From an interview with the co-editors of the issue:

Evren Savci: We align ourselves with transnational and anti-imperialist feminists who problematize “woman” as a universal category that is assumed to represent shared interests that follow from core elements of experience and existence that are also assumed to be shared among women. The volume brings together key empirical examples from around the world that demonstrate the limitations of such assumptions, and tries to think about alternative epistemologies that will lead to a more promising and relevant feminist politics.

The issue contains contributions by Savina Balasubramanian, Elizabeth Berstein, Jennifer Carlson, Kimberly Hoang, Ann Orloff and Talia Shiff, and Evren Savci, and is available here.

Reception and Business Meeting

Joint Reception with Global & Transnational Sociology and Sociology of Culture

Saturday, August 20, 6:30pm

Section on Political Sociology Business Meeting

Sunday 1:30-2:10pm

Sat, Aug 20

4:30pm

147. Regular Session. Political Sociology 2

Session Organizer: Rebecca R. Scott, University of Missouri-Columbia

Presider: Joshua Edward Olsberg, National University

Has the Tea Party Radicalized the Political Conversation? Suggestions from the 2012-2016 Republican Primary Debates. David R. Dietrich, Texas State University

The Political Epistemics of Rural Conservatism. Philip George Lewin, Florida Atlantic University

The Politicization of Immigration and Welfare: A New Swedish Dilemma. Maureen A. Eger, Umeå University; Joakim Kulin, Stockholm University

Neoliberal Spirit as an Oppositional Political Culture in Turkey’s Gezi Park Movement. Onur Kapdan, UCSB

On Shaky Ground: Power,Spatial Inequality and the Politics of Energy Development. Peter M. Hall, Colorado State University; Stacia S. Ryder, Colorado State University

6:30pm

Joint Reception with Global and Transnational and Culture

Sun, Aug 21

8:30am

191. Section on Political Sociology Invited Session. Political Representation in Crisis? Movements, Parties, and New Activisms

Session Organizer: Gianpaolo Baiocchi, NYU

10:30am

226. Section on Political Sociology Paper Session. How Political Culture Matters

Session Organizer: Paul R. Lichterman, University of Southern California

Presider: Genevieve Zubrzycki, University of Michigan

Collective Memories, Political Culture, and Policy: The Case of Irish Humanitarianism. Joachim J. Savelsberg, University of Minnesota

Geopolitical Cultures of Race and the Power of Modern Culture. Chandra Mukerji, University of California, San Diego

Political Cultures, Social Movement Dynamics, and the Life Course: Understanding the Impacts of Biographies on Mobilization. Pablo Lapegna, University of Georgia

Remaking Socialism: Ideology, Legitimacy and Economic Transformation in China, 1976-1992. Wen Xie, University of Chicago

Self-interest and Shared Struggle: The Role of Cultural Individualism in Multi-issue Social Justice Activism. Jack Delehanty, University of Minnesota; Michelle Oyakawa, The Ohio State University

Discussant: Paul R. Lichterman, University of Southern California

12:30-1:30pm

261. Section on Political Sociology Roundtable Session and Business Meeting

Roundtables Session Organizer: Rhys H. Williams, Loyola University Chicago

Table 1. Partisanship and Polarization

Table Presider: Kate Pride Brown, Georgia Institute of Technology

Associational Networks in America: Political Polarization on the Rise. Ya-Feng Lin; Isaiah Fink Avraham Cohen, Louisiana State University

Building Identities and the Boundaries Between Them in the 2012 U.S. Presidential Election. Morgan Johnstonbaugh

Partisanship, Political Culture, and Minimum Wage Policy. Daniel Tope, Florida State University; Clayton M. Gumber, Florida State University; Daniel Lanford, Florida State University

Pathways to Policy: Partisanship and Bipartisanship in Renewable Energy Legislation. Kate Pride Brown, Georgia Institute of Technology; David J. Hess, Vanderbilt University

Tweeting Ideology: Using Text Analysis to Create a Measure of Partisanship. Jason Scott   Radford, University of Chicago; Betsy Sinclair, Washington University in St. Louis

Table 2. Activism and Social Movements

Table Presider: Emily Brissette, Bridgewater State University

Beyond the Spectacle of “Violent Protest”: Rethinking Violence at Occupy Oakland. Emily Brissette, Bridgewater State University

