RIP

Gabor Scheiring@gscheiring.bsky.social · 3d ago

Iván Szelényi (1938-2026), a towering figure in sociology, one of the finest global intellectuals Hungary and Eastern Europe has ever produced, has died. Rest in peace and solidarity. 1/6

Sociologists: I am teaching our capstone course this fall, which focuses on sociological scholarship published in 2025 or 2026. What recent pubs (books or articles) have you read that you thought were particularly good, and would also be engaging for undergrads? All suggestions welcome--thank you!

We have re-opened our search for a 3-year AI-research postdoc at NYU's Center for Social Media, AI, and Politics!! The position starts this **September 1st** (or as soon as possible thereafter) and is in person at NYU. If necessary, we will also consider a 1/1/27 start. 1/3

Pete Hegseth: "We need our warriors to embrace the Spartan mindset" U.S. Military: *suffers crushing defeat to the Persians*

PLEASE SHARE: The Society for the Scientific Study of Religion has immediate opportunity for new Executive Officer. This part-time, remote position pays $55k. Details in attachment. Apply here https://bit.ly/SSSR-2026-EO.

So pleased to hear that After Positivism, edited by @mayrl.bsky.social and @nickhwilson.bsky.social, received the Barrington Moore book award! It was such an honor to be part of this incredible collective effort

Nick Wilson@nickhwilson.bsky.social · 3w ago

Rare professional post: I am honored beyond words to say that @mayrl.bsky.social and me have received the @asanews.bsky.social Comparative and Historical Section Barrington Moore Award for best book in Comparative Historical Sociology for *After Positivism* (tinyurl.com/442uh3b9). 1/

Rare professional post: I am honored beyond words to say that @mayrl.bsky.social and me have received the @asanews.bsky.social Comparative and Historical Section Barrington Moore Award for best book in Comparative Historical Sociology for *After Positivism* (tinyurl.com/442uh3b9). 1/

After Positivism | Columbia University Press

What is the value of comparison for research in historical sociology? Today, social scientists regularly express doubt about the positivist premises that hav... | CUP

tinyurl.com

IT'S ALIVE! Brainstorming, discussing, writing, and re-writing this piece on the "unbundling" of American religion with @ruthbraunstein.bsky.social, @jlkucinskas.bsky.social, and @bsteens.bsky.social was the most enjoyable part of the process, but it's gratifying to see it officially "out" in ASR.

Religion Unbundled: Toward a Twenty-First-Century Paradigm for the Sociology of American Religion - Ruth Braunstein, Jaime Kucinskas, Brian Steensland, Daniel Winchester, 2026

Much recent sociological work on religion in the United States is written outside the field’s two established paradigms: secularization theory and the 1990s “re...

journals.sagepub.com

New Ahead of the Trend column from @religiondata.bsky.social shows there is really no evidence that huge swaths of the country think that having a “Christian country” is very/extremely important (33%). For Evangelicals, though, it's 68%. www.thearda.com/categories/a...

Happy to share that I've been promoted to Full Professor at Colby as of July 1, alongside a pretty amazing set of colleagues. Huge thanks to all those who have supported my career along the way in ways large and small! news.colby.edu/story/colby-...

Faculty Promotions Span the Curriculum

Twelve dedicated teacher-scholars from wide-ranging disciplines have been promoted to full professor

news.colby.edu

~18,000 articles (~582K total references) over the last 50 years across the flagship journals of American Sociology, Economics, Political Science, Anthropology, Geography, History, and the Social Science History Association, guess how many references are cited at least once in all fields. (It's 20.)

"Fun" (in the sense that a secular decline in state support for social science is "fun") offshoot from a computational text/soc-of-science/knowledge project with @mayrl.bsky.social. Long-term declines in NSF acknowledgment for all measured social sciences (and basically none for history, ever).

How do local government officials' religious affiliations, behaviors, and beliefs shape their attitudes toward transgender rights policies? My colleagues and I address this question in a new Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion article: doi.org/10.1111/jssr...

