UIC Sociology

Dr. Claire Decoteau has been awarded the Robin M. Williams, Jr Lecturer Award by the Eastern Sociological Society. As part of the Society’s attempt to enhance the sharing of ideas, this award grants the awardee the opportunity to spend time and give lectures on two campuses within the Society’s jurisdiction during their year as the Williams Lecturer. ESS will provide an honorarium and host institutions will cover local arrangements. Congratulations, Dr. Decoteau!

Dr. Julietta Hua from San Francisco State University, is offering an informal conversation about engaged research! Please join us, snacks will be provided.

Dr. Sigrid Luhr has been awarded a Presidential Grant from the Russell Sage Foundation for a project titled, “Remote Work, Work-Life Conflict, and Belonging in Silicon Valley.” Dr. Luhr will conduct 120 longitudinal interviews to examine how the transition to remote work during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic affected experiences of work-life conflict, and whether theses experiences vary by race, class, gender, and parental status. Congratulations, Dr. Luhr!

Join us for our next spring colloquium featuring Dr. Julietta Hua, Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies at San Francisco State University. Refreshments will be served.

Sociology Colloquium series featuring our own Dr. Emily Vasquez!! We had a full house. Join us for our next colloquium on March 1st, featuring Dr. Julietta Hua.

More photos from the “Conversation with Census Director Robert Santos” event hosted by . Great event!

Fabulous event hosted by and featuring the Census director, Robert Santos. Robert Santos is the first Latino to ever hold this position, he is a social scientist and he discussed engaged social research with faculty and graduate students.

Join us for our first colloquium of the spring semester, featuring Dr. Emily Vasquez. In this talk, Dr. Vasquez expands on histories of medicine that have examined the rise of pre-disease diagnosis in the United States and Western Europe, foregrounding the violence of extreme inequalities reproduced through clinic-based, biomedical prevention strategies. To do so, Dr. Vasquez compares how prediabetes is enacted across three clinical settings and finds in each setting, prediabetes emerges as a slightly different entity, according to the particular practices that are prioritized in each institution. Dr. Vasquez shows how these differences have real and unequal consequences for the lived experiences of patients in each context. A light lunch will be served.

*New Publication* Dr. Mahesh Somashekhar has published a new article in Social Currents titled, “The Business Ownership Patterns of Undocumented Immigrants in the United States: An Exploratory Study.” Dr. Somashekhar uses instrumental variables regressions to reveal that undocumented immigrants had a lower likelihood of owning a business than documented immigrants, but undocumented and documented business owners derived similar incomes from their businesses. It’s suggested scholars should do more to acknowledge the existence of undocumented business owners, measure their impact on the economy, and examine their influence on immigrant incorporation patterns.

On Wednesday, March 8, 2023, the Soc Club will screen and discuss the documentary, The Janes. Pizza will be provided for lunch and the screening will take place in BSB 4102 from noon-2pm. The Janes is a 2022, feature length film recounting the story of a clandestine network of women on Chicago’s South Side who help women access safe abortions, at a time when circulating information about abortion was a felony in Illinois, pre- Roe v. Wade. Students and faculty are welcome!

**New Publication Announcement“ Dr. Sigrid Luhr has recently published a book chapter in “Working in America: Continuity, Conflict, and Change in a New Economic Era” titled, “Remote Work, Work-Life Conflict, and Belonging in Silicon Valley”
This comprehensive text on the Sociology of Work covers many vital topics including: jobs, inequality, intersectionality, work and family, and more. Featuring new work on the gig economy, digital platforms and their effects on how work is organized, precarious work and the post-pandemic workplace.

**Updated Flyer** Our first professional development workshop of the semester! “Thinking About a Post-Doc?” as part of our Graduate Student Professional Development Series. Lunch will be served. Interested students should RSVP to Lisa Berube [email protected] no later than Monday January 30th

Our first professional development workshop of the semester! “Thinking About a Post-Doc?” as part of our Graduate Student Professional Development Series. Lunch will be served. Interested students should RSVP to Lisa Berube [email protected] no later than Monday January 30th

New Publication!! Dr. Jennifer A. Jones co-authors article with Dr. Hana E. Brown, “Cultural Effects of Social Movements: Racial Formation and the Immigrant Rights Struggle in the Deep South,” in Mobilization: An International Quarterly. Drs. Brown and Jones examine racial formation as a cultural consequence of mobilization by drawing on archival, media, and interview data.

