Public Sociology Graduate Conference “Borderlands in Academia, Activism, and Policy”

Saturday, October 20, 2012 9:00 AM EDT

Social problems are not black and white issues.  In order to understand their complexity and breadth, knowledge from a number of different academic disciplines must be considered.  Opportunities to uncover and synthesize such knowledge are few and far between, however.  As such, George Mason University is announcing its second annual public sociology graduate conference.  This year’s theme isan attempt to create a dialogical space conducive to the synthesis of knowledge across various disciplines in the social sciences and humanities.

This conference seeks varied submissions on social topics, including but not limited to age, race, gender, class, sexualities, work, communication and media, education, families, organizations, institutions, collective behavior, social justice, human rights, and political, economic, and civil societies.  Paper submissions can hail from many different academic disciplines, but the focus of the paper must be related to the overall “flavor” of public sociology.  We also encourage undergraduate students to submit a proposal for one of our Undergraduate Roundtable Sessions.  These roundtable sessions will provide an opportunity for advanced undergraduate students to share works related to public sociology, while also receiving valuable feedback from peers and graduate students alike.

In addition to an abstract, submitters should include a reflexive statement describing how their papers engage with public sociology.  Possible forms of reflexive statements include:

• How research findings inform public debates, including proposed or implemented policies, media narratives, and social problems.
• How concepts or findings might be used to empower affected groups and promote more equitable social relations.
• How concepts or findings might be made accessible to more diverse publics in a manner that takes into account their languages, cultural practices, and perspectives.
• How papers relate to authors’ personal commitments to one or more subject matters therein, including political or activist causes

Abstracts and reflexive statements of no more than 500 words each and a current CV should be sent to gmusocgrads@gmail.com with “Conference Proposal” in the subject line by June 15th, 2012. Please include the title, presenter’s name, institutional affiliation, contact information, A/V requests, and any special needs required.  Abstracts and statements should be sent as Word documents (.doc).

Sponsored by the Graduate Student Sociological Association, Public Sociology Association, and Department of Sociology and Anthropology at George Mason University. GMU is located just outside of Washington, DC in Fairfax, VA. This conference is the first in an attempt to allow graduate students to engage their research in ways that move beyond the standard academic setting.

One student’s reflection on presenting at the conference last year can be found here.