Category: Special Issue

Opinion / Special Issue

Interactionism and Sensory Sociology

Covid-19 has a profound impact on people’s experience and participation in the social world. For example, one of the symptoms of the illness is the loss of the sense of smell, which has increased people’s awareness of its importance in social life. The removal of the sense of smell radically reduces people’s quality of life and leads some people to become anxious, particularly when the anosmia persists over a long period of time. Scholars in the cognitive sciences and philosophy...

Special Issue / Teaching & Learning Guide

Teaching Month: Forever a Student

When we here at Sociology Lens decided to dedicate July to posts about teaching, I had so much excitement. After all, graduate student advice month had gone over so well, why wouldn’t another themed month that is also relevant. I mean, is teaching not a significant part of what we do as sociologists? But there was one problem… I’ve never taught before. What could I offer in my posts? Really. I had a very difficult time thinking of something, of anything, to offer....

Opinion / Special Issue

From the Editor’s Desk

Hello, and welcome to Sociology Lens.  It is a great pleasure to introduce myself as the site’s new Editor-In-Chief.  I believe that sociologists have a responsibility to directly engage with multiple publics through research, teaching, blogging, community activism, social organizing, cultural critique, and the like.  I am thrilled to have the opportunity to serve the news editors of Sociology Lens as they engage current debates in sociology and imagine future sociological projects while maintaining the integrity and professionalism established through...

Special Issue / Teaching & Learning Guide

It’s a wrap: Concluding Graduate Student Advice Month

And so here we are. Four weeks, 14 posts later. It never ceases to amaze me what we here at Sociology Lens have done here: we have created a space for graduate students to offer advice to other students. No where else is there a space specific for students to seek out advice and community, especially Sociology discipline-specific, from other students. I am ecstatic that this is now a resource that students will be able to come to for years. Throughout...

Sociology Compass Issues / Sociology of Media & Communication / Special Issue / Teaching & Learning Guide

10 Writing Tips for Student Sociologists

Good writing is crucial to sociology. For sociology to thrive as a discipline we sociologists have to be able to communicate our research effectively to a range of audiences. There are many great writing guides out there (Write for Research is especially good: https://medium.com/@write4research). This list of tips reflects my experience of writing a sociology PhD. It’s by no means an exhaustive or authoritative list and some readers may disagree with some of its items: nevertheless it reflects three years...

Special Issue

Surviving the Job Search: It’s not about you

I am one of the job search survivors – if “survival” means “got a job”.  I did actually get a job.  I got a good job at a university and city where I can build a life.  I am one of the lucky few.  In preparation for this post, I have been racking my brain trying to come up with some things I did well that could be helpful to those on the market this fall.  But the fact is,...

Sociology of Culture / Special Issue

How to Not Lose Your Sense of Self in a Graduate Program

(Source:http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Colonial_Students_in_Great_Britain-_Students_at_the_City_of_London_College,_London,_England,_UK,_1946_D29304.jpg) So, you’re interested in pursuing a graduate program? Great! Before you start applying you have to; research which schools have the best department to fit your specialties, you apply to as many schools as you can to ensure at least one acceptance, and then you wait, and wait, and wait. The days turn into weeks, which turn into months, and then, you finally get an acceptance! You jump for joy; you cannot hold in your excitement. You want everyone...

Gender & Sexuality / Sociology of Organizations & Work / Special Issue

Focused Fatigue: Parenting Equally in Graduate School

I am a traditional parent and I began my parenting journey while in graduate school.  I am traditional in that boring two-parent household, two incomes, one dog, two children and a whole mess of bills, kind of way.  What makes us interesting however is how we partner in our parenting and household maintenance.  I know, I know – what’s new or progressive about being partners, isn’t that more of the same old style?  Not quite.  I’m serious when I say...

Race & Ethnicity Studies / Sociology of Culture / Special Issue

Difference and Support: To be a (Queer) Scholar of Color

(Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AStudenti_ULBS.jpg)   For many (Queer) scholars of color (Queer is in parentheses because not all scholars of color identify somewhere on the Queer spectrum), including myself, attending graduate school is an enormous milestone. In my family, I am the first to attend college, let alone a graduate program. It was weird growing up, and to know that no one in your family could help you with your homework. When I was in 8th grade, I helped my cousin with...

Sociology of Organizations & Work / Special Issue / Teaching & Learning Guide

Five Things I Wish I had Known Before Starting My PhD

 Graduate Student Advice Month   Nobody really knows what is like to do a PhD until they do one. I am half way through mine and I still only half know what it is like to do one very specific PhD: my own. Everyone’s experience is unique to their own research topic, their own field site and their own personality, but many of the challenges, pressures and anxieties