Find the section schedule for ASA here.
Monday, August 12, 2019
8:30 to 9:30 am
Sheraton New York, Second Floor, Empire Ballroom East
Theory Section Refereed Roundtables
Organizer: Jordanna Matlon (American University)
9:30 to 10:10am
Sheraton New York, Second Floor, Empire Ballroom East
Theory Section Business Meeting
10:30 am to 12:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Chelsea
Social Theory and Social Data
Organizer: Kieran Healy (Duke University)
Social theory has a productive but uneasy relationship with the data sources of its time. Theorists often of necessity go "beyond the data" as they make their arguments, but fruitful periods of theoretical innovation tend to coincide with the development of new tools for collecting and analyzing data. This session will explore the practical relationship between theory and data, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities facing social theory in an era often characterized by the scale, scope, and social character of data.
Presider: Kieran Healy (Duke University)
Presenters:
Discussant: Juan-Pablo Pardo-Guerra (UC San Diego)
2:30 to 4:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Chelsea
Social Theory and Social Decay: Illiberalism, Autocracy, Violence
Organizer: Marion Fourcade (University of California- Berkeley)
This panel will be devoted to analyzing the transformation of social and political bodies as illiberalism, autocracy and violence take root. Panelists are invited to reflect on how old and new waves of exclusion, destruction and democratic decline throughout the world challenge both existing social theories and the practices and policies these theories might have inspired.
Presider: Marion Fourcade (University of California-Berkeley)
Presenters
Discussant: Miguel Centeno (Princeton University)
4:30 to 6:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Gramercy
Lewis A. Coser Lecture and Salon
Presider: Greta Krippner (University of Michigan)
Presenter: Julian Go (Boston University), Race, Agency and the Epistemics of Empire
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
8:30 to 10:10am
Sheraton New York, Third Floor, Liberty 1
Social Theory for Our Grandchildren: Humanity’s Future in Theoretical Perspective
Organizer: Rebecca Elliott (London School of Economics) and Marion Fourcade (University of California-Berkeley)
While sociologists have always been keenly interested in the future conditions and likely trajectories of humanity, they are perhaps more reluctant “futurologists” than are other social scientists. This session rejects this reticence. What might the social, economic, and political world of our grandchildren look like? How do existing social theories help us make predictions about it, and/or do we need to craft new social theories to understand it? Panelists are invited to take up questions of what is likely to continue and what could – or must – change, in relation to any number of topics (e.g. climate change, genetics, artificial intelligence, war, populism, multiculturalism, capitalism, etc… ).
Presider: Alondra Nelson, Columbia University, Social Science Research Council and Institute for Advanced Study
Presenters:
2:30 to 4:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Sugar Hill
Social Theory and Social Progress: Freedom, Solidarity, Democracy, Equality
Organizer: Christopher Muller (University of California-Berkeley)
This panel is devoted to the past and present uses of social and political theory for crafting hopeful futures. Panelists will explore—and critique—the ethical foundations, concrete implementations, and prospective designs that have fostered or may foster practices that enhance solidarity, freedom, democracy, and equality. Panelists are invited to reflect on the successes and failures of these efforts, as well as on the role that the social sciences have played, or might play, in them.
Presider: Christopher Muller (University of California-Berkeley)
Presenters:
6:30 to 8:30pm
Papillon Bistro & Bar
22 E 54thSt, New York, NY 10022
Theory Section reception
joint with the Culture section and the History of Sociology section
8:30 to 9:30 am
Sheraton New York, Second Floor, Empire Ballroom East
Theory Section Refereed Roundtables
Organizer: Jordanna Matlon (American University)
9:30 to 10:10am
Sheraton New York, Second Floor, Empire Ballroom East
Theory Section Business Meeting
10:30 am to 12:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Chelsea
Social Theory and Social Data
Organizer: Kieran Healy (Duke University)
Social theory has a productive but uneasy relationship with the data sources of its time. Theorists often of necessity go "beyond the data" as they make their arguments, but fruitful periods of theoretical innovation tend to coincide with the development of new tools for collecting and analyzing data. This session will explore the practical relationship between theory and data, with a focus on the challenges and opportunities facing social theory in an era often characterized by the scale, scope, and social character of data.