Prefigurative Social Movements and the State in the 21st Century. Heather Anne Hax, Towson University; William Tsitsos, Towson University

Repertoires of Activism: Accounting for Individual, Cultural and Contextual Factors. Anna Slavina, University of Toronto

Kathryn Asher is organizing an upcoming ASA session which may be of interest to section members:

Seen and Unseen: The Role of Visibility in Humans’ Use of Nonhuman Animals

Papers to be presented at the Animals and Society section session, American Sociological Association annual meeting, August 23, 2016, Seattle, WA

Description: Exploring how visibility and invisibility (removal from sight) make us more or less comfortable about different types of animal use by considering how exposure weakens support for animal use and/or leads to increased tolerance of that use.

Possible Topics (but not limited to)
– The effects of graphic imagery
– Reactance and message aversion
– The politics of representation of animals and animal-related issues in news media, television, film, and advertising
– Undercover investigations
– Ag-gag laws
– The effect of animal advocacy oriented actions and materials
– The role of language, e.g., “it” vs. “she” or “he,” murder vs. slaughter, livestock vs. cow, depersonalized scientific language
– Bearing witness/The Save Movement
– The concept of the absent referent
– The politics of sight
– Representing animals en mass vs. telling individual animals’ stories
– The de-animalization of meat and other animal products
– Traditionally hidden forms of animal use, e.g., factory farms and slaughterhouses, euthanasia in shelters, animal experimentation, and dog/cockfights
– (More) public forms of animal use, e.g., rodeos, bullfights, zoos, circuses, marine mammal parks, dog/horse racing, public dissections at zoos, public animal sacrifices, hunting
– Other ways we watch animals, e.g., companion animals, birding, whale watching, photographing animals, scuba diving, animal sanctuaries, safaris, ecotourism

Deadline: January 6, 2016, 3pm EST. Submit via the online system at http://www.asanet.org/AM2016/callforpapers.cfm

Paper Criteria
– Only papers will be considered. No abstracts or paper proposals.
– Limited to 25-35 pages (including footnotes, table, and bibliographies). Session will be one hour and 40 minutes with four to five papers.
– Papers must reflect original empirical or theoretical research or major developments in previously reported research. Papers are not eligible for inclusion if they have been read previously at ASA or other professional meetings, if they have been published prior to the meeting or accepted for publication before being submitted to organizers for consideration, or if they have been modified in only secondary respects after similar readings or publication.

More Information: Session Organizer, Kathryn Asher (University of New Brunswick), kathryn.asher@unb.ca. Discussant, Cameron Whitley (Michigan State University).

Section sessions are being crowdsourced this year. Please vote on existing ideas or add your own at this link:

http://www.allourideas.org/political_soc2016

Please only vote if you are a member of the section.

Markofski, Wes. 2015. New Monasticism and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism. New York: Oxford University Press.

For most of the last century, popular and scholarly common sense has equated American evangelicalism with across-the-board social, economic, and political conservatism. However, if a growing chorus of evangelical leaders, media pundits, and religious scholars is to be believed, the era of uncontested evangelical conservatism is on the brink of collapse – if it hasn’t collapsed already. Combining vivid ethnographic storytelling and incisive theoretical analysis, New Monasticism and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism introduces readers to the fascinating and unexplored terrain of neo-monastic evangelicalism. Often located in disadvantaged urban neighborhoods, new monastic communities pursue religiously inspired visions of racial, social, and economic justice-alongside personal spiritual transformation-through diverse and creative expressions of radical community.

In this account, Wes Markofski has immersed himself in the paradoxical world of evangelical neo-monasticism, focusing on the Urban Monastery-an influential neo-monastic community located in a gritty, racially diverse neighborhood in a major Midwestern American city. The resulting account of the way in which this movement reflects and is contributing to the transformation of American evangelicalism challenges entrenched stereotypes and calls attention to the dynamic diversity of religious and political points of view which vie for supremacy in the American evangelical subculture. New Monasticism and the Transformation of American Evangelicalism is the first sociological analysis of new monastic evangelicalism and the first major work to theorize the growing theological and political diversity within twenty-first-century American evangelicalism.