Society for the Study of Social Problems Notes From the Chair Jeffrey O. Sacha University of California, Davis Greetings Division Members, I hope that this newsletter finds you all in the midst of a happy and productive Fall term. First and foremost, please take a moment to renew your SSSP and division membership for 2017: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/pageid/925/ Our division is one of the smallest in SSSP and we highly value each and every member. We also welcome any of your colleagues or graduate students whose research interests might find a home in our division! Graduate students receive two free division memberships with their $30/year SSSP membership. Please see below for the Call for Papers for the 2017 SSSP conference, which includes instructions for how to submit papers/abstracts. Our division is sponsoring or co-sponsoring 10 sessions that cover a range of research interests. Finally, this newsletter includes the announcement of the divisionÕs 2017 Graduate Student Paper Award. ~Jeff Division Sessions for Annual Meeting in Montreal (August 19-21) Our division is sponsoring or co-sponsoring ten sessions this year. Days/times/rooms will be announced in May when the preliminary program is released for the annual meeting. The due date for submissions is January 31st at midnight (EST). To submit an extended abstract or paper, please use this link and follow the instructions: http://www.sssp1.org/index.cfm/m/689/fuseaction/ssspsession2.callForPapers/manageType/submitter/ Here are the proposed session titles: * Session 27: "Crime and Deviance in Sport" [Co-sponsored with Crime and Juvenile Delinquency Division] * Session 42: "Pharmacological Co-Production of Health, Well-being, and the Body" [Co-sponsored with Drinking and Drugs Division] * Session 81: "How Bodies Become Marked and the Stories They Tell" [Co-sponsored with Institutional Ethnography Division] * Session 100: "Inequality in Sports and Leisure" [Co-sponsored with Poverty, Class, and Inequality Division] * Session 108: ÒGenders, Sexualities, and Bodies" [Co-sponsored with Sexual Behavior, Politics, and Communities Division] * Session 111: "Problematizing Bodies" [Co-sponsored with Social Problems Theory Division] * Session 117: "Social Change Through Sport" * Session 118: ÒRace, Struggle, and SportÓ [Critical Dialogue session] * Session 119: ÒLeisure and Recreation on the Cutting EdgeÓ * Session 120: ÒYouth, Obesity, and HealthÓ [Co-sponsored with Youth, Aging, and the Life Course Division] Call for Submissions: 2017 Graduate Student Paper Award TheÊSport, Leisure, and the Body DivisionÊannounces the 2017 Graduate Student Paper Competition. Papers may be empirical and/or theoretical, and may be on any aspect of sport or sporting culture, leisure or recreation, and/or sporting bodies broadly defined. The winner will receive a stipend of $200, a plaque of recognition, student membership in SSSP for 2017 (valued at $30), complimentary registration for the 2017 annual meeting to help the winner attend the meeting (value $60). The winner will be invited to present the winning paper at one of the Sport, Leisure, and the Body sessions at the 2017 annual meeting. To be eligible, a paper must meet the following criteria: 1) the applicant must be a graduate student at the time of the SSSP annual meeting in Montreal on August 11-13, 2017, 2) the applicant must be the first (lead) author on the paper, 3) the paper must not be co-authored with a faculty member or a colleague who is not a student; 4) the paper must not have been submitted or accepted for publication (papers that have been submitted for presentation at a professional meeting are eligible); 5) the paper must not exceed 30 pages including notes, references, and tables; 6) the paper must be typed using 12-point font in either Times New Roman or Courier; 7) student papers may only be submitted to one of the SSSP divisions. Authors are required to submit their papers through the annual meeting Call for Papers process as a condition for consideration for the award. Please submit your paper electronically as a Microsoft Word and PDF file toÊjsacha@ucdavis.edu. Paper submission must be dated (via electronic time/date stamp and post-mark) on or before 1/31/17. Be a Meeting Mentor in Montreal! Each year, SSSP has lots of students and new members sign up for its meeting mentoring program. But the only way people can offer to be mentors is when they register for the meeting, and itÕs easy for folks to forget to do that, so there arenÕt enough volunteers.ÊBecause there arenÕt enough mentors, it is hard to match the interests of willing mentors with people who want mentoring. IÕm chairing the Lee Student Support Fund Committee (the group in charge of the mentoring program).ÊI want to locate willing mentors from all of SSSP divisions. If you are planning to attend next yearÕs meeting in Montreal, and if youÕd be willing to serve as a mentor, please send me an email message (joelbest@udel.edu).