Graduate Seminar offering for the Spring 2023 semester. SOC 520: Social Psychology of Race and Racism will be taught by Professor Tyrone Forman and will take place Tuesdays from 6-8:45 pm. Late registration ends Friday January 13th!

Course offering for the spring 2023 semester. This upper-division, undergraduate course will be taught by Professor Popielarz and will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 11am-12:15pm

Congratulations to our Fall 2022, Grad College award winners!! PhD candidates, Angela J. Silva and Mariya Adnan Khan were awarded the Provost Graduate Research Awards. These competitive awards are meant to offset costs related to their dissertation research projects.

Check out Professor Jennifer Jones’ newest publication, “They Are There with Us”: Theorizing Racial Status and Intergroup Relations in American Journal of Sociology!!!

Fabulous talk to be given by Dr. Yvette Garcia Deister from the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), in Mexico City. This talk is hosted by Latin American and Latino Studies (LALS) and will take place November 17th in University Hall 1501.

New course offering for the Spring 2023 semester. SOC 476/LALS 476: Latino/a Urban Inequalities will engage with debates surrounding the role of geographic context in the creation and maintenance of racial inequalities. Dr. Julie Dowling will teach this course.

Please join us for our last colloquium for the fall semester! Dr. Robin Bartram will present a talk describing her new book, Stacked Decks, examining how inspectors try to impact lives with their discretionary decisions. In this book, Dr. Bartram reveals surprising patterns in the judgement calls of inspectors and how they attempt to impact housing inequality. Join us in person on November 9th. Snacks will be provided.

Please join us for our second colloquium of the fall semester! UIC Sociology Alum, Dr. Pallavi Banerjee will present a talk from her book, The Opportunity Trap, which looks at the impact of the H-4 dependent visa programs on men and women visa holders in Indian families in America. Snacks will be provided. *Masks are required for this in person event*

Sociology Professor Lorena Garcia was elected to the ASA Council for the 2022-2023 year and began that term this past August. Congratulations Professor Garcia!!

Doctoral Candidate Rebecca Abbott accepted a position at Deep Labs. Rebecca started her position this summer as a social science researcher for an AI startup. Congratulations Rebecca!!

Sociology Faculty’s hard work and research has been recognized by IRRPP. Dr. Emily Vasquez, Dr. Patrisia Macias-Rojas, and Dr. Sigrid Luhr were awarded the Faculty Fellows Award from IRRPP!! Congratulations to our great faculty!

Dr. Sigrid Luhr has a new publication out in RSF: Russell Sage Foundation Journal of the Social Sciences.

The study uses survey data to interrogate the relationship between mothering and unpredictable work schedules among workers in the service sector.

Luhr and colleges ask how family structure and race moderate the relationship between schedule instability and parenting.

In a time when employers are asking why workers feel they must choose between work and their family, this study is a must read!

We are pleased to introduce Dr. Allison Suppan Helmuth to our PhD alumni community. Dr. Helmuth’s dissertation “Getting Rich or Getting By? Owner-Occupant Landlords in Segregated Chicago” examined the conflicting logic’s of profit making at the heart of owner-occupied rental housing.

This fall, Dr. Helmuth will be starting a post-doctoral program at Rice University where she will continue her research on owner-occupied landlords and urban housing.

This year's meeting "Beauacracies of Displacement” challenged scholars to use displacement as a "lens through which to examine social, legal, economic, political, physical, geographic, intellectual, and similar dislocations and exclusions". As a department devoted to understanding inequalities, UIC Sociology students, faculty, and alum had a lot to add to conversations happening across sub-fields in the discipline. More importantly, our department was active in creating a space in which scholars could come together to share ideas.

Swipe to learn more about UIC Sociology's service to ASA.

Keep UIC Sociology in mind as you plan your ASA schedule. Swipe to discover new talks or check for cancelled presentations. Comment with insights from your favorite session!

There won’t be any presentations from members of UIC Sociology today, but tomorrow there will be plenty of exciting presentations from faculty and students.