The Journal for Undergraduate Ethnography (JUE) is a peer-reviewed online journal for undergraduate academic writing. Over the past 12 years, the JUE has sought to publish original ethnographic research by undergraduate students working in a variety of disciplines. Its goal is to bring readers insights into subcultures, practices, and social institutions. The JUE encourages undergraduates or those who have graduated within the past 12 months to submit manuscripts for consideration. Manuscripts must be based on original research conducted using ethnographic methods, on any topic in the social sciences. The next submission deadline is January 31, 2023. Visit the website for author guidelines and past issues.
Frontiers in Sociology seeks papers for the research topic "Sociologies of Health and Emotions." Editors invite theory driven papers across the whole methodological spectrum to foreground the conceptualizations and multi-layered role of emotion and affect which underpin relations that define health care experiences and its delivery in contemporary global societies. For examples of possible themes and application instructions, visit the website. The abstract submission deadline is February 15, 2023.
Transcience: Journal of Global Studies is an e-journal of Humboldt University of Berlin and is seeking articles for a special issue on "Rewriting Southeast Asian History from the Ground Up: Using Anthropological Field Methods to Give Peoples Back their History." It welcomes articles that use social anthropological research methods on history to offer new perspectives for identity, cultural pride and promoting cross-cultural tolerance in Southeast Asia. The submission deadline is April 20, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
Social Indicators Research is seeking articles for a special issue on "Indicators, Methods, and Models for Measuring the Effects of Digital Disruption" and welcomes articles that focus on analyzing, explaining, and discussing the effects of digital disruption, and in particular on how the information society and the general use of information and communication technologies' impact the social, cultural, economic, and ecological spheres. For more information, visit the website. The submission deadline is May 31, 2023.
Cambridge Elements series in Contentious Politics provides an important opportunity to bridge research and communication about the politics of protest across disciplines and between the academy and a broader public. It publishes pieces of 20,000–30,000 words that allow in-depth yet concise treatment of an issue or case. Editors are interested in presenting studies that focus on the organization, politics, and culture within social movements, as well as treatments of their interactions with mainstream political institutions, including legislatures, courts, and elections. For more information, visit the website. The deadline is ongoing.
The Polarising Sexual and Gendered Lives: Divisions, Differences, and LGBTQI+ Equalities international symposium will be held at University of College Dublin on June 21, 2023. The symposium will bring together leading and emerging scholars in multiple disciplines who explore, theorize, and seek to address changing social, legal, and political LGBTQI+ landscapes. It is especially interested in scholars who explore processes of contestations and divisions that cut in various ways across these. The extended abstract deadline is January 20, 2023. Submit abstracts here, and direct questions to Emily Kazyak.
The Future of Activism Research Workshop will be held April 21–22, 2023, at Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The conference will be an intimate gathering and will allow for rich and in-depth discussion of the papers. If you are interested in participating in the workshop, please submit a 1–2 page abstract by January 30, 2023. The abstract should contain a description of both the empirical context, theoretical perspective, and analytic approach of the paper. You can upload your abstract here. If you have any questions about the workshop, feel free to reach out to the organizers, Brayden King and Ed Walker.
The Center for the Study of Social Movements at Notre Dame will be hosting the eleventh annual Young (or early career) Scholars Conference on April 21, 2023. It invites 12 advanced graduate students or early-career faculty to present a work solidly in-progress at the conference, enjoy an opportunity to discuss their work with some of the leading scholars in the field, and meet others in the new cohort of social movement scholars. The deadline is January 31, 2023. Find out more on the website.
The Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics is seeking papers and panels for its 35th annual conference, “Socio-Economics in a Transitioning World: Breaking Lines and Alternative Paradigms for a New World Order,” hosted by the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, July 20–22, 2023. The deadline for submissions is February 1, 2023. For more information about the conference, 2023 mini-conference offerings, and submission guidelines, visit the website.
The Money as a Democratic Medium 2.0 Conference will be held at two sites in order to maximize participation while minimizing carbon impacts: Cambridge, MA (Harvard Law School, June 15–17, 2023) and Hamburg, Germany (the Hamburg Institute for Social Research and The New Institute, June 15–16, 2023). The conference is open to all students of money, credit, finance, the monetary system, and the modern economy, including members of the public. It will offer robust online access and encourages distant participants to join virtually. Find out more about the conference and how to submit panel and paper proposals on the website. The deadline is February 1, 2023.
