Monday, September 23, 2013

ASA 2015 thematic and special sessions RFP

Dear EMCA Members,

The 2015(!) conference seems far away but the Call for Proposals for the meeting in Chicago is already out. Aside from the Regular Section Sessions ASA always invites proposals from members that are interested in setting up sessions that address the conference theme and sessions that are not regular (including author meets critics, Special Sessions (join sessions with other sections), workshops, etc.

The theme for the 2015 conference is "Sexualities in the Social World". The deadline to submit a proposal for a Thematic Session is November 13th, 2013

The deadline to submit proposals for Special Sessions, Courses, Workshops, and other kinds of session is February 5th, 2014.


Information including the submission procedure is described on this website:


We would be grateful if you would send us your proposal information as well so that we know what has gone in and can help plan the 2015 program.

Very shortly we will be in touch about the Call for the 2014 meeting in San Francisco.

Best wishes,

Dirk and Erik

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Call for Newsletter contributions

A brief note to members of the ASA EMCA Section

I. Call for Contributions: EMCA Newsletter

We are currently putting gathering material for our Fall Newsletter. For that purpose we are looking for members contributions. Please mail us any of the following for inclusion in the newsletter
* Recent publications by section members
* Calls for papers, proposals, participants, or nominations
* Upcoming conferences and events announcements
* Photos form the ASA 2013 conference
* Reports from conferences related to the section (max 500words)
* Jobs of interest to section members
* Funding opportunities and award competitions of interest to section members
* New jobs, promotions, and awards news about our section members
* We also again look for reports from graduate students who are interested in writing a short piece about their school and their experiences with EMCA

Please send all newsletter submissions to the newsletter editors, Laura Loeb (laura.a.loeb@gmail.com), by September 30th.

 II. Request for Comments: 
(this from the ASA Committee on the Status of LGBT Persons in Sociology)

The ASA Committee on the Status of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Persons in Sociology is a committee made up of LGBT and allied ASA members and has existed for several years. As we move forward with new membership, we are interested in learning about experiences of LGBT persons in the field of sociology, and about ideas for the future mission of our committee. We would appreciate any comments, anonymous or otherwise, that you might be willing to send us regarding this subject to

LGBTSociology@gmail.com.

While we encourage responses from any and all LGBT sociologists, we recognize that the field of sociology, both within academia and without, presents unique challenges to LGBT people of color and transgender individuals; therefore, we especially encourage anyone with insight into these challenges to respond in order to help guide future action. We will be holding a workshop at the ASA meeting in San Francisco next year, where we will review these responses and hold a discussion regarding the status of LGBT persons in sociology and what might be done to improve it. As a committee, we will take these comments under advisement as we move forward with our mission, and as we consider our institutional role and relationship with other groups like the LGBT Caucus.

Sincerely,

Members of the ASA Committee on the Status of LGBT Persons in Sociology
Nella Van Dyke (chair)
Toni Calasanti
Tey Meadow
CJ Pascoe
Roberta Spalter-Roth (ASA Council liaison)
Tom Waidzunas

III. Minutes of Business Meeting (ASA 2013)

The business meeting was held on Monday, August 12th.
 The co-chairs Dirk vom Lehn and Erik Vinkhuyzen opened the meeting and Ruth Parry, the treasurer presented the section's budget and these were unanimously approved by the membership.  Ruth Parry will look into the Pollner account as it is not accruing much interest.
The co-chairs emphasized the continued need for the section to grow its membership and for all current members to reach out and urge their colleagues to join our section.
Next the awards were presented.
First was the Life-Time Achievement Award, which went to Don Zimmerman, who was present at the meeting through a Skype connection. Doug Maynard presented the award and afterwards a pre-recording of Don Zimmerman's thank you speech was played.
Second, the Pollner Award was presented by John Heritage to David R. Gibson, of the University of Notre Dame, for his book Talk at the Brink: Deliberation and Decision during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press (2012).
Third, the Book Award was presented by Patrick Watson to Morana Alac of the University of California San Diego, for her book Handling Digital Brains: A Laboratory Study of Multimodal Semiotic Interaction in the Age of Computers (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
 Fourth, the Graduate Student Paper Award was presented by Tim Halkowski to Chase Wesley Raymond & Ann Elizabeth Clark White for their paper (which Chase presented earlier in the conference): "A Taxonomy of Time Reference in Interaction"
The meeting was closed.