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Slideshow

Colloquia

The notion of race as a social construct, rather than an objective physical reality, has increasingly made inroads in the United States in recent years. Yet even in quarters where it seems most widely accepted and familiar, it has hit roadblocks. After a brief discussion of the idea of race as socially constructed, I will describe and dissect three areas in which it seems to have been difficult to apply: genetic and biomedical research; debates…
In research, you can’t always test what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find, you can test what you need to. What do you do when you are theory testing and aren’t yet able to directly test the mechanisms you want to test? This presentation explores a series of setbacks in figuring out how to test a new theoretical research program. This talk also discusses the transitions in a theoretical research project that…
What are the political consequences, at the grassroots level, of working-class decline? Based on multi-year ethnographic fieldwork on the Unemployed Workers' Movement in Argentina, this presentation provides a case study of how workers affected by job loss protect their traditional forms of life by joining progressive community organizations. Life history interviews and participant observation show that a key appeal of this movement is the…
How doctors police mistakes among themselves varies. Physicians support, tolerate, avoid, ridicule, confront, report, and banish colleagues for errors. What explains this variation? An established theory of social control and a growing literature on stratification in medical education suggest that the vertical direction of medical cases may partially account for the different social control strategies physicians use to manage mistakes. Drawing…
Dr. Ruth Poproski from the Center for Teaching and Learning will lead a teaching workshop on inclusive teaching. Attendants will learn about the primary principles of incorporating inclusion, diverse perspectives, and advancing equity in the classroom, as well as challenges that arise in light of these goals. Participants will develop strategies to better engage with students in inclusive and equitable dialogue, thus developing the…
How will an external threat from Asia affect racial relations in the United States? While Americans' sense of shared adversity during the COVID-19 pandemic has the potential to unite people across racial and national lines, research also suggests that perception of threat increases racially biased behaviors and may have spillover effects on intergroup relations. Using an experiment that combines behavioral game and survey methods (N = 1,987), we…
As a part of our annual tradition, we will view the documentary "Below Baldwin: How an Expansion Project Unearthed a University ’ s Legacy of Slavery", followed by a discussion with community organizer Imani Scott Blackwell, led by Dr. Sarah Shannon and Dr. Vanessa Gonlin. On November 17, 2015, construction on Baldwin Hall on the University of Georgia campus came to a halt when workers uncovered human remains on the site. DNA tests revealed what…
Colorism, the practice whereby light skin is privileged over dark, has been widely acknowledged and studied among African Americans and Latinx populations. Though this research has grown exponentially in recent decades, less attention has been given to Asian Americans, for whom colorism is equally pervasive and deeply entrenched. This talk focuses on colorism among Asian American women and the twin pressures for light skin stemming from (1) the…
From California to China, self-described “greening” efforts claiming to address inequality and the climate crisis proliferate. But why are such projects—undertaken in the name of ecological sustainability and climate resilience as well as quality of life—being carried out in such a wide range of places with very different histories, ecologies, and cultural repertoires for urban life? Based on a study of a century of greening in Germany’s Ruhr…
We know remarkably little about the varying meanings justice-involved populations assign to their employment experiences, and how those meanings intersect with varying criminal involvement over time. Some perspectives assume that employment and crime are alternative choices that don’t easily co-exist, particularly as the individual moves down a pathway towards desistance. Other scholars view employment and income-generating crime as more-or-less…