The Thirteenth International Conference on the Constructed Environment will be held on the theme “Human/Nature: Toward A Reconciliation” in Honolulu, Hawai'i, May 17–18, 2023. The Constructed Environment Research Network is brought together by a common shared interest in human configurations of the environment and the interactions among the constructed, social, and natural environments and invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is February 17, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Research Committee on Sociology of Law will hold its 2023 conference on the theme “Law, Society, and Digital Pasts, Presents and Futures” on August 30–September 1, 2023, in Lund, Denmark. The conference will explore the latest concepts and practices of digital societies. It asks how digitalization reconfigures law, citizenship/denizenship, democracy, markets, identity, and everyday forms of life and resistance. Paper abstracts are due February 28, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Migration and Organizations Conference will be hosted by Columbia Business School on May 24–25, 2023. Now in its sixth iteration, this gathering seeks to advance rigorous research and strengthen the community of scholars at the intersection of migration and organizations. It invites papers linking migration to topics such as organizational performance, employee mobility, management of individuals and teams, diversity and inclusion in organizations, firm capabilities, entrepreneurship, corporate strategy, organizational innovation, global strategy, firm location choice, work practices, and teams. Read more information about the submission process here. Submit papers by March 6, 2023.
The Eighth International Conference on Tourism & Leisure Studies will be held on the theme “Post-Pandemic Tourism Transformations” in Granada, Spain, June 14–16, 2023. The Tourism & Leisure Studies Research Network is brought together to explore the economic, cultural, and organizational aspects of tourism and leisure and invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is March 14, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Thirteenth International Conference on Religion & Spirituality in Society will be held on the theme “Religion in the Public Sphere: From the Ancient Years to the Post-Modern Era” in Athens, Greece and online, June 20–22, 2023. The Religion in Society Research Network explores the relationship between religion in society and the changing nature of spirituality and invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is March 21, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Twenty-Third International Conference on Diversity in Organizations, Communities, & Nations will be held on the theme “Whose Accountability Revolution? Priorities, Incentive Structures, Organization Culture” in Toronto and online, June 22–23, 2023. The network is brought together by a shared interest in human differences and diversity, and their varied manifestations in organizations, communities, and nations, and invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is March 22, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Information, Medium & Society: Twenty-First International Conference on Publishing Studies will be held on the theme “Social Narrative Makers: Storytellers, Researchers, Publishers, Platforms” in Paris and online, June 30, 2023. The network is brought together by a shared interest in investigating publishing practices as distinctive modes of social knowledge production. It invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is March 30, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society will be held on the theme “New Aesthetic Expressions: The Social Role of Art” in Kraków, Poland and online, July 5–7, 2023. The Arts in Society Research Network offers an interdisciplinary forum for discussion of the role of the arts in society. It is a place for critical engagement, examination, and experimentation, developing ideas that connect the arts to their contexts in the world—on stage, in studios and theaters, in classrooms, in museums and galleries, on the streets and in communities. The network invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is April 5, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Thirtieth International Conference on Learning will be held on the theme “Literacies and Educational Changes: Rediscussing Digital Learning, Neoliberalism, and Post-Pandemic Policies” in São Paulo, Brazil and online, July 12–14, 2023. The Learner Research Network is brought together around a common concern for learning in all its sites, formal and informal, and at all levels, from early childhood to schools, colleges, and universities, and adult, community, and workplace education. The network invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is April 12, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Sixteenth Global Studies Conference will be held on the theme “Agency in an Era of Displacement and Social Change” in Oxford, UK, and online, July 19–21, 2023. The Global Studies Research Network is devoted to mapping and interpreting past and emerging trends and patterns in globalization. It invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is April 19, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Eighteenth International Conference on Interdisciplinary Social Sciences will be held on the theme “Agency in an Era of Displacement and Social Change” in Oxford, UK and online, July 19–21, 2023. The Interdisciplinary Social Sciences Research Network is brought together by a common interest in disciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches, within and across the various social sciences, and between the social, natural, and applied sciences. It invites proposals on several themes. The deadline is April 19, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The First World Conference for Religious Dialogue and Cooperation will be held on the theme “Religious Conflicts in the World: Causes and Possible Solutions” on October 4–8, 2023, in Struga, North Macedonia. Please submit a 200- to 300-word abstract of your presentation by August 1, 2023. You can find more information on the website.
