Some things people are Bringing Back In at ASA 2012 later this week: Animals, Hegel, Gender, Migration, Utopia, Materiality, the Generalized Other, Theory. Some things we are going Beyond at ASA 2012 later this week: the Glass Ceiling, Geneticization, the Individual, Growth and Neoliberalism, the Normal v Deviant, the Cost Structure, the Fact/Value antagonism, the Black/White divide. Some things we are After at ASA 2012 later this week: Globalization, 9/11, Gouldner, the Flood, the Afterschool Special, Socialism, Retirement, Occupy. Some things that are a Paradox at ASA 2012 later this week: Public Space, Empowerment, Suicide, Internet Privacy, Fictive Kinship, Carbon, Authenticity, Global Schizophrenia, Mexican Developmental Institutions, Food Stamps and Obesity. Some things being Revisited at ASA 2012 later this week: Embedded Autonomy, Trivers-Willard, Becoming White, Secularism, Gender Violence, Marginal Man. Things that will be found to be Relational at ASA 2012 later this week: Mechanisms, Ontologies of Individuality, Ethnic Identity, Carework, Dynamics, Events, Political Culture, Signaling, Perspectives, Understanding, Process, and Models.
To my surprise, however, only one thing is being Reconsidered, and we are not Taking anything Seriously.
{ 20 comments }
J. Otto Pohl 08.13.12 at 1:33 pm
Interesting that most of these phrases describe very general themes rather than specific topics. Other than Mexican Developmental Institutions I don’t see any other titles here with national or geographic descriptors. Although a few like Food Stamps and Obesity and 9/11 are clearly about the US. Is Sociology today largely focused on general themes without reference to specific nations and areas? Or do these descriptions not provide very good information on the actual contents of the papers?
Kieran 08.13.12 at 1:40 pm
I pulled out what the cliché word modifies, but the titles and paper topics are generally more specific.
Matt 08.13.12 at 2:29 pm
I thought about taking some stuff seriously, but then I revisited the impulse and am now beyond it.
Yarrow 08.13.12 at 4:23 pm
Next year, then: Reconsideration Reconsidered
Sandwichman 08.13.12 at 4:49 pm
Rethinking Rethinking.
William Burns 08.13.12 at 4:55 pm
Nobody’s Gendering anything?
js. 08.13.12 at 5:00 pm
No one’s exploring anything? Not even a relational paradox?
bjk 08.13.12 at 5:31 pm
This screams out for Wordle.
Substance McGravitas 08.13.12 at 6:12 pm
It turns out there are very few plans to Handle anything.
Matt 08.13.12 at 6:17 pm
I’m also very sorry that nothing is being sexed. Have academics stopped sexing things? (Are epistemologists even still sexing chickens? I thought that was one place where we could get a analytic philosophy/cultural studies cross-over going.)
Satan Mayo 08.13.12 at 6:18 pm
Toward nothing, but Beyond quite a few things.
Dave 08.13.12 at 6:20 pm
Goody! I love ontologies of individuality (but also going beyond them)! And I am sure I’m not the only person who is very interested in 9/11.
Satan Mayo 08.13.12 at 6:25 pm
Marginal Man was already Revisited in 1960 and again in 2004, though the last one might have been a quickie tie-in to maintain the rights. Anyway I’m getting so sick of these reboots.
heebie-geebie 08.13.12 at 6:32 pm
I’ll be there! But mostly undercover.
SusanC 08.13.12 at 6:49 pm
I take your point about the customary convention for paper titles (this is the beginnings of a sociology of sociologists, I guess…). On the other hand, given a title like “Global Schizophrenia Paradox” I have a pretty good idea what the paper is going to be about (on investigation my guess turns out to be right: The Global Schizophrenia Paradox: Stigma and Levels of Development, Jack K Martin et al), so these cliches are doing a reasonable job of letting the potential reader know what kind of thing they’re letting themselves in for.
Bill Barnes 08.13.12 at 7:03 pm
Actually, this is goping to be a great meeting. I’m a political scientist, Latin Americanist, never gone to an ASA before, but ASA president Erik Wright has put together a great program, including major roles for Claus Offe and other big thinkers, and lots of environmentalism. Given that CT has been saying for a year or more that it’s going to do one of its book events on Wright’s Envisioning Real Utopias, the level of the reactions on this thread is disappointing (would be different if the comments were actually funny).
Bill Barnes 08.13.12 at 7:04 pm
Oops – “goping” may be expecting too much.
SusanC 08.13.12 at 7:12 pm
(sorry, closing italics)
J— 08.13.12 at 8:18 pm
Bringing Back In … Your Mother
Works for most of them.
Philip 08.17.12 at 12:25 pm
You forgot ‘The […] Turn.’ Surely there were some of those. Everyone wants to name a ‘turn.’ Free citations for life.
Comments on this entry are closed.