BJS 2009 Public Lecture Podcast
Bringing the Penal State Back In
Loic Wacquant and Nicola Lacey debate the need to bring the penal state back into the centre of the sociology of social inequaltiy, public policy and citizenship.
BJS 2009 ASA Annual Meeting Reception
American Sociological Association's Annual Meeting, San Francisco, 8th - 11th August
BJS 2009 ASA Annual Meeting Reception
Monday 10th August, 6.30 - 8.10pm
Plaza B, Lobby Level, Hilton San Francisco.
Professor John Torpey will be speaking on
Religion: What Is To Be Done?
In his talk, Professor John Torpey will address recent developments in the sociology of religion and their significance for the discipline as a whole. In particular, he will discuss the debate over the nature and meaning of religion, the debate over secularization, and the recently discussed notion of a "post-secular" society. He will argue that these debates return us to vital issues that animated the discipline in its early formation and must return to the centre of our concern if the discipline is to remain relevant to contemporary life.
All welcome - Wine and canapés will be served
Meet Gillian Stevens, BJS Editor
Monday 10th August, 10.00 - 10.45am. At the Wiley-Blackwell Stand Gillian would be pleased to talk to you about the journal and how tosubmit your research.
Thinking Allowed Podcast
People seldom see crime itself. Instead, they see things they associate with the presence of crime - most famously 'broken windows'. In "Thinking Allowed", Professor Robert Sampson discussed his research into the link between objective conditions in the urban environment and people's perceptions of disorder and decline.
Listen to the exchange between Laurie Taylor and Rob Sampson
on Radio 4's 'Thinking Allowed' available NOW on the 'Thinking Allowed'| BBC Radio 4 website or listen again on Sunday 24 October at 24.15
BJS Podcasts Supporting 2008 Lecture 'Disparity in the Contemporary City' Professor Rob Sampson and Professor Richard Sennett, two of the world's foremost urban sociologists, debate the ideas presented at the BJS Lecture in two podcasts
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A debate based on the 2008 BJS Lecture| 'Disparity and Diversity in the Contemporary City: Social Order Revisited'| will appear in the March 2009 issue of the Journal featuring key academics and practitioners from sociology, criminology, and urban studies,
Photo by Tony Rinaldo)
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Contributors:
Robert Sampson: (pictured) Harvard University
Paul Gilroy (LSE)
Sophy Body-Gendrot (Sorbonne)
Tony Bottoms (Cambridge)
Diane E. Davies (MIT)
Richard Sennett (LSE)
P.O. Wikstrom (Cambridge)
Paul Wiles (Home Office)
Plus a response to the comments by Robert Sampson
A podcast of the lecture is now available on the Events website|
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BJS 2008 Annual Public Lecture
Diversity in the Contemporary City: City Social Order Revisited
Tuesday, 21 October 2009 at 6.30 p.m
The Sheikh Zahed Theatre (New Academic Building) LSE
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Speaker: Robert Sampson, (pictured) Henry Ford II Professor of the Social Sciences and Chair of Sociology, Harvard University
Respondent: Paul Gilroy, Anthony Giddens Professor of Social Theory, LSE
Chair: Richard T. Wright, BJS Editor, Curators' Professor Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Missouri-St. Louis
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This lecture looks at classic urban themes as they are manifested in the contemporary city, focusing on social reproduction of inequality, the meanings of disorder, and the link between the two. Points to be raised by the speaker will include:
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stigmatizing an area as crime-ridden or disorderly sets in motion a 'self-fulfilling prophecy'
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this social process predicts the future poverty status of a community even accounting for its present economic condition.
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as a result poverty and disorder are highly stable-in some cases across many decades, leading to durable inequality
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both residents and outsiders are more likely to perceived (or "see") see an area as disorderly if the population has a concentration of blacks, minorities, or immigrant groups
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even accounting for actual or observed levels of disorder
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ironically, however, and despite widespread views to the contrary, immigrant concentration appears to be related to lower levelsof violence and in U.S. cities at least, increasing revitalization of inner city areas
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the future of cities is bright, in part because of increasing diversity/immigration that is attracting the 'creative class'
A podcast of the lecture is now available on the Events Website ^
BJS 2008 ASA Annual Meeting Reception
ASA Annual Meeting Reception - Sunday 3rd August, 6.30-8.10pm, Independence East meeting room, Sheraton Boston. Wine and canapés will be served.
Craig Calhoun will be speaking on Altruistic Work: Humanitarian Assistance as Ethics, Politics and Profession
Humanitarian action has attracted enormous interest among educated young people, many of whom are willing to forgo higher paid occupations in favour of careers offering emergency relief and other assistance around the world. They are motivated by altruistic sentiments and deep commitments of the sort Weber called "value-rational": they understand humanitarian action as right in itself. But on the job they confront organizational demands to be efficient and prioritize, to raise funds, and to be accountable. This tension is defining of much "altruistic labour". For some individuals the ethical commitments transcend all else. Some become cynical. Others burn out. Still, in NGOs, UN agencies and other settings such careers proliferate
Humanitarianism provides an occasion for considering how bureaucratization, professionalization and early recruitment are changing a field previously more associated with "accidental" individual commitments in mid-career; and for exploring analogies such as working as a social movement organizer or indeed in other fields where a sense of calling may conflict with seeking a career or accepting demands for more calculating orientations.
All Welcome!
Sexual Politics, Torture, and Secular Time
The hugely popular BJS 2007 Annual Public Lecture given by Judith Butler is now available to download in BJS, Volume 59, Issue 1 (March 2008). Also appearing in the same issue are comments on the paper from:
Chetan Bhatt (Goldsmiths)
Jim Beckford (Warwick)
Linda Woodhead (Lancaster)
Suki Ali (LSE)
Tariq Modood (Bristol)
A response to these comments will be published in BJS, Volume 59, Issue 2 (June 2008) from: Judith Butler (University of California, Berkeley)
Be the first to read this FREE (available to all) issue online. Register to be emailed when this Issue is published online by clicking here, or follow the "Sign up for e-alerts" link and instructions on: www.blackwell-synergy.com/loi/bjos| .
Sexual Politics: the limits of Secularism, the Time of Coalition
Tuesday, 30 October 2007 at 6.30pm in the Old Theatre, LSE, Houghton Street, London, WC2A 2AE
This lecture considers the conditions for coalition that might exist between religious and sexual minorities through focusing on differential forms of state coercion. Several arguments have emerged in Europe and elsewhere, claiming that feminism and progressive sexual politics are threatened by new religious communities and the effects of Islam in particular and base their views on libertarian principles (feminism and progressive sexual politics rely on increasingly robust conceptions of personal liberty) and on criticisms of multiculturalism (cast as a relativist enterprise that is unable to ground strong normative claims). Such arguments tend to rely on conceptions of sexual or gender freedom which presume certain conceptions of secular progress and to forget or dismiss conceptions of sexual politics that are bound to anti-racist struggle. Without denying that clear tensions exist between religious traditions that condemn and forbid homosexuality and progressive sexual movements that tend to promote exclusionary conceptions of the secular, the lecture focuses on the importance of conceptions of cultural translation, antagonism, and the critique of state coercion to consider what'critical coalition' might mean for religious and sexual minorities.'
Speaker: Judith Butler, Maxine Elliot Professor, University of California, Berkeley
Respondent: Chetan Bhatt, Professor of Sociology, Goldsmith's College, London
Chair: Suki Ali, Sociology Department, LSE
A reception will follow in the Senior Common Room
(4th Floor , LSE Main Building Houghton St, London WC2A 2AE)