Cambridge Scholars Publishing invites proposals for academic books and edited collections in the humanities and social sciences. Visit the website to complete a Book Proposal Form and read the publishing guidelines. The deadline is ongoing.
Wiley Blackwell invites proposals for a new textbook covering the topics of religion and society, sociology of religion, and religion and social change. Pitched at undergraduates with little or no primary exposure to this field of study and at about 10–12 chapters long, the proposed book would be suitable to act as the main text for a semester-long course or as supplemental text to a reading list of primary materials. If you are interested, please reach out to the Wiley Commissioning Editor, Clelia Petracca, for proposal guidelines. Deadline is ongoing.
The Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities of Goethe University Frankfurt is seeking to appoint up to three post-doctoral fellows in the humanities or social sciences for the 2023–24 academic year. Candidates should have completed a doctorate in one of the disciplines represented in the “Democratic Vistas” group and should have proven potential to conduct and publish research at an international level. Read the full call for applications here. The application deadline is January 31, 2023.
AxPo Observatory of Market Society Polarization at Sciences Po, Paris, France is inviting applications for two-year postdoctoral research positions starting on September 1, 2023. The purpose of AxPo’s research program is to bring together research in sociology, political science, and economics on multiple forms of polarization which may contribute to the fragmentation of democratic market societies. AxPo will notably focus on socio-economical and socio-political polarizations, and their interrelations. The application deadline is January 31, 2023. Visit the website for more information.
The Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center (REEEC) and the Slavic Reference Service (SRS) at the University of Illinois will host the 50th annual Summer Research Laboratory program, June 12–August 4, 2023. REEEC and SRS will work to support scholars this summer through both in-person and virtual programming, research assistance, professional development opportunities, and collections and database access. They will provide support for both in-person and virtual associateships for scholars to conduct research. Please note that the majority of associateships will be in-person. The application deadline is March 3, 2023. For more information, visit the website.
The Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations fellowships for 2023–2024 include the J. Robert Beyster Fellowship, Louis O. Kelso Fellowship, and others. The institute invites applications from PhD students, and junior and senior scholars in sociology for the 2023–2024 competition. Several $25,000 and $12,500 fellowships will be available for scholars from the United States and internationally. For more information, visit the website. The deadline is March 31, 2023.
The Positive Culture Framework Training will be held in Charlotte, NC, March 28–30, 2023. The training is an opportunity to engage with others across the country and move toward cultivating a culture that supports and sustains health and safety. There will be multiple opportunities for open dialogue and discussion among attendees, as well as step-by-step handouts, interactive training sessions, and small-group activities to provide attendees with an informative, engaging experience. Find out more on the website.
NextGenPop, an undergraduate program in population research that aims to increase the diversity of the population field and nurture the next generation of population scholars, invites applications. The program includes a two-week, in-person, on-campus summer experience and subsequent virtual components focused on research and professional development. Fifteen undergraduate students will be hosted by Cornell University on June 4–18, 2023. Participants will receive a $1,000 stipend as well as funds to cover all travel and living expenses. For more information and the application, visit the website. The deadline is February 1, 2023.
The Berkeley Interdisciplinary Migration Initiative 2023 Summer Institute in Migration Research Methods (SIMRM) will take place at the University of California-Berkeley campus, June 7–15, 2023. SIMRM will focus on interviewing as a migration research methodology and is open to advanced graduate students, early-career researchers in government or nonprofit research centers, post-docs, and beginning faculty within five years of their PhD or equivalent degree. For more information on SIMRM and how to apply, visit the website. The application deadline is March 1, 2023.
Ruha Benjamin, Princeton University, had her book Viral Justice: How We Grow the World We Want (Princeton University Press 2022) nominated for a 2022 Porchlight Business Book Award.
Michele Goodwin, University of California-Irvine, is president-elect of the Law and Society Association.
Ellen Granberg has been named the nineteenth president of the George Washington University. Currently provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Rochester Institute of Technology and previously an academic leader at Clemson University, Granberg will become the first woman to serve as GW’s president when she takes the helm of the largest university in the nation’s capital on July 1, 2023.
