The Society for the Study of Social Problems
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • rss
  • newsletter
  • Member Login
  • Join SSSP
  • About SSSP
    • Who We Are
    • Participate and Advocate
    • Action and Activism
    • Human Rights and Social Justice
    • Member Testimonials
    • Featured Abstracts
    • 2020-2021 Roster of Officers and Committee Members
    • Past Presidents, Vice Presidents, and Editors
    • By-Laws
    • Operations Manual
      • I. The Executive Officer, Administrative Office, and The Board of Directors
      • II. The Volunteer Officers
      • III. The Divisions
      • IV. The Committees of the Society
      • V. The Editorial Office of Social Problems
      • VI. General Guidelines on Contracts & Biddable Work
      • VII. The SSSP Schedules & Cycles
      • Appendix
    • Approved Budget, Audit Reports, Committee Reports, and Annual Meeting Minutes, Survey Results, and Attendance Reports
    • Approved Resolutions
    • Contact Us
  • Membership
    • Member Login
    • Give to the SSSP
    • Join/Renew SSSP
    • Membership Dues
    • Elections
      • General Elections
      • Division Elections
      • Resolution Elections
    • Professional Development
      • Job Opportunities
      • Call for Chapters, Papers, Proposals, Conferences, and Virtual Events
      • Fellowships & Scholarships
      • Mentoring Program
      • Elections
    • Member News and Resources
      • Members Directory
      • SSSP Listserv
      • Members News
      • Announcements
      • Obituaries
      • Related Links
    • Membership List Rental
  • Annual Meetings
    • About SSSP Annual Meetings
    • 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting
      • 2021 Call For Papers
      • For Session Organizers
      • Advertising and Sponsorship Rates
      • Call for Resolutions
      • Questions that you may have about the SSSP Annual Meeting but are too embarrassed to ask
    • 2020 Annual Meeting
    • 2019 Annual Meeting
    • 2018 Annual Meeting
    • 2017 Annual Meeting
    • 2016 Annual Meeting
    • Upcoming Annual Meetings
    • Past Annual Meetings
  • Publications
    • Social Problems Journal
      • Announcing the New Editors
      • Editorial Board
      • The Authors' Attic
      • Submissions
      • Subscriptions
      • Online Access
      • Instructions to Authors
      • Correspondence
      • Oxford University Press
      • Copyright
      • Rights and Permissions
      • Impact Factor and Ranking
    • Agenda for Social Justice
    • Global Agenda for Social Justice
    • Social Problems in the Age of COVID-19, Volume 1: US Perspectives
    • Social Problems in the Age of COVID-19, Volume 2: Global Perspectives
    • Social Problems Course Texts
    • Social Problems Forum: The Newsletter
    • Working Toward a Just World: Visions, Experiences, & Challenges
  • Awards/ Fellowships/ Scholarships
    • Awards
      • Arlene Kaplan Daniels Paper Award
      • C. Wright Mills Award
      • Doris Wilkinson Faculty Leadership Award
      • Joseph B. Gittler Award
      • Kathleen S. Lowney Mentoring Award
      • Lee Founders Award
      • Thomas C. Hood Social Action Award
      • Student Paper Competitions and Outstanding Scholarship Awards
      • Travel Fund Awards
    • Fellowship
      • Racial/Ethnic Minority Graduate Fellowship
    • Scholarship
      • Beth B. Hess Memorial Scholarship
    • Past Winners
  • Divisions
    • The Divisions
    • Roles and Responsibilities of Division Chairs
    • Student Paper Competitions and Outstanding Scholarship Awards
Annual Meetings : 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting

2021 Virtual Annual Meeting

  • 2021 Call For Papers
  • For Session Organizers
  • Advertising and Sponsorship Rates
  • Call for Resolutions
  • Questions that you may have about the SSSP Annual Meeting but are too embarrassed to ask

2021 Virtual Annual Meeting

Heather Dalmage

Corey Dolgon
Stonehill College
SSSP President
(2020-2021)

The Society for the 
Study of Social Problems 
71st Virtual Annual Meeting 
August 6-8, 2021

UPDATES:

The Call for Papers is available

Online submission deadline has been extended to 11:59p.m. (Eastern Time) on January 31, 2021

Registration information forthcoming

Revolutionary Sociology: Truth, Healing, Reparations and Restructuring

The way to right wrongs is to shine the light of truth on them.

  --Ida B. Wells, A Red Record (1895)

Wouldn’t a better use of our labor be to create a system of justice based on healing, redemption and real accountability, a system that empowers us to stand up and put things right?

  --Rosado, et. al., Larger Than Life (2018)

IF WE THINK of reparations as part of a broad strategy to radically transform society — redistributing wealth, creating a democratic and caring public culture, exposing the ways capitalism and slavery produced massive inequality — then the ongoing struggle for reparations holds enormous promise for revitalizing movements for social justice.

  --Robin D.G. Kelley, Freedom Dreams (2002)

Can social science still be the brash, young, vital, productive, unsettling, even revolutionary pursuit it has been in its most valuable periods?

