Welcome

The Sociology program at the University of Northern Iowa is committed to the principles of a liberal arts education.  As faculty serving the program, we are dedicated to teaching excellence grounded in active research agendas and involvement in community or professional service.  Our mission as instructors is to provide our students with educational experiences and intellectual skills that will enable them to understand how their everyday lives and actions are influenced by broader social structures, contexts, and processes.  In this process, we encourage students to develop a comprehensive understanding of the nature and applications of sociological theory and methods. We also promote a learning environment where students are taught to value cultural diversity and pluralism and to engage in critical analysis of structures of power and inequality.

As scholars, we seek to be active contributors to sociological knowledge and to enhance sociological understanding of a range of social, political, and historical issues, both locally and globally. We also seek to engage in interdisciplinary research endeavors and to foster student involvement in scholarship through collaboration and mentoring.

Beyond the classroom and the academy, we strive to raise social and political awareness, to encourage active civic engagement, and to offer expertise to a range of local, national, and transnational organizations.

Our main research areas revolve around the following topics:

• Inequality
• Race/Ethnicity and Immigration
• Gender, Culture and Identity
• Family and the Life Course

 

 

EVENT ANNOUNCEMENT 

 

Dr. Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Duke University

 

"The invisible weight of whiteness: The racial grammar of everyday life in contemporary America"

 

Friday, March 2

11:30-1:50

Sabin Hall 002

There is something like a grammar that structures cognition, vision, and even feelings on all sort of racial matters. This grammar sets white supremacy as the standards for many social events and transactions.

Thus, one can talk about historically black colleges and universities but not about historically white colleges and universities, or one can refer to black movies and black TV shows but not white ones.

Racial grammar is as important as all the visible practices and mechanisms of white supremacy. Join us for a discussion of why we must understand how it works in order to fight its poisonous effects.

Join us for this exciting event!!

Sponsored by College of Social & Behavioral Sciences; Department of Political Science; Center for Multicultural Education; Faculty Senate Speaker Series Fund; Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology; Sociology and Criminology Student Clubs (Northern Iowa Student Government); Campus Coalition Builders; Liberal Arts Core; Department of History; Global Studies Major

 

CALL FOR PAPERS: SPECIAL ISSUE GLOBAL ETHNOGRAPHY & TRANSNATIONALISM

 

Call for Papers: Special Issue of the Journal of Contemporary Ethnography

The Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (JCE) solicits papers for a special edition on Global Ethnography and Transnationalism, building on the work that explores global connections in today’s society. Papers should examine the lived experiences of local peoples directly affected by globalization (understood as the movement of populations, information, mass media, culture, capital and goods across national borders). We welcome papers that use global ethnography to examine processes that encompass the entire globe and how these affect local societies. Papers focused on Transnationalism are expected to examine cross-border social processes and connections between two nation-states and how they affect both societies simultaneously. We welcome the use a variety of levels of analysis and different methodologies, including multi-sited and bifocal research approaches from all social science disciplines.

We are interested in ethnographic papers written from a global or transnational perspective that address:

• The impact of global capitalism and transnational corporations on local societies and people
• The migration of peoples across national borders and the development of transnational connections between receiving and sending societies
• New transnational or hybrid forms of cultural production that result from transborder or global processes
• Transformations of identity, gender/sexuality, citizenship, and/or race/ethnicity  from a global or transnational perspective
• New transnational social movements  enabled by globalization or that respond to the inequalities created by globalization

Articles will be selected for publication based on topical relevance, clarity of argument, ethnographic quality, and significance for an interdisciplinary audience with a broad interest in global ethnography and transnationalism.

Manuscripts should be submitted by July 1, 2012 to the JCE website http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/joce. Please indicate in your cover letter that you would like to have your manuscript considered for this special issue. 

GUEST EDITORS FOR THE SPECIAL ISSUE:

Dr. Xavier Escandell

Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Criminology

University of Northern Iowa

363 Baker Hall

Cedar Falls, IA 50614-0513

Phone: 319-273-3932

E-mail: xavier.escandell@uni.edu

 

Dr. Maria Tapias

Department of Anthropology

Grinnell College,

1118 Park Street,

Grinnell, IA 50112-1670

Phone: 641-2693137

E-mail: Tapias@grinnell.edu

 

Dr. Takeyuki (Gaku) Tsuda

School of Human Evolution and Social Change

Arizona State University
PO Box 872402
Tempe, AZ 85287-2402

E-mail: takeyuki.tsuda@asu.edu

 

Basic info about manuscripts

40 pages long maximum

Double spaced, including block quotes and references

JCE Home Page: http://jce.sagepub.com/

To submit a manuscript to JCE: http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/joce