Nancy López, University of New Mexico-Albuquerque, cowrote the brief “Observing Race and Ethnicity through a New Lens: An Exploratory Analysis of Different Approaches to Measuring ‘Street Race’” published by the Urban Institute on December 6, 2022, with Dulce Gonzales, Michael Karpman, Karishma Furtado, Genevieve M. Kenney, Marla McDaniel, and Claire O'Brien of Urban Institute Health Policy Center.
Sharla N. Alegria, University of Toronto, had her research cited in the November 22, 2022, article “Male Allies—Your Industry Needs You!” on the website Computing.
Rene Almeling, Yale University, coauthored “Yes, There’s Still a Reason to Be Worried about a National Abortion Ban. Here’s Why” in the November 15, 2022, edition of the San Francisco Chronicle with author and speaker Adora Svitak.
Kathleen Blee, University of Pittsburgh, was quoted in the December 12, 2022, article “Are Women the Far-Right's Trump Card?” on VICE.
Jessica McCrory Calarco, Indiana University, was quoted in the December 5, 2022, article “This One Change from Teachers Can Make Homework More Equitable” on Edu Today.
William C. Cockerham, University of Alabama at Birmingham, was interviewed by the Anadolu News Agency in Turkey on the relationship between health and social class.
Daniel Aldana Cohen, University of California-Berkeley, was quoted in the November 19, 2022, article “Why the Midterms Have Made Climate Activists Hopeful for the Future” on NBC News online.
Tressie McMillan Cottom, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, appeared on the December 5, 2022, episode of the Daily Show with Trevor Noah and authored the opinion piece “In the Political Talk Show Race, Outrage Is Winning” in the November 1, 2022, issue of the New York Times.
Reya Farber, William and Mary, authored the November 16, 2022, article “Health Rights for Trans People Vary Widely around the Globe—Achieving Trans Bliss and Joy Will Require Equity, Social Respect and Legal Protections” in the Conversation.
Tina Fetner, McMaster University, was quoted in the December 10, 2022, article “Transgender Americans Feel Under Siege as Political Vitriol Rises” in the New York Times.
Esther Friedman, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor; Elena Portacolone, University of California-San Francisco; and Manon Labarchède, Université de Bordeaux, were quoted in the article “A French Village’s Radical Vision of a Good Life with Alzheimer’s” in the November 23, 2022, edition of the New Yorker.
Heba Gowayed, Boston University, coauthored the December 7, 2022, opinion piece “How Trump’s Human Trafficking Efforts Failed Immigrant Survivors” in the Hill with Julie Dahlstrom, Boston University School of Law.
Kevan Harris, University of California-Los Angeles, commented in the article “Iran World Cup Showdown with U.S. Overshadowed by Protests against Islamic Regime” in the November 28, 2022, edition of the Los Angeles Times.
Trevor Alexander Hoppe, University of North Carolina-Greensboro, had his work quoted in the December 6, 2022, post “World Health Organization Rebrands 'Monkeypox' as Mpox. Does It Matter?” on Salon.com.
Michelle Janning, Whitman College, was quoted in the “31 Days” series in the New York Times for the article “Day 9: The Magic of Less ‘Holiday Magic’” on December 9, 2022.
Jennifer Lee, Columbia University, authored the opinion piece “Asian American Students Face Bias, but It’s Not What You Might Think” in the November 1, 2022, issue of the New York Times.
Norah MacKendrick, Rutgers University, was interviewed on the November 9, 2022, episode of the Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness podcast, “Why Are Toxic Products (Still) On Our Shelves? with Dr. Norah MacKendrick.”
Greggor Mattson, Oberlin College, was quoted in the November 22, 2022, story “Colorado Shooting Won't Stop Queer People Fighting for Safe Spaces, Says Advocate” on the CBC show the Current.
Michael Messner, University of Southern California, authored an updated version of his 2018 article “Veterans Have Fought in Wars—and Fought Against Them” for the November 9, 2022, edition of the Conversation.
Ellis Prentis Monk, Jr., Harvard University, commented on his research in the November 22, 2022, article “Beauty in the Eye of the A.I.: How Inherent Racial Bias Has Shaped A.I. and What Brands Are Doing to Address It,” in Fortune online.