Presider: Kieran Healy (Duke University)
Presenters:
- Philip Soeren Brandt (University of Mannheim), Data (and) Science(s): The Double Movement of Continuity and Experimentation in Knowledge Production
- Vincent Yung (Northwestern University), Sociometry and Group Dynamics: Early Visions for the Quantification of Social Structure
- Jen Schradie (Sciences Po), The Great Equalizer Reproduces Inequality: How the Digital Divide is a Class Power Divide
- Angèle Christin (Stanford University), Theorizing Data: A Typology of Effects
Discussant: Juan-Pablo Pardo-Guerra (UC San Diego)
2:30 to 4:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Chelsea
Social Theory and Social Decay: Illiberalism, Autocracy, Violence
Organizer: Marion Fourcade (University of California- Berkeley)
This panel will be devoted to analyzing the transformation of social and political bodies as illiberalism, autocracy and violence take root. Panelists are invited to reflect on how old and new waves of exclusion, destruction and democratic decline throughout the world challenge both existing social theories and the practices and policies these theories might have inspired.
Presider: Marion Fourcade (University of California-Berkeley)
Presenters
- Jason Ferguson (University of California-Berkeley), The Great Refusal: The West, the Rest and the Geopolitics of Homosexuality
- Aliza Luft (University of California-Los Angeles), Connecting Symbolic to Physical Violence and the Possibilities for Disruption.
- Kim Scheppele (Princeton University), The Life and Death of Constitutional Democracy
- Evan Schofer (University of California-Irvine), Julia C. Lerch (UC Irvine), and John W. Meyer (Stanford University), Illiberal attacks on the university: political repression of higher education 1975-2018.
Discussant: Miguel Centeno (Princeton University)
4:30 to 6:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Gramercy
Lewis A. Coser Lecture and Salon
Presider: Greta Krippner (University of Michigan)
Presenter: Julian Go (Boston University), Race, Agency and the Epistemics of Empire
Tuesday, August 13, 2019
8:30 to 10:10am
Sheraton New York, Third Floor, Liberty 1
Social Theory for Our Grandchildren: Humanity’s Future in Theoretical Perspective
Organizer: Rebecca Elliott (London School of Economics) and Marion Fourcade (University of California-Berkeley)
While sociologists have always been keenly interested in the future conditions and likely trajectories of humanity, they are perhaps more reluctant “futurologists” than are other social scientists. This session rejects this reticence. What might the social, economic, and political world of our grandchildren look like? How do existing social theories help us make predictions about it, and/or do we need to craft new social theories to understand it? Panelists are invited to take up questions of what is likely to continue and what could – or must – change, in relation to any number of topics (e.g. climate change, genetics, artificial intelligence, war, populism, multiculturalism, capitalism, etc… ).
Presider: Alondra Nelson, Columbia University, Social Science Research Council and Institute for Advanced Study
Presenters:
- Zeke Baker (University of California-Davis), A Political Genealogy of Meteorological Government
- Lindsey A. Freeman (Simon Fraser University), Cosmonaut in the Post Office: A Sociology of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone
- Albert J. Bergesen (University of Arizona), Max Weber in Outer Space
- Jacob Gates Foster (University of California-Los Angeles), Is Sociology Ready for its Copernican Moment?
2:30 to 4:10pm
Sheraton New York, Lower Level, Sugar Hill
Social Theory and Social Progress: Freedom, Solidarity, Democracy, Equality
Organizer: Christopher Muller (University of California-Berkeley)
This panel is devoted to the past and present uses of social and political theory for crafting hopeful futures. Panelists will explore—and critique—the ethical foundations, concrete implementations, and prospective designs that have fostered or may foster practices that enhance solidarity, freedom, democracy, and equality. Panelists are invited to reflect on the successes and failures of these efforts, as well as on the role that the social sciences have played, or might play, in them.
Presider: Christopher Muller (University of California-Berkeley)
Presenters:
- Ruha Benjamin (Princeton University), Real Utopias & Racial Fictions: Experimenting with Speculative Methods from DuBois to Data4BlackLives
- Monica Prasad (Northwestern University), Did it Work in Theory? Lessons from Graduate Students Conducting Problem-Solving in Sociology
- Suresh Naidu (Columbia University), Title TBA
- Elizabeth Wrigley-Field (University of Minnesota), Contagion and Consent, Autonomy and Expertise: Democracy in the Context of Infection Disease.
6:30 to 8:30pm
Papillon Bistro & Bar
22 E 54thSt, New York, NY 10022
Theory Section reception
joint with the Culture section and the History of Sociology section
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