Public Lecture: Religion in the City; Co-sponsored by Department of Theology & Department of Sociology

Religion is changing, cities are changing, and people are changing. The panel will explore how local communities create new social and religious symbols and structures outside the established religious institutions emerging from the peripheries, such as popular art, rap music, graffiti, tattoos, comics, and social performances. The event will occur at 5 pm on Thursday, March 13th, 2025, at Devlin 101 at Boston College.

Speakers will include Dr. Hugo José Suárez of UNAM Mexico City, author of Guadalupanos en París (2023) & Paris a diario (2022); Dr. Omar Rivera of Texas A&M University, author of Delimitations of Latin American Philosophy: Beyond Redemption (Indiana, 2019) and Andean Aesthetics and Anticolonial Resistance (Bloomsbury, 2021); Dr. Cleusa Caldeira of PUC Campinas, Brazil, member of the “Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians” and regional coordinator of the Brazil-Latin America Chapter of the "Circle of Concerned African Women Theologians", and a researcher for the “Beyond Global Violence Initiative” research project. Click here to register to attend the event!

Professor Best featured at Globe Events: Health Equity Day 2024

Professor Latrica Best was a featured panalist at Boston Globe's Health Equity Day 2024 event on June 12th. The panel was centered around equity and aging. The panel examines how people can improve the health status of a diverse population of older adults and empower all individuals to age with dignity and resilience. You can watch the panel linked here. 

Dr. Tara Pisani Gareau, Dr. Lijing Gao and Dr. Brian Gareau lead research on cranberry production

As previously reported by Phil Gloudemans of University Communications on July 2024, a research on the impact of climate change on cranberry production was recently published in PLOS Climate.

The research was led by Dr. Tara Pisani Gareau, Dr. Lijing Gao and Dr. Brian Gareau of Boston College. The research found that Massachusetts cranberry farmers—despite expressing less alarm about global warming than average Americans—are nonetheless modifying their practices to adapt to changing environmental conditions, allowing their viny plants to endure for the forseeable future. You can read about the article originally published on BC News by clicking the link here. You can read the full research by clicking the link here. 

Professor Juliet Schor has been named Honorary Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics

Sociology Professor Juliet Schor has been named the Honorary Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-Economics (SASE), which will be awarded in Limerick, Ireland in July. This prestigious honor is bestowed "on those select members who have distinguished themselves in their scholarly accomplishments, have the highest regard among their colleagues, and represent the mission of SASE in its truest version."

Congratulations to Ruilin Chen!

Ruilin Chen, Ph.D., has been awarded first prize by the National Institute of Justice as part of their "Innovations in Measuring Community Perceptions Challenge". Ruilin's entry proposes to use data from Airbnb property listings and customer reviews, particularly those classified under the "location" subcategory, to assess and quantify levels of fear of crime within communities. 

Ruilin proposes the application of computational methods, with a primary reliance on Large Language Models (LLMs), to extract neighborhood-specific information from the Airbnb dataset. The proposed text analysis process includes text classification, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling. Both supervised and unsupervised LLM-based text mining techniques would be used. This proposal illustrates how an existing data set can be used to measure community fear of crime. You can read the announcement and more on the official website of the National Institute of Justice by clicking here.

Professor Shawn McGuffey Wins SDAAG Best Paper Award

Congratulations to Professor Shawn McGuffey for winning the Southeastern Division of the American Association of Geographers' Best Paper Award! The paper, titled A Kentucky State of Mind: bell hooks' Feminist Geography of Subjectivity, examines the significance of the location of Kentucky to bell hooks' Black feminist theory through the analysis of her memoir, poetry, and other literary works. You can read the paper here.

Professor Juliet Schor as Chair of ASA Annual Meeting Redesign Committee

Professor Juliet Schor chaired the ASA Annual Meeting Redesign Committee, which aimed to produce new policies to improve the efficiency of meeting delivery in consideration of time and space. The committee also focused on the environmental impact of the conferences. Survey data were collected in 2022 and several challenges to the future of the annual conferences were recognized, which included a key provision on climate. The committee proposed an amended regional rotation which can produce a 39% reduction in emissions. You can read more about the report produced by Dr. Schor and her co-chair Dr. Pinheiro here.

Professor Josh Seim wins ASA Max Weber Distinguished Book Award of the Organizations, Occupations, and Work

Congratulations to Assistant Professor Josh Seim, who has won the Max Weber Distinguished Book Award of the Organizations, Occupations, and Work section of the American Sociological Association, for his book Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban Suffering (University of California Press). Drawing on field observations, medical records, and his own experience as a novice emergency medical technician, Seim reimagines paramedicine as a frontline institution for governing urban suffering. Bandage, Sort, and Hustle argues that the ambulance is part of a fragmented regime that is focused more on neutralizing hardships (which are disproportionately carried by poor people and people of color) than on eradicating the root causes of agony. Whether by compressing lifeless chests on the streets or by transporting the publicly intoxicated into the hospital, ambulance crews tend to handle suffering bodies near the bottom of the polarized metropolis.

Professor Lacee Satcher in Washington Post

Dr. Lacee Satcher was interviewed for and quoted in a recent news article in the Washington Post.  You can read the article "Environmental Racism and the Mysterious Cars Rusting in D.C. Woods" here. Congrats Dr. Satcher!

Professor Ali Kadivar on PBS

Dr. Ali Kadivar was interviewed for PBS’ “Story in the Public Square”. In the interview he discusses the latest wave of protests in Iran following the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini and the issues that continue to motivate demonstrators. You can watch and listen here. Congrats Dr. Kadivar!

Sociology PhD Student Matthew DelSesto Publishes Book

Sociology PhD student Matthew DelSesto has published a book with Bloomsbury Visual Arts Publishing, titled “Design and the Social Imagination”. You can learn more and order it here. Congratulations Matthew!