~the-society-pages | Bookmarks (98)

This piece by Merrill 2021, offers insight on some pedagogical tools instructors can use when teaching difficult or contentious topics.

And so begins our end. With this issue we step forward into the final year of our editorship of Contexts, embodying in a personal way the theme of “heartbreak and hope” that animates these pages. We recognize that our letter finds you at a time when fear and fury, shock and struggle saturate our lives, […]

from the editors in brief: “Cash and Control,” Colter J. Uscola. “Place-Based Politics,” Parker Muzzerall. “New Labor Model, Same Old Problems,” Parker Muzzerall. “All Fun and Games?” Colter J.  Uscola. “Emirati Women’s Hidden Paychecks,” Elena G. van Stee. “Between a Rock and a Landlord,” Parker Muzzerall. “Friendship Therapy,” Parker Muzzerall. “Seeking Help, Seeking Dignity,” Elena […]

New & Noteworthy This week’s Clippings includes: Zeynep Tufekci comments on the Trump administration’s NIH funding cuts, warning they endanger America’s biomedical research infrastructure. Elizabeth Bruch and Amie Gordon launched Revel, a University of Michigan dating app that doubles as a research tool to study relationship dynamics. Meanwhile, Ruby Lai examined Hong Kong’s subdivided flats, Musa Al-Gharbi […]

“Dr Burawoy was one of the few senior sociologists who stood unequivocally against the genocide. He did so loudly and eloquently, never declining a request to speak or write on the matter. What an absolute gem of a human.” – Eman Abdelhadi, posted on X Professor Michael Burawoy, our beloved colleague, mentor, and friend, passed […]

Ethan Kutlu, “Now You See Me, Now You Mishear Me: Raciolinguistic accounts of speech perception in different English varieties,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 2023 Speech is not just about what we hear. Listeners make judgments about how they think people will talk using visual cues to make assumptions about a person’s age, gender […]

With the explosion of genetic ancestry testing, more and more Americans are connecting with new parts of their ethno-racial identities. But does a White suburban New Yorker finding out they are 4% Cherokee make them Indigenous? If they believe it does, what are the implications for our everyday understandings of racial identity? A new article […]

Baby Tooth Survey Pledge Card, Missouri Encyclopediahttps://missouriencyclopedia.org/groupsorganizations/baby-tooth-survey-st-louis  Nuclear fallout from nuclear testing 1951-1962Source: Originally from Under the Cloud: The Decades of Nuclear Testing by Richard Miller, and featured in Silent Fallout  From 1959-1970, the communities of Saint Louis, Missouri were tasked with a unique mission: sending in the teeth of children to a newly formed initiative called the […]

New & Noteworthy This week’s Clippings by Mallory Harrington includes Raka Ray and Geoffrey Pleyers’ reflections on the passing of Michael Burawoy, a towering figure in public sociology whose work shaped labor studies, ethnographic methods, and the discipline as a whole. Max Besbris commented on the rapid rebuilding of the Palisades after California’s wildfires, noting that wealthy […]

In a recent New York Times article, journalist Eli Tan shared his experiences using AI clones to improve his dating life. After programming these clones with information about his hobbies and mannerisms, he tasked them with evaluating potential matches. The clones interacted with other dating platform users—sometimes real people, sometimes other AI clones—through chat messages […]

When was the last time you heard someone say they wanted sex that was just “good”? Ever heard anyone wax nostalgic about an “average” sexual experience they had? Probably not. Whether scrolling through social media, thumbing through glossy magazine pages, or even in late-night chats with friends, the talk is always about making sex great. […]

Sarah Lageson and Robert Stewart, “The problem with criminal records: Discrepancies between state reports and private-sector background checks,” Criminology, 2024 Someone having their finger printed, being pressed down by another hand. Image by cottonbro studio under Pexels license. A background check can make or break someone’s future. Every day, people are denied jobs, housing, and […]

Jordyn is a first year PhD student in the Sociology Department at the University of Minnesota. Her interests lie on the perpetuation of gender inequality across intersecting dimensions of culture, media, race, gender, sexuality, socioeconomic status, and family.

Are you interested in discussing ethics in one of your sociology courses? This resource from ASA provides over a hundred case studies that can help facilitate discussion!

New & Noteworthy This week’s Clippings by Mallory Harrington includes Swiss sociologist and mental health advocate Jennifer Walter’s Threads post on the Trump administration’s “shock doctrine” to cognitively overwhelm citizens; Tonika Lewis Johnson and Maria Krysan’s new book, Don’t Go: Stories of Segregation and How to Disrupt It, highlighting how warnings to avoid Chicago’s South […]

It is late January 2025 and my eyes are still affixed to the websites and reels and headlines about the Los Angeles fires. A lot of my family and friends live there. I have spent the last two weeks texting people I know to see if they’re okay and following their temporary dislocation and participation […]

As an academic, I am driven by the following commitments: liberatory knowledge, sharing power, and critical application. These values inform my teaching and relationship building with students. In the spring of 2023, as a PhD student, I was approached with the opportunity to teach sociological theory at a private Catholic university. I was both excited […]

Let’s be real: taxes and fees stink. In Venezuela, a nation experiencing an ongoing political and economic crisis, nearly 52% of the workforce depends upon freelance work to make ends meet. In this context, many data workers trying to get paid are now subjected to a gauntlet of both international and domestic financial intermediaries—work platforms, […]

Michael James Walsh , “‘I’m also slightly conscious of how much I’m listening to something’: Music streaming and the transformation of music listening,” Media, Culture & Society, 2023 A phone with earphones plugged in, displaying the Spotify logo. “spotify musique mp3” by downloadsource.fr is licensed under CC BY 2.0. In 2016, Spotify launched a viral […]

Two events clashed in the past few days: January 27, International Holocaust Memorial Day, in 2025 witnessed the commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz Concentration and Extermination Camp. Many of the few remaining survivors came to the site of their suffering, together with many heads of state, to remember. From […]

TSP Board members Jordyn Wald, Emma Goldstein, Forrest Lovette discuss Tressie McMillan Cottom recent opinion piece in The New York Times on “Dry January”, or avoiding drinking alcohol during the month of January. This episode is produced by Forrest Lovette. Listen on Spotify