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Department of Sociology Newsletter

Issue 15: February 6, 2023
Happy new year to the Rutgers Sociology community!  

We have lots of good news to celebrate in this letter, including three dissertation defenses, several awards, and lots of BABIES!  I look forward to seeing you around campus for a number of exciting events this semester, beginning with our first colloquium of the semester featuring Aaron Kupchik on Wednesday at 11:30am, to be followed later with a wine and cheese pairing hour hosted by Steve Brechin from 3:30 - 4:30 pm in the library. You don't want to miss it!

Best wishes for an excellent spring semester.

Julie Phillips
Department Chair
Kevin McCarthy
Undergraduate Program Coordinator

Please welcome Kevin to the Sociology Department!
 
Kevin joined us in late November as our new undergraduate program coordinator, and we are thrilled to have him as a member of our team. Kevin is from the Boston area (Somerville, MA) and an alumnus of Boston College (1995). He moved to NJ in 2011 and began working at the Rutgers Department of Nutritional Sciences in 2012.  Along with his wife, Susan and their two kids, Cormac (17) & Jack (15), Kevin resides in Franklin Township. He plays music as a hobby and is a bass guitar player in a local originals rock group called Murdoch.  
Faculty Spotlight
Danielle Falzon

Danielle joined us in September, after completing her PhD in Sociology at Brown University.  It's great to have Danielle as one of our colleagues!  You can read more about Danielle and her research interests in this issue's Faculty Spotlight. 
Tell us a little bit about your research. 
 
I study power and inequality in climate change decision-making. In other words, I am interested in who gets to decide what we do about climate change, why, and with what effects. So far, my work has mainly focused on two venues: the UN climate negotiations and Bangladesh. At the UN climate negotiations I look at various ways that climate injustice persists through the negotiations and the decisions they produce. In Bangladesh, I have examined how global norms guide adaptation decision-making, such that Western ideals of modernity are diffused through adaptation projects (which are ultimately ineffective). I primarily consider myself an environmental and global & transnational sociologist, but I also engage consistently with scholarship on organizations, especially international organizations.
 
How did you become interested in sociology? 
 
I have been involved in sociology for a long time! In high school, I participated in a research program where I first dabbled in social science research and read some Durkheim. Then in college, I took an Intro Sociology course my first semester taught by my pre-major advisor, who soon hired me as her research assistant, helped me study social and environmental issues abroad, and encouraged me to declare a major. I wrote my senior thesis on nuclear energy and environmental justice and have stuck with environmental sociology ever since.
 
Tell us about your teaching interests and your plans for any new courses.
 
I plan to teach courses related to the environment, climate change, and development at the graduate and undergraduate level. This semester I am teaching an honors seminar called “From Colonialism to Climate Change” and I will be teaching a graduate course on “Environment and Development” in Spring 2024. I have enjoyed teaching Intro Soc and will continue to do so, and would like to teach some research methods courses in the future.
 
What book do you wish everyone would read?
 
It is so hard to choose just one, but I think everyone should read Bathsheba’s Demuth’s Floating Coast: An environmental history of the Bering Strait. It is beautifully written and weaves a compelling story of settler colonialism, capitalist and communist resource extraction, and the destruction of environments and cultures.
 
And finally, what do you like to do in your free time? 
 
I spend a lot of time at the dog park with my dog, Artemis. I love to stay active, running, biking, and taking adult gymnastics classes. I can often be found cooking Italian food while listening to a true crime podcast, or knitting and watching TV.
Dissertation Defenses
Congratulations to Ben Foley, who defended his dissertation entitled "The Young Patriots Organization and the Case for a Materialist Anti-Rasist Practice."
Congratulations to Lior Yohanani, who defended his dissertation entitled "Fighting to Belong: Diaspora Solders, Immigration, and National Identity in Israel."
Congratulations to Adrian Good, who defended his dissertation entitled "Between Satire and Sincerity: Duality in Stand-Up Comedy."
 