ÊIn your message, list the divisions that interest you. IÕll save your information and, next summer, IÕll try and identify (hopefully no more than one or two) mentees who share your interests. IÕve been a mentor every year since the program started, and I continue to keep in touch with some of those people.ÊIt is a great program, but we need your help to make it stronger. Thanks, Joel Best (joelbest@udel.edu) New Books of Interest Gurney, Gerald, Donna A. Lopiano, and Andrew Zimbalist. 2017. Unwinding Madness: What Went Wrong with College SportsÑand How to Fix It. S.l.: Brookings Institution Press. (Via Amazon.com) Unwinding MadnessÊis the most comprehensive examination to date of how the NCAA has lost its way in the governance of intercollegiate athleticsÑand why it is incapable of achieving reform and must be replaced. The NCAA has placed commercial success above its responsibilities to protect the academic primacy, health and well-being of college athletes and fallen into an educational, ethical, and economic crisis. Schreiber, Casey. 2016. Saints in the Broken City: Football, Fandom and Urban Renewal in Post-Katrina New Orleans. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland. (Via Amazon.com) Telling the story of Saints football in New Orleans is a way to understand larger social, political and economic conditions during pivotal moments of the city's history. This book is the first to explore the team's role in rebuilding the city following Hurricane Katrina. The author documents New Orleans' initial efforts to attract professional football, the Katrina disaster and some successes and failures during 10 years of post-disaster recovery. The narrative of community recovery and cohesion crafted by Saints fans transcends racial divides and illustrates the relationship between professional sports and the American city. The voices of female fans--largely overlooked in the study of sports--compel a more inclusive definition of football fandom. Sociology of the Body Course Materials http://sectionbodyembodiment.weebly.com/blog/sociology-of-the-body-teaching-materials byÊErica Toothman University of South Florida For this, our last blog post of the 2015-2016 year, University of South Florida sociology professor Dr. Erica Toothman has kindly provided teaching materials from her course onÊThe Sociology of the Body. Excerpts from, and links to, the course syllabus as well as a related student project assignment are included below. SYA 4930 Sociology of the Body Syllabus:Ê We donÕt usually think of our bodies as social spaces, instead focusing on their chemistry and biology -- the properties that reshape them and keep them alive. However, bodies share a strong, reciprocal relationship with society. Think about it: When does life begin? What rights do parents have over the vaccinating their children? Is fatness detrimental to society? Can a person change their gender? Or even their race? In this reading-and-discussion-based class, students explore how bodies fit (and donÕt fit) in society. The course draws from several areas of sociological research, including gender, race, sexuality, aging, disability, social psychology, and health. In this class, we will examine the impact of social structure and institutions shaping bodies (our physical bodies), embodiment (how we experience our bodies), and our perception/reception of bodies from conception through death. We will also take steps to bridge our academic understanding of the body with one of social change or resistance. [Read More] ??Sociology of the Body Course Project:? You will be responsible for completing a project synthesizing the information you learn in this course.ÊThe final project can be in one of two forms: a research proposal, a formal literature review (ideal forÊstudents who are forming an academic paper), or an academic authoethnography. Either option shouldÊbe about eight-to-ten pages in length and should attend to the relationship between the body and societyÊusing academic resources. The goal of this paper is to showcase your mastery of, and critical thinkingÊabout, sociological concepts related to the body and embodiment. Your project contains the followingÊparts: [Read More] Sports Articles in the Summer 2016 Issue of Contexts (Vol. 15, no. 3) Check out the current issue of Contexts (Vol. 15, Summer 2016) for two great articles related to sports. The first is a major feature piece that includes articles from five sports scholars, respectively: Marvin Dawkins (University of Miami), Lucia Trimbur (John Jay College and the Graduate Center at CUNY), Pat Griffin (UMass, Amherst), former chair of our division Cheryl Cooky (Purdue University), and Kevin Hylton (Leeds Beckett University): https://contexts.org/articles/making-sports-more-sporting/ The second article is a conversation between Prof. Ben Carrington (University of Texas, Austin) and Dave Zirin (Edge of Sports; The Atlantic) about the relationships between sports scholars and public engagement with social issues in sports: https://contexts.org/articles/the-shifting-landscape-of-sports-media-with-dave-zirin/ 1