The Sociology Department's weekly colloquium brings in leading scholars from other colleges and universities, as well as from Penn, to present their current research and engage in discussion with faculty and graduate students. These lively exchanges are the main forum in which the department as a whole gathers. Each semester's colloquium schedule includes scholars doing research in a range of subfields and using varied methods. Regular attendance is an excellent way to learn about the latest research in the field and to stay in touch with colleagues.

Department of Sociology 2009-2010 Colloquium Series
Noon
103 McNeil Building
University of Pennsylvania
3718 Locust Walk Philadelphia, PA

FALL 2009
September 16, 2009 -
David Brady, Duke University
"More Than Just Nickels and Dimes: A Multi-Level Analysis of Working Poverty Across Affluent Democracies."

September 23, 2009 -
Jose Casanova, Georgetown University
"Secularizations, Religious Transformations, and Sacralizations."

September 30, 2009 –
Omar Lizardo, Notre Dame University
"Seeing Culture Like UNESCO: Uncovering the Building Blocks of Organizational Cognition during Unsettled Times."

October 7, 2009 –
Karyn Lacy, University of Michigan
"Growing Up Around Blacks: Strategic Assimilation in Middle-Class Suburbia"

October 21, 2009 –
Lynne Haney, New York University
"Offending Women: Power, Punishment, and the Regulation of Desire."

October 28, 2009 –
Shaun R. Harper, Penn - Graduate School of Education
"College Men without Gender: The Sociohistorical Origins of the Model Gender Majority Myth in American Higher Education."

November 4, 2009 –
Jeffrey Goodwin, NYU
“The Strange Disappearance of Capitalism from Social Movement Studies”

November 18, 2009 –
Kathleen Gerson, NYU
"The Unfinished Revolution: A New Generation Negotiates Gender, Work, and Family Change"

December 2, 2009 –
Melissa Wilde, Penn Sociology
“Creating the Kingdom of Heaven on Earth: Birth Control, Eugenics and Religion in the early Twentieth Century”

SPRING 2010

January 20, 2010 –
Philip Smith, Yale University
"Encounters with Rude Strangers in Public Places: A Systematic Investigation of Everyday Incivility'

January 27, 2010 –
Hannah Brueckner, Yale University
"Scripts in Adolescent Relationships"

February 17, 2010 –
Shamus Khan, Columbia University
“Privilege: The Education of an adolescent Elite at St. Paul School”

February 24, 2010 –
Mary Brinton, Harvard University
"TBA"

March 3, 2010 –
Ann Swidler, UC Berkeley
"TBA"

March 24, 2010 –
Mauro Guillen, Penn - Wharton
“Lottery as Social Networking”

March 31, 2010 –
Jonah Berger, Penn - Wharton
"TBA"

April 7, 2010 –
Jeff Manza, NYU
"TBA"

April 21, 2010 –
Agnes van Zanten, Observatoire Sociologique du Changement, CNRS, Paris
"The interweaving of cultural and economic capital in family school choice in France"

April 28, 2010 –
David Gibson, Penn Sociology
"TBA"

Culture is largely instantiated and reproduced through face-to-face interaction. At the same time, culture can be created and transformed in such encounters, when new ideas are infused with significance and old ones are found to be inadequate to the interactional challenges at hand. This workshop brings together faculty and students from several Penn and other Philadelphia-area colleges and universities for informal talks and discussion about culture and interaction. Some speakers present polished work, but the workshop aims to be useful to early-stage research, so most sessions center on research proposals and early drafts of papers.

The family is an important institution through which a host of social processes get played out. Thus, understanding family formation and functioning is especially important, particularly given the dramatic demographic changes of the last five decades. This workshop gives faculty members from various departments across the university, as well as graduate students in the Sociology and Demography graduate groups, the opportunity to present ongoing research on families and gender. Occasionally, individuals from outside of the university are invited to present their research. The workshop presentations are generally informal, and presenters are encouraged to leave time for feedback.

The colloquium of the Population Studies Center of the University of Pennsylvania meets most Mondays from 12:00pm (noon) until 1:00pm in Room 103 in the McNeil Building (3718 Locust Walk). Sessions start and end promptly. Attendees are invited to bring and eat their lunch. There is also the possibility of having lunch with our "out-of-town" colloquium speakers, please contact Karen L. Cook at klcook[at]pop.upenn.edu for details regarding specific dates. An * indicates the presentation is also sponsored by the Population Aging Research Center (PARC). For additional information about the colloquium series, please contact: Beth J Soldo at bsoldo [at]pop.upenn.edu.

For a complete list of presenters please go to
http://www.pop.upenn.edu/news_events/colloquium.html

Scholars have come to appreciate the complex, dynamic, and fluid nature of the concepts of race and ethnicity and the process of immigration—leaving a field that can seem disjointed, confusing, and at odds with itself. The race, ethnicity, and immigration workshops brings together interested graduate students and faculty to discuss and consider the critical sociological questions with which research continues to grapple in these fields. Through both formal presentations and informal discussion, the workshop strives to challenge assumptions, highlight important work, and engage theory and empirical work from both within and outside the academy on these topics. The workshop hopes to both offer members of the group the chance to present early-stage research and to bring in outside speakers to offer fresh insight from outside the workshop's membership.

The broad mission of this workshop is to promote and support social science research on urban affairs using participant observation and other ethnographic methods and techniques. This workshop brings together faculty and students from the entire University community as well as neighboring institutions in the Philadelphia area to present and discuss current research on a variety of issues relevant to contemporary urban life and the culture of cities. Past presentation and discussion topics include the religious diversity of urban neighborhoods; the political economy of civic arts and cultural festivals; the social lives of heroin users; and the relationship between community-based organizations and the urban poor. The workshop attracts an interdisciplinary group of regular participants not only from Sociology but also Anthropology, City Planning, Communication, Criminology, Family and Community Medicine, Folklore, History, Social Policy and Practice, Urban Studies, and Women’s Studies.

Fall 2009 Schedule