Master's Degree 2022-2023
October 2022 Degrees
Yung-Ying Chang (completed in June)
Kathryn Delgenio (completed in June)
Brent Hoagland (completed in May)
Anthony Landers (completed in May)
 
January 2023 Degree
Fatoumata Ceesay
 
May 2023 Degree
Frederic Traylor
Student Awards
Congratulations to Maria Espinoza, who is a recipient of this year's National Communication Association (NCA) Award along with Melissa Aronczyk Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Information and affiliated member of Sociology Grad faculty in the Public Relations division for Outstanding Book/Monograph, for their co-authored book. A Strategic Nature: Public Relations and the Politics of American Environmentalism.
Congratulations to Endia Hayes who won the SAS Distinguished Teaching Award in 2022 for her outstanding instruction as a Teaching Assistant. 
Faculty Awards
Professor Thomas Davidson received a $50,000 Foundational Integrity Research award from Meta to support his experimental research on the perceptions of online hate speech.
Congratulations Tom!
 
 
Professor Hana Shepherd and co-PI Janice Fine and the Minneapolis Labor Standards Enforcement Division, received a WorkRise grant (through the Urban Institute) for studying an intervention to improve labor standards in small businesses in Minneapolis, “Small Business High-Road Labor Standards Intervention"
Congratulations Hana!
Publications

PhD Candidate Marilyn Baffoe-Bonnie published "Lived experience with sickle cell disease: Predictors of altruistic participation in clinical research" in Social Science & Medicine. The article examines what aspects of the sickle cell disease lived experience are associated with reporting altruistic motivations for participating in clinical research. 
 

Graduate student Endia Hayes did a podcast episode highlighting her article, coauthored with Norah MacKendrick and entitled "Leave no Stone Unturned" (Gastronomica 2022).  They have been invited to present this work in a panel at the annual conference for the 2023 American Society of Environmental History.
 

Paul Hirschfield has published an article in Annual Review of Criminology entitled "Exceptionally Lethal: American Police Killings in a Comparative Perspective." This article relies on systematic comparisons across 18 countries to derive explanations of both high and low rates of deadly force.
 
Joanna Kempner co-edited a special issue of Biomedical Citizen Science." Citizen Science: Theory and Practice. (special issue, 2022). Editors: Christi Guerrini, Joanna Kempner, Lisa Rasmussen, Anna Wexler. 
 
  • Guerrini, Christi J., Joanna Kempner, Lisa M. Rasmussen, Anna Wexler (2022) Diverse, emergent, disruptive: perspectives on and developments in biomedical citizen science. Citizen Science: Theory & Practice. 7(1), p.36. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.598.
     
  • Bailey, John, Joanna Kempner (2022) “Standards without Labs: Drug Development in the Psychedelic Underground.” Citizen Science: Theory & Practice.7(1): 41. DOI: http://doi.org/10.5334/cstp.527.
     

Norah MacKendrick and Hannah Troxel published a joint article in Social Science & Medicine:2022. "Like a Finely-Oiled Machine: Self-help and the Elusive Goal of Hormone Balance.".  Social Science & Medicine, 309, 115242.


Graduate student Aaron Martin, affiliated faculty member Jeff Lane, and faculty member Hana Shepherd (along with a SCI graduate student, Holly Avella, have an article forthcoming at Law and Society Review, “Outside the Brackets: Why School Administrators Fail to See Gendered Harassment within an Antibullying Law.”
 

Arlene Stein wrote an essay about why the US rightwing is attacking schools and teachers--and what we can do about it

Undergraduate News
Mark the date!  The Sociology Commencement Ceremony will be held on April 26, 2023.

We look forward to celebrating with you then and marking your terrific accomplishments as you complete your degrees.
Rutgers Sociology is now on Instagram.  You can start following us here! 
https://www.instagram.com/rutgers_sociology/ 
Mark the Date! Our fantastic honors students will be presenting their theses, on which they have been working all year under the tutelage of Professor Paul McLean, on April 12, beginning at 9am.  A lunch will follow the presentations.  Please plan on joining us.
Associate Professor Luncheon
Scenes from our holiday event.
Happy 2023 to all!
Sad News