Samuel L. Perry, University of Oklahoma, and Andrew L. Whitehead, Indiana University-Purdue University, authored the opinion piece “Who Is a Christian Nationalist?” in the November 8, 2022, issue of the Dallas Morning News.
Alexandrea Ravenelle, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, was interviewed for the December 7, 2022, episode of CNET’s So Money podcast.
Michael Sauder, University of Iowa, was quoted in the article “Yale and Harvard’s Law Schools Are Ditching the ‘U.S. News’ Rankings. Will Others Follow?” in the November 16, 2022, edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Juliet B. Schor, Boston College, was quoted in the November 30, 2022, article “Global 4-Day Week Pilot Was a Huge Success, Organizers Say” on CNN Business online.
Paige L. Sweet, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, was quoted in the December 1, 2022, post “Are We Surprised That Gaslighting Is the Word of the Year?” on Psychology Today online.
Meredith Van Natta, University of California-Merced, was quoted in the December 12, 2022, article “Falling Through the Cracks” on Capital & Main.
Frederick F. Wherry, Princeton University, was interviewed for the article “Study Reveals Significant Issues and Discrimination with Credit Rating Companies” in the November 9, 2022, edition of Finance Quick Fix online.
Nancy Wang Yuen, Biola University, authored the December 6, 2022, piece “As an Immigrant Kid, I Learned about Christmas from TV—and It Nearly Broke My Heart” on Today online.
Rawan Arar, University of Washington, and David Scott FitzGerald, University of California-San Diego, The Refugee System: A Sociological Approach (Wiley 2022).
William C. Cockerham, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Social Causes of Health and Disease, 3rd edition, Turkish translation.
Mamadi Corra, East Carolina University, African Immigrants in the United States: The Gendering Significance of Race through International Migration? (Rowman and Littlefield 2022).
Heather Gautney, Fordham University, The New Power Elite (Oxford University Press 2022).
Anne Kane, University of Houston, and Dieter Reinisch, Webster Vienna Private University, eds. Irish Republican Counterpublic: Armed Struggle and the Construction of a Radical Nationalist Community in Northern Ireland, 1969–1998 (Routledge 2022).
J. David Knottnerus, Oklahoma State University, Polar Expeditions: Discovering Rituals of Success within Hazardous Ventures (Routledge 2023).
Hagen Koo, University of Hawaii (retired), Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era (Cornell University Press 2022).
Le Lin, University of Hawaii-Manoa, The Fruits of Opportunism: Noncompliance and the Evolution of China's Supplemental Education Industry (University of Chicago Press 2022).
Monica Haiyi Liu, University of St. Thomas, Seeking-Western Men: Email-Order Brides under China's Global Rise (Stanford University Press 2022).
Jordanna Chris Matlon, American University, A Man among Other Men: The Crisis of Black Masculinity in Racial Capitalism (Cornell University Press 2022).
Margaret K. Nelson, Middlebury College (retired), Keeping Family Secrets: Shame and Silence in Memoirs from the 1950s (New York University Press 2022).
Marcel Paret, University of Utah, Fractured Militancy: Precarious Resistance in South Africa After Racial Inclusion (Cornell University Press 2022).
Sal Restivo, retired, The Social Brain: Sociological Foundations (Rowan & Littlefield 2023).
Alessandra Seggi, Villanova University, Youth and Suicide in American Cinema: Context, Causes, and Consequences (Palgrave Macmillan 2022).
Bin Xu, Emory University, The Culture of Democracy: A Sociological Approach to Civil Society (Polity 2022).
Jun Xu, Ball State University, Modern Applied Regressions: Bayesian and Frequentist Analysis of Categorical and Limited Response Variables with R and Stan (Taylor and Francis 2022).
Min Zhou, University of California-Los Angeles, and Hasan Mahmud, Northwestern University in Qatar, Beyond Economic Migration: Social, Historical, and Political Factors in US Immigration (New York University Press 2023).
Anne Foner, 101, professor emerita of sociology at Rutgers University, died on September 28, 2022. A member of the first (1941) graduating class of Queens College (now part of the City University of New York), she returned to graduate school two decades later and received a PhD in sociology from New York University in 1969. She went on to teach at Rutgers University for more than 20 years, and on retirement was honored with a dissertation prize in her name. Foner was the author of many books and articles on the analysis of aging and society, as well as coeditor of volumes one and three of Aging and Society, with Matilda White Riley (Russell Sage Foundation 1968 and 1972). Foner was chair of the American Sociological Association’s Section on Aging and the Life Course (1987–88) and received its Matilda White Riley Distinguished Scholar Award in 1989.