Like a world-famous band (which we are), *A Comparative Historical Sociology of Corruption* "drops" simultaneously and worldwide TODAY. Thanks to my partners-in-crime, Marco Garrido and Marina Zaloznaya, and to all the contributors! tinyurl.com/muyeezka

A Comparative Historical Sociology of Corruption

Cambridge Core - Historical sociology - A Comparative Historical Sociology of Corruption

cambridge.org

Please spread the word: Colby's Education Department is looking for a sociologist of education for a 1-year Visiting Assistant Professor position. I'm on the committee and happy to answer any questions. careercenter.asanet.org/job/1311249/...

Visiting Assistant Professor of Education - Waterville, Maine job with Colby College | 1311249

The Education Department at Colby College invites applications for a one-year visiting assistant professor of education position, beginning Septemb...

careercenter.asanet.org

Looking for an easy way to follow other members of ASA Religion? Look no further than this Starter Pack! go.bsky.app/6cTpB24

Our department at the University of Toronto is hiring an assistant professor of sociology of race / ethnicity this fall. I'm not on the hiring committee but am very happy to talk to you about the position if you are interested. You can email, DM, or find me at ASA. jobs.utoronto.ca/job/Toronto-...

One cool trick to increasing trust in elections and government: make everyone a public official. Okay, maybe not, but still our new paper shows that local officials trust elections more. Why? Partly because they have a lot of social trust. dx.plos.org/10.1371/jour...

Confidence in elections among U.S. local officials: Effects of social trust, partisanship and political ambition

The U.S. public’s confidence in elections is intensively studied in the last decade but little is known about election confidence among locally elected officials, whose roles and community status may ...

dx.plos.org

More skunkworks with @mayrl.bsky.social . Still a couple of small parsing errors ("the participants" and "David"), but clear stratification among thanked entities in Social Science History versus samples of articles from five adjacent disciplines, 1976-2025.

Businesses have long used their bills/receipts to call attention to government policy. In “Beyond the Hidden American State” @mayrl.bsky.social and I analyzed restaurant bills as sites of political contestation. I'll put the link below.

Nikki McCann Ramírez@nikkimcr.bsky.social · last yr.

White House says Amazon's decision to desplay tariff-based price increases on products is a "a hostile and political act by Amazon," who they accuse of working with "a Chinese propaganda arm."

Looking forward to sharing my book at the Colby College Sociology colloquium on Thursday! @mayrl.bsky.social @philipjfang.bsky.social

@mayrl.bsky.social and I have written about what's happening how as a kind of cascade of recognition. When you call out the role of the government, this can produce spillover effects that highlight additional facets of governance.

Karly Kingsley@karlykingsley.bsky.social · last yr.

🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

I've been thinking about reasons it's hard to convey the importance of the Musk/Treasury thing and maybe one factor is that people don't realize how *much* of the world is government?

RIP

Elizabeth Wrigley-Field@wrigleyfield.bsky.social · last yr.

Michael Burawoy was a wonderful sociologist and person. We rarely spoke, but we just happened to be emailing in January. He wrote about how much he was loving this phase of his life. The hit and run scourge is taking so many people who have so much more to live www.mercurynews.com/2025/02/04/o...

A panel on the Treasury this Thursday, with the incredible @epopppp.bsky.social and @abenewman.bsky.social. This is not just for academics. Everyone needs to understand what's happening right now. Spread the word!

🚨 Please help us spread the word to Early Career Scholars! We @pop.psu.edu are happy to welcome our second cohort of External Fellows to Penn State's University Park campus this May for our grant-writing training, networking, and mentoring program. Please see below for more details.

@vanhookjenny.bsky.social · 2y ago

Early career scholars: Consider @pop.psu.edu's External Scholar program. Prepare a NICHD grant over 4 days of intensive grant-writing training, networking, and mentorship at the start of the first year of the program, May 13-16, 2025. Apply: pop.psu.edu/resources/si...