We are sorry to share the news of the passing of two former colleagues.
Anne Foner passed away September 28, 2022 at 101 years old. A member of the first graduating class of Queens College in 1941, Anne returned to graduate school 20 years later and received a Ph.D. in sociology from NYU. She went on to a distinguished career at Rutgers University where she chaired the sociology department, was author of many books and articles on aging and society, and, upon retirement, was honored with a fellowship in her name.
Cathy Greenblat passed away October 31 2022 at the age of 82. She took an early retirement in 2002 after 38 years as a member of the Department of Sociology, WGSS, and the Bloustein School of Planning. Since then, she had been a Professor Emerita of Sociology at Rutgers and had honorary appointments at Glasgow Caledonian University, the University of Lancaster, and the University of Nice. The author of 15 books and more than 100 articles, Cathy lectured in the USA, Latin America, Eastern and Western Europe, Russia, Ghana, Cameroon, the Philippines, China, Australia, and Japan. Since her retirement, she was engaged in personal cross-cultural photographic projects on aging, dementia, and end of life care, with collaborations with several organizations, particularly Alzheimer’s Disease International (ADI).
Alumni News
Ronald Cosper was appointed to the Board of the CURAC (College and University Retirees Association of Canada).  He will be speaking to their annual meeting at the University of Saskatchewan June 1, 2023, on “History of CURAC”.  This organization is analogous to AROHE in the United States.

Former grad student Gerry Gioglio, a Vietnam vet, who graduated in the 80s, has come out with a book about his experiences in the Army and as a C.O.   

 

Stephanie Pena-Alves began a new job as a Lead User Experience Researcher at Cisco Meraki.

Ian Watson has been named editor of the New York Genealogical and Biographical Record, which published its first issue in 1870 and is now the nation's second-oldest scholarly genealogical journal, published by the New York Genealogical and Biographical Society. For more details, see the official announcement.

Patrick Carr was mentioned in the New York Times: Republicans Are Riding High on ‘Place-Based Resentment’ The anger felt by rural voters toward the Democratic Party is driving a regional realignment.

Faculty member Karen A. Cerulo and Graduate Alumna Janet M. Ruane have done several media appearances for their new book Dreams of a Lifetime: How Who We Are Shapes How We Imagine Our Future, including:

Leslie Jones has been in the news this week.  After her scholarship and expertise in Black Lives Matter was referenced as a potential resource for teachers who were reviewing the early design of an AP course in African American Studies, Leslie was singled out in an infographic outlining Florida’s reason for rejecting the course. Read about the issue in the Associated Press and The Washington Post. You can read Leslie's response in a compelling op-ed in CNN and a Q&A with SAS here

Joanna Kempner
  • is on a visiting position at Princeton's Center for Health and Wellbeing this Spring. 
  • received two small grants: Research Grants, Archival Research and Open Access Fees, Porta Sophia Psychedelic Prior Art Library.
  • gave an invited keynote: “The Social Life of Psilocybin: Past, Present and Future.” 2nd Annual Neuroscience Conference on the topic of The Neuroscience of Hallucinogens in Treating Depression and PTSD. Montclair State University. October 14th, 2022. 


Norah MacKendrick was interviewed about her work on the regulation of toxic consumer products on the podcast "Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness". You can access the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Stitcher.


Marty Oppenheimer completed leading a course on "The Sociology and Psychology of Oppression" for Princeton's Evergreen Forum in November. The course was extended one session by popular demand.

Arlene Stein's "Moral Panics Never Go Out of Style: On the Corrosive Effects of the Culture Wars" was featured in LitHub. The essay is from the new edition of her book "The Stranger Next Door, Or How the Right Divides Us," published by Beacon Press.
 
Five of Eviatar Zerubavel's books are currently being translated into other languages.
  • Hidden in Plain Sight -- Italian
  • Generally Speaking -- Turkish
  • Time Maps -- Chinese
  • Social Mindscapes -- Italian
  • Taken for Granted -- Farci (Persian)
Last August, Eviatar was interviewed on a New Books Network (NBN) podcast about his book Generally Speaking: An Invitation to Concept-Driven Sociology and in October, he was quoted in a Wall Street Journal story about genealogy and oral family history.
BABIES, BABIES!
Congratulations to Ricardo Martinez-Schuldt and Karam Hwang on the birth of their daughter, Haesol Marifer Martinez-Hwang, who arrived on January 21, 2023.
Congratulations to Quan Mai and his family on the birth of their daughter -- Madison Tue-Minh Mai -- who was born on November 20, 2022.
Congratulations to Maria Espinoza and her family on their new addition.  Welcome Catalina Espinoza-Welsh, born on December 29, 2022.
Steve Brechin and his wife Nancy Cantor became grandparents to a new granddaughter, Violet Ariane Philipp, born on February 2. Violet joins her older brother Max. Congratulations, Steve and Nancy!
Please join us for our 2023 SBS Dean's Lecture
Please share your news and events for inclusion in the next department newsletter.
 
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