1934–2022
Gordie Fellman, a beloved teacher and colleague, died on October 19, 2022, at the age of 88. A professor emeritus of sociology at Brandeis University, Fellman retired in May 2022 after having taught at the university level for 60 years, 55 of those years at Brandeis.
Fellman grew up in Nebraska and attended Antioch College for his undergraduate degree. Antioch opened his eyes to the excitement of learning, activism, and passionate political debate. He earned his PhD in sociology from Harvard University and in 1964 joined the fledgling Sociology Department at Brandeis. Over the years, he inspired generations of students to think critically, be self-reflective, and engage in social action. As a former student commented at Fellman’s June 2022 retirement gathering, Fellman conveyed warmth, passion, and concern for students as people. He invited students to join him in an inquiring and a critical approach to learning and to take an active and creative role in their own education. Countless students have spoken of the profound personal growth they experienced in his classes and the ways he inspired them to make the world a better place.
Fellman taught numerous courses in sociology and beyond that revolved around several central questions: What are the sources, in history and in the self's development and inner workings, of unnecessary human suffering? How can it be thoughtfully, carefully, mindfully reduced? His Sociology of Empowerment class stood out as a transformative experience for hundreds of students over the past 25 years. Fellman received the Louis Dembitz Brandeis Prize for Excellence in Teaching in 1999. And in 2007, he won the Student Union Best Teaching Award.
Fellman was chair of the Brandeis University Sociology Department from 1974–1976, and again from 1984–1987. As well as being a faculty member of the Sociology Department, he was a cofounder and, from 1990 on, served as chair of the interdisciplinary Peace, Conflict, and Coexistence Studies Program-PAX (originally called Peace Studies Program, and later, Peace and Conflict Studies Program).
Fellman’s first book, coauthored with Barbara Brandt, The Deceived Majority: Politics and Protest in Middle America (Transaction Books 1973), is based on his experience—together with a group of his neighbors from Cambridge, MA—of successfully fighting the “inner belt” highway that was going to destroy Cambridge’s working-class neighborhoods. His second book was Rambo and the Dalai Lama: The Compulsion to Win and Its Threat to Human Survival (SUNY Press 1998). In this book, Fellman developed a central idea of his thinking, offering a paradigm of mutuality based on cooperation, caring, nurturing, and loving. This, he suggested, should supplant the dominant Western paradigm of adversarialism based on conflicts of interest and war. Fellman saw the shifting emphasis from adversarialism to mutuality as essential for the survival of our species and of the environment.
Fellman received the 2011 Robin Williams Award for Distinguished Contributions to Scholarship, Teaching, and Service from the American Sociological Association’s Section on Peace and War and Social Conflict. Most recently, Fellman received the 2021 Peace Educator-Scholar Award for excellence in scholarship and dedication to peace education from the Peace and Justice Studies Association. For the Brandeis University 2022 commencement, Fellman was honored to serve as the grand marshal.
He leaves behind his wife, Pamela Blau, and their two children, Ezra and Talia. Fellman married for the first time when he was 65 and fulfilled his lifelong desire to become a parent when he became a father to Ezra in 2001 and to Talia in 2003. Being a father brought Fellman tremendous joy! He will be missed greatly.
Contributed by family and colleagues
1948-2022
Alan Gordon Hill, 77, professor emeritus of sociology at Delta College, died on October 2, 2022, after a year of declining health. Hill was a resident of Taylors, SC, and a native of nearby Greenville, where he graduated from high school in 1963 and earned a BA cum laude from Furman University in 1967. He received an MA in 1969 and an MPhil in1973, both from Columbia University. While at Columbia, Hill coauthored several articles with physicians from Mount Sinai Medical Center, who depended on his statistical skills to analyze their data.
Hill first taught sociology at Furman University, where he was a frequent commentator on social and political issues for Greenville’s local television station, WYFF. He then taught for 25 years at Delta College, from which he retired in 2012. Although his career focused largely on teaching, he also engaged in research and service to Delta and to the profession of sociology. His publications focused on the impact of computers on society and the sociology of religion.