  --Al McClung Lee, Social Problems (1954)

We build on the past--stand on the broad shoulders of giants--but our vision and our actions are shaped by the ideological frameworks and institutional structures that constitute what Cooley called the “social mind.” Of course, sociologists such as W.E.B. Du Bois and Jane Addams had already developed a much more sophisticated and dialectical theory of identity, social consciousness and social forces well before Cooley’s published work. The tragedies of Du Bois, Addams, and others’ exclusion from the field was not just the overt racism and patriarchy that lay behind it--although such acts were purposeful and reprehensible. A similarly troubling result from the triumph of white male professionalized (or corporate) sociology was its repression of the discipline’s most radical and engaged efforts at being a revolutionary force for global justice.

As our most recent presidents have stated, the Society for the Study of Social Problems [SSSP] was born out of the struggle to rescue and revitalize a relevant sociology for “the people” and use social science as a weapon for a just world. In 2015, Marlese Durr argued that our work must actively “pursue a just society [if we] may alter the most pressing problems carried across centuries.” In 2018, Luis Fernandez encouraged us to be bold in not only studying social problems, but in developing ways to abolish them, “eliminate [ing] systems of subjugation” and “reimagining social justice.” When Heather Dalmage claimed last year that “resistance alone [would] not create a new world with new possibilities,” she called on us to build pathways, solidarity, political engagement and pedagogies of liberation to “create the structural changes that bend toward justice.” She asked, “Where does our scholar activism, as we live it through SSSP, fit into our dreams of transformation, toward building new worlds?”

Unfortunately, SSSP itself has too often fallen short in meeting the radical aspirations of its members and leaders.  From the late 1960s onward, presidents complained about the organization’s conservative tendencies and the ways in which fighting for professional status and scientific legitimacy too often limited the revolutionary imagination and political interventions of the organization. By its 25th Anniversary, founders suggested that SSSP had become a “mini ASA” losing both its analytical focus on power and structure and its political focus on policy applications and movement activism. By its 50th Anniversary in 2001, many wondered whether the organization then suffered from its own institutionalized and rigid orthodoxies. That year, Ellen Reese (2001) issued SSSP a Call to Action for a more politically engaged professional organization. Twenty years later we echo that call with even greater immediacy and purpose. SSSP can be a stronger, more active and transformative body that supports social movement work in our communities, in our nations, and around the world. But we must make it so.

The 2021 Program Committee invites you to join us to envision a more effective future for the forces of radical and revolutionary sociology. We must be bold and persistent, not in dogma, but in passion, commitment and action towards global justice. We call for papers that ask--and try to answer--the questions posed so many years ago: “sociology for what?” (Lynd, 1936) and the “sociology for whom?” (Lee, 1951). We invite scholars looking to reach out to, and work with, community groups and social movement organizations—whom we hope will have a strong presence at meeting sessions and at conference events throughout the city. We hope to inspire innovative, interdisciplinary and collaborative efforts at what Nancy Naples (2007) called “research that matters.” While we cannot predict now what next summer’s social and political context will be, we know that pandemics and racist police murders are symptoms of the already existing structures of oppression and violence that SSSP members (and the organization itself) must work to end.

Finally, in part as a response to possible pandemics but also as a strategy to increase our global vision and inclusivity, we will have a virtual component to this year’s conference. While attendance will be open to all members, virtual sessions are specifically targeted to those who could not otherwise attend in person.  We believe this mechanism and strategy will help us increase the participation of international and low-income professionals, graduate students, and young scholars who might otherwise not be able to participate in person. As we answer former President David Smith’s (2016) call to increase our global presence and analysis, we also understand that the forces of inequality and patriarchy, white supremacy and violence, have always been global in nature. The formation of a revolutionary sociology focused on both a new abolitionism and a new vision of radical democracy and redistribution must also be international. We look forward to having these conversations, dialogues, debates, and celebrations next year. Please join us.

Corey Dolgon, SSSP President 
Stonehill College

2021 Program Committee

Woody Doane, Co-Chair, University of Hartford
Saher Selod, Co-Chair, Simmons University

Michelle Christian, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Saida Grundy, Boston University
Kasey Henricks, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Raul Perez, University of La Verne

SSSP In-person Annual Meeting is cancelled due to the COVID-19 Pandemic - Join us for the 2021 Virtual Annual Meeting

In light of the American Sociological Association’s (ASA) cancellation of their in-person annual meeting in Chicago, and given our concern for our members’ health and safety, the Board of Directors has decided to cancel the SSSP’s in-person 2021 Annual Meeting, and move to an all-virtual meeting. This move is facilitated by the fact that we were planning for a hybrid meeting, with both in-person and virtual sessions, but this pivot still requires substantial work that has already started. As the planning for the virtual meeting proceeds, we will be in touch periodically with updates and details.

We are all disappointed, given the importance of an in-person meeting to the Society and its members, but we believe that this is in the best interest of the organization, its members, and staff. Please stay safe.

  • Privacy Policy
  • Site Map
  • Website Programming
divider

The Society for the Study of Social Problems | 901 McClung Tower, University of Tennessee | Knoxville, TN 37996-0490
Email: sssp@utk.edu | Phone: 865-689-1531 | Fax: 865-689-1534
divider
Copyright © The Society for the Study of Social Problems, SSSP, www.sssp1.org. All rights reserved.