Part of the Critical Realism Network Webinar Series, the upcoming webinar is hosted by Professor Philip Gorski (Department of Sociology, Yale University) and Timothy Rutzou (Post-Doctoral Associate, Yale University) and addresses The Problem of Autonomy.

Wednesday, May 17th, 12:00-1:30 pm EST. Click here to register.

Brief Description: At the recent Values and Human Flourishing conference, a single issue continually emerged: how should we understand autonomy, and what place does it serve within ethical and political projects? Questions about autonomy, social solidarity, human dependency, and interdependency in many ways serve as the bridge between empirical research, social theory, ethics, and politics. Like the topic of structure and agency, the complex relationship between autonomy, dependency, and interdependency is a key problematic of social philosophy and sociology. The long tradition of Aristotle, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, David Hume, Immanuel Kant, G.W.F. Hegel, Karl Marx, Emile Durkheim, and Max Weber were all concerned with unpacking this problematic, often without shying away from addressing its moral, ethical, and political implications. Our modern understanding of autonomy is animated by this intellectual history and the many antimonies this tradition has generated.

How might critical realism help us to address or contribute to this contested history? The answer is not clear. In this webinar Gorski and Rutzou will discuss the manner in which critical realism might be able to help us navigate this problematic by providing an ontologically stratified view of self and society, and a complex account of causation. Where Gorski argues for a more Durkheimian turn, Rutzou argues for a more poststructuralist turn. Are such accounts compatible? Incompatible? Does the ontology advocated by critical realism necessarily entail certain ethical and political positions? Do certain positions become incoherent when one adopts a critical realist ontology? Or is critical realism morally, ethically, and politically promiscuous? The webinar will explore these issues.

Sponsored by the ERC Diasporas and Contested Sovereignty Project (DCS), September 26, 2017, in London. The workshop, “Migrants’ and Diaspora Responses to the Rise of Right-Wing Populism,” is dedicated to research on how migrant and diaspora communities respond to populist, anti-immigrant and ethno-nationalist movements. We will address research on whether, when and how migrants and diasporas mobilise; what groups or parties they choose as political allies; and whether radical-right parties themselves reach out to certain diasporas while rejecting others, among other questions. Radical-right populist movements have grown more potent in liberal democracies, yet there has been little academic focus on how migrant and diaspora populations react to these parties, although anti-immigration campaigning is at the core of populist activities.

The workshop will be held at the University of Warwick’s London site on September 26, 2017. Those interested in participating should a paper abstract (maximum 300 words) by 25 May, 2017 to Dr. Ben Margulies (b.margulies@warwick.ac.uk) and Dr. Maria Koinova (m.koinova@warwick.ac.uk).

SocArXiv will host the inaugural O3S: Open Scholarship for the Social Sciences symposium on October 26-27, 2017 at University of Maryland, College Park. We invite social science papers or presentations related to the following themes:

1. Research on any topic that includes open scholarship components. This may entail a demonstration case showing how to do an open scholarship project, providing data and code for results, working with collaborators, or other examples of open scholarship in practice.
2. Research about open scholarship itself. This may include mechanisms for making data and code public, workflow processes, publication considerations, citation metrics, or the tools and methods of open scholarship.
3. Research about replication and transparency. This includes both replication studies and research about replication and reproducibility issues.

Travel stipends of $1,000 will be available to a limited number of presenters. Submissions are due by June 1, 2017. Visit https://socy.umd.edu/centers/socarxiv-o3s-conference for details. Contact: socarxiv@gmail.com

McCamon, Holly, Verta Taylor, Jo Reger, and Rachel Einwohner (eds). 2017. The Oxford Handbook of U.S. Women’s Social Movement Activism. Oxford University Press.

Over the course of thirty-seven chapters, including an editorial introduction, this handbook provides a comprehensive examination of scholarly research and knowledge on a variety of aspects of women’s collective activism in the United States, tracing both continuities and critical changes over time. Women have played pivotal and far-reaching roles in bringing about significant societal change, and women activists come from an array of different demographics, backgrounds and perspectives, including those that are radical, liberal, and conservative. The chapters in the handbook consider women’s activism in the interest of women themselves as well as actions done on behalf of other social groups.

The volume is organized into five sections. The first looks at U.S. Women’s Social Activism over time, from the women’s suffrage movement to the ERA, radical feminism, third-wave feminism, intersectional feminism and global feminism. Part two looks at issues that mobilize women, including workplace discrimination, reproductive rights, health, gender identity and sexuality, violence against women, welfare and employment, globalization, immigration and anti-feminist and pro-life causes. Part three looks at strategies, including movement emergence and resource mobilization, consciousness raising, and traditional and social media. Part four explores targets and tactics, including legislative forums, electoral politics, legal activism, the marketplace, the military, and religious and educational institutions. Finally, part five looks at women’s participation within other movements, including the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, labor unions, LGBTQ movement, Latino activism, conservative groups, and the white supremacist movement.