Sociology finds itself embattled from two directions simultaneously. Externally, the discipline faces persistent criticism rooted in perceptions that it is ideologically driven, methodologically suspect, or politically extreme. Internally, it is haunted by the contradictions of a stated commitment to justice and public engagement yet limited demonstrated usefulness beyond academic journals and conferences. Careers have been built on sterile debates over value-neutrality while those subjected to racial capitalism, gendered violence, settler colonialism, and neoliberal austerity continue to face oppression and dispossession without meaningful sociological intervention. The crisis facing sociology is not confined to methods or knowledge claims; it is equally a moral, institutional, and political crisis. Sociology, as currently constituted, will not save us.

This conference theme aims to collectively imagine something beyond it, a sociology after sociology. Can we build a radically reconstructive project from the rubble of the old discipline? What would that look like? SSSP founder, Alfred McClung Lee’s insistence that sociology must abandon detached professionalism and commit itself to emancipatory transformation remains as urgent as ever. Lee’s call for a “humanist sociology” offers not nostalgia, but a provocation. It is a demand that the discipline makes itself accountable to the communities that are engaged in resistance and survival. By centering the struggle for liberation over disciplinary self-protection and myopic epistemology, our conference theme insists on a sociology grounded in abolitionist praxis, mutual aid, collective refusal, and insurgent forms of public knowledge.

JOIN US: This conference is not simply an academic exercise. Rather, it is an invitation to collectively confront the limits of the discipline and imagine new forms of solidarity, scholarship, and struggle. Whatever future the discipline might have will not come from those who defend it as it stands. It will come from those willing to dismantle it, sit with the wreckage, and build something altogether different.

Consistent with our conference theme, the 2027 Chicago meeting reflects a collective vision developed jointly by Program Chairs Shannon Carter and Johnny Eric Williams and President David G. Embrick, rather than the direction of any single individual.