lenny Adonteng on Professor Celeste Curington’s new book
By Lenny Adonteng (Sociology, Class of 2025) Professor Celeste Curington’s new book, Laboring in the Shadow of Empire, offers an exploration of the intersections of race, gender, and labor in Portugal. This new work builds on themes she examined in her earlier publication, The Dating Divide, which focused on race and relationship formation within the […]
Leping Wang publishes paper in Research in Social Stratification & Mobility
Sociology PhD candidate Leping Wang recently published a single-authored paper titled “Human capital and the upward occupational mobility of rural migrant workers in China” in the journal Research in Social Stratification and Mobility. In this paper, she explores the relationship between four human capital factors including formal education, professional training, professional certificates and the knowledge […]
Celeste Curington publishes new article in the Fall 2024 issue of Contexts
Assistant Professor Celeste Curington has an article in the Fall 2024 issue of Contexts. In “Daring to Feel Joy,” Curington writes “The policing of community space attempts to thwart possibilities for Black joy, yet it endures. Black joy resists and persists.” The full article is available here.
Loretta Lees helps develop new tool to fight gentrification in Louisville, Kentucky
On November 21st, a new tool aimed at preventing public dollars from funding developments that could displace residents passed with unanimous support from the Louisville, Kentucky Metro Council. The first of its kind in the United States, the tool was developed with the help of Loretta Lees, Sociology professor and director of the Initiative on […]
Japonica Brown-Saracino & Landon Lauder quoted in new Boston.com article
An article published today on Boston.com explores the question “When can you say you’re ‘from Boston’?” It goes on to examine why the question, “So, where are you from?” can surprisingly be difficult to answer even for people called Boston home for many years. Japonica Brown-Saracino is quoted in the article, explaining: “As neighborhoods gentrify, […]
Announcement: Temporary pause to our graduate admissions (2025-2026)
For 2025-2026, the Sociology department is undergoing a temporary pause in our graduate admissions. We fully expect to resume our regular admissions cycle in 2026-2027. As the statement on BU Graduate School of Arts & Sciences website explains: After careful consideration, we have decided to suspend admissions for many of our programs for the upcoming […]
Sociology department hike in the Blue Hills
On Sunday November 10th, we revived the Sociology department hike at Blue Hills, a beautiful reservation just outside the city. A fun time was had by all!
Ana Villarreal’s book reviewed in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America
Ana Villarreal’s book, The Two Faces of Fear: Violence and Inequality in the Mexican Metropolis (Oxford, 2024), was recently reviewed in ReVista: Harvard Review of Latin America. In the review, sociologist and historian Gema Kloppe-Santamaría calls The Two Faces of Fear, “A powerful, perceptive, and conceptually persuasive account on the impact of fear in people’s everyday […]
David Swartz publishes new book and articles on “The Academic Trumpists”
Visiting researcher, and former Sociology professor, David Swartz has published a new book on the impact of Trumpism on the conservative faculty in the American academy. We will be hosting a book launch and panel discussion of The Academic Trumpists: Radicals Against Liberal Diversity (Routledge, 2024) on Wednesday October 30th from 4:00 to 6:00 pm at […]
Alya Guseva and Ya-Ching Huang publish article in Journal of Cultural Economy
Alya Guseva and Ya-Ching Huang have published a new article in the Journal of Cultural Economy. “The Moral Economy of Severe Scarcity: How Considerations of Deservingness Shape Cloth Mask Distribution Practices in the Midst of a Global Health Crisis” is available to read in full here.