Department of Sociology

Professor Neil Gong’s new book Sons, Daughters, and Sidewalk Psychotics was published in March by the University of Chicago Press. In the book, Professor Gong explains why mental health treatment in Los Angeles rarely succeeds, for the rich, the poor, and everyone in between. His comparative approach reminds us that every “sidewalk psychotic” is also a beloved relative and that the kinds of policies we support likely depend on whether we see those with mental illness as a public social problem or as somebody’s kin.

Click here for more details:
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/S/bo212067953.html

You can also listen to a podcast about the book:
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://player.fm/series/new-books-network-2472510/neil-gong-sons-daughters-and-sidewalk-psychotics-mental-illness-and-homelessness-in-los-angeles-u-chicago-press-2024__;!!Mih3wA!H9HNl9RaIg38Hl1hWwHKXgHyEyIHhZhFBN9isDQgrg2MVrr7shTe-xC32LYVEJcBnh8abU2ievFbod2dCdXr$

Professor Juan Pablo Pardo-Guerra 2022’s book The Quantified Scholar (Columbia University Press) examines the effects of quantitative research evaluations on British social scientists. He argues that the mission to measure academic excellence resulted in less diversity and more disciplinary conformity. The Quantified Scholar was reviewed in London Review of Books by John Whitfield. You can check out the review here:
https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v45/n02/john-whitfield/a-bit-of-everything

With the support of Assistant Teaching Professor Michel Estefan, a group of sociology majors have formed a new undergraduate organization known as “Sociology Community.” The group had their first preparatory meeting on January 22, 2024. According to convenor Amber Fig, “Our main goal is to become a resource center for undergraduate sociology students, whether that be releasing opportunities for research/internships; helping plan classes, and even study hours to assist with homework. We want sociology students to feel like there is a place for them to turn to!

The group recently held a second meeting. They invited Professor Kevin Lewis to give a mini-lecture on the sociology of love. The organization plans to hold another event about applying to graduate schools in the near future.

This is the linktree for the new undergraduate organization with all their social media handles: https://linktr.ee/socicomm

The book reveals how STEM work drives away bright graduates as a result of  “burn and churn” management practices, lack of job security, constant training for a neverending stream of new—and often socially harmful—technologies, and the exclusion of women, people of color, and older workers. Wasted Education shows that if we have any hope of improving the return on our STEM education investments, we have to change the way we’re treating the workers on whom our future depends.

For further details, go to https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo206855230.html#:~:text=Wasted%20Education%3A%20How%20We%20Fail,%2C%20Engineering%2C%20and%20Math%2C%20Skrentny

Here is the link to an interview with Professor Skrentny.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the disruptions of climate change are features of post-normal times. In the book, Professor Thorpe contends that the modern project of creating normalcy within the nation state has broken down. Integral to this is sociology, which is the science of social reform. Drawing from the work of seminal theorists such as Zygmunt Bauman and Anthony Giddens, Thorpe contends that sociology’s “society” is no longer viable because globalization has put an end to social reform, thus the assumptions and goals of sociology must be left behind in order to create a new global humanity. In the face of the pandemic and climate change, Sociology in Post-Normal Times demands no less than the birth of a global humanity beyond nation states as the precondition for human survival.

For more information, see:
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781793625984/Sociology-in-Post-Normal-Times