While the category “Transgender” has come to represent gender variance globally, this has not always been the case. Transnationally, there is wide variation in how people have understood gender variance and its relationship to a male/female binary, the sexed body, and sexual desire. Given this multiplicity, how has Transgender come to describe different forms of gender variance around the world?

In this presentation, Professor Jacobs will briefly sketch some highlights of the history of sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. The first Professor of Social Science at Penn – Robert Ellis Thompson – was appointed in 1874. Sociology became a major field of study in the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce in 1924 and was established as a stand-alone department in the newly-formed School of Arts and Sciences in 1974.

Courtney Boen, Assistant Professor and Axilrod Faculty Fellow in Sociology and Graduate Group in Demography, Talk title: "The Scars of Legal Violence: Local immigration enforcement, state immigrant policy, & population health inequality”

The content that circulates on social media platforms often features “drama,” or acrimonious interpersonal exchanges and inflammatory takes involving highly popular users. This article adapts field theory to examine the dynamics structuring these exchanges, which I analyze as contentious position-takings within fields of social media production, created and mediated by social media platforms. To demonstrate the relevance of this framework for the study of social media content, I draw on a qualitative study of vegan influencers on YouTube and Instagram.