Hill’s early and primary commitment to teaching stood out and is captured in a letter of recommendation from one of his professors at Columbia, Robert K. Merton: “I single out Alan Hill as one of our better prospects … It was refreshing to discover his deep interest in teaching. Just about everything he has done as a graduate student has been designed to give him the kind of wide-ranging knowledge that he can put to use as a teacher. Judging from his performance in seminars, he has a gift for exposition. He not only says what he has to say clearly but manages to interest his audience in the ideas he puts forward. I support his candidacy for a college teaching post without reservation.”
As an outstanding performer in the classroom, Hill received the 1989 Outstanding Teaching Award from the Michigan Sociological Association and the 2000 Distinguished Teaching Award from the American Sociological Association’s Section on computers and society (now known as the Section on Communication, Information Technologies, and Media Sociology’s Public Sociology Award). Perhaps more than anyone, he advocated for and successfully brought the widespread use of computers for both teaching and research to Delta College.
Just as Hill’s teaching was often recognized, so too was his service to his college, his profession, the larger academic community, and the public. In 1995, he received the “Recognition Award for Governance” from the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), which noted that Hill “represents the courage and integrity of academic freedom at its best.” He was a constant advocate for the establishment of a faculty union, was a board member and president of Delta’s AAUP chapter and served on several of its committees. In May 2012, Hill was lauded for “twenty-five years of outstanding service to our students and the Delta College Community.”
Without a doubt, Hill’s constant and unswerving support for the Michigan Sociological Association (MSA) was among his best acts of service. In 1998, the MSA awarded him the Marvin Olsen Award for Distinguished Service to Sociology in Michigan and/or the MSA. In 2012, the MSA awarded Hill a special commendation “for a career of distinguished service to Michigan sociology,” and an issue of the Michigan Sociological Review was dedicated to him. In addition to long-term membership on the MSA Executive Board, he was president in 1991‒92, and served as executive officer for 12 years, the longest serving and best performing occupant of that position. The MSA remains deeply in his debt, and his absence will be felt for years to come.
Hill was predeceased by his wife of 34 years, Toyo Murono Hill. He is survived by his son, Arthur Ginzo Hill of Taylors, SC; his life-long friend Louisa “Dee” Savage of Greenville, SC; and his numerous friends at the Michigan Sociological Association.
Donations in his memory can be sent to Dr. R. Kirk Mauldin, Lake Superior University, Sault Ste. Marie, MI 49783. Please make checks payable to Michigan Sociological Association and note that they are for the Alan Hill Fund.
Larry T. Reynolds, Central Michigan University; Joseph Verschaeve, Grand Valley State University
1957‒2022
Robin Leidner, a member of the sociology faculty at the University of Pennsylvania since 1988, died at home on September 23, 2022, of complications from breast cancer. She was 65. An ethnographer, a feminist scholar, and a student of work and workplace interactions, she was the author of the influential and elegantly written Fast Food, Fast Talk: Service Work and the Routinization of Everyday Life (University of California Press 1993) and a beloved mentor.
Her graduate students spoke of her with admiration and affection, almost always mentioning her exceptional kindness and her attentive care. “Funny, caring, and serious, all at the same time,” Keith Brown, now professor and chair of Sociology and Criminal Justice at St. Joseph’s University, wrote. She was also a dedicated undergraduate chair and a resourceful teacher in courses on work and gender, famed for the care she gave to grading and to the quality of her students’ prose.
Fast Food, Fast Talk is based on her doctoral research into the routinization of workplace emotions of both McDonald’s counter workers and the insurance agents of a large midwestern insurance company. Observing training sessions at both the insurance company and McDonald’s Hamburger University, then accompanying insurance agents on their rounds and working behind the counter at a McDonald’s franchise, Leidner discovered considerable variation in the responses of workers to the efforts of management to control their emotions.
Some McDonald’s workers squirmed over issues of inauthenticity and frequently resisted, but Leidner found it was more usual for them to adapt. Insurance agents, on the other hand, generally accepted the company’s direction and felt it helped them do their work. These findings produced a strain of unease about the societal consequences of unresisted emotional routinization, causing Leidner to ask in her conclusion whether these disruptions of the ground rules that have long governed interaction will change “the character of relations among people in and out of the marketplace.” The possibility worried her. Fast Food, Fast Talk ends with an expression of anxiety about the precarious moral fate of the self on its journey through life. “We may wonder,” she wrote, “whether civility, trust, and personal trust and integrity can be written into scripts.”
Jerry Jacobs, her longtime colleague at Penn, reflected that “I often refer to Robin’s ideas about the triangular relationship between owners, workers, and customers in the context of what she called ‘interactive service work.’ Her insights seem more relevant than ever as machines are introduced in places where human interaction prevailed until recently.” Fast Food, Fast Talk has often been praised as pathbreaking, and in 1994 it received the Max Weber Award for Distinguished Scholarship from the American Sociological Association Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work. It has been cited more than 2,500 times.
Robin Leidner grew up on Long Island, graduated from Harvard University with a BA in sociology in 1980, and resumed work as an actor and playwright with the Rhode Island Feminist Theater before starting graduate work at Northwestern University, finishing in 1988 and accepting a job at Penn. She was a dedicated playgoer and an enthusiast of foreign travel. Leidner had an irrepressible creative spirit: she was the author of satirical songs and of witty and beautifully designed Groundhog’s Day cards, which many friends here and abroad will now miss. She is survived by her mother, Marilyn (Maggie) Leidner; her brother, Michael Leidner; her sister-in-law, Beth Leidner; her nephew, Destin Leidner; and her partner of many years, the sociologist Sam Kaplan.
Samuel W. Kaplan, retired
1946–2022
A founding figure in gay studies, sociologist Ken Plummer’s writings on the subject were appreciated across the world, as were his contributions on a wide variety of other scholarly topics. As part of a prodigious output, he created (in 1996) the journal Sexualities, a title reflecting the plural nature of human affection and capacities. It continues bringing together sociological contributions with complementary efforts in anthropology, literature, gender, geography, history, and legal studies.
Starting with his graduate work at the London School of Economics and Political Science, Plummer joined with the likes of Paul Rock and Stan Cohen to enlarge the so-called deviancy paradigm. In completing his first book, Sexual Stigma: An Interactionist Account (Routledge 1975), he came to advocate sexuality as linked into larger social and cultural structures, beyond the practices of any given grouping. Laying the groundwork, avant la lettre, for what was to become the arena of “queer,” he took up a wide range of macro topics as they grew out of micro concerns. He called for a benevolent “cosmopolitanism,” relying on “hope and the humanist imagination” to enhance inclusions. Sexuality, as with other human experience, was not topic, but teacher.
No naïf to the task, Plummer was aware of collisions. He knew the dilemmas of letting-it-be versus standing for justice. He did not pretend to solve the great problems of humankind, only to play a part in their clarification. His concepts—such as “intimate citizenship” and “critical humanism”—grappled with predicaments by taking them to a higher (and more informed) level.
Plummer wrote with engaging directness; his print publications came to about 200 in number and have been translated into many languages. He authored volumes on symbolic interaction and qualitative methods, as well as the general content of sociology. His introductory text, Sociology: A Global Introduction, ran through five editions (John Macionis, coauthor); he edited the four-volume set on American sociology, The Chicago School, Critical Assessments (Routledge 1997). He also leaves behind an extraordinary personal website of discussions, clarifications, tips, and provocations. Oh yes, along the way, he had a liver transplant (in 2007)—a two-and-a-half-year ordeal about which he also wrote at length (his “illness narrative”). Recovering, he wrote still more books, taught himself to play the piano, adjusted his puddings, and enjoyed long country ambles.
Ken Plummer walked the walk. Having pioneered in legitimating same sex-unions in the UK (not without some bravery), he had his own 40-year civil partnership with his “bestest friend,” Everard Longland. Everard bestowed the kind of meticulous care that alone could have kept Plummer going. At the same time, Plummer remained deeply tied to traditional family kin: his brother, Geoffrey; sister-in-law, Stephanie; and nephew, Jon, a physician who helped supervise his medical care.
Like the musicals he admired—especially Sondheim’s, which he said had “deep affinity” with sociology—Plummer was humanely discerning. However much at times he may have been disappointed in events of the world, or the frailties of his own body, hope and persistence pulled him through. His optimism, like his mindful realism, was fundamental and boundless.
Harvey Molotch, New York University and University of California-Santa Barbara; Peter Nardi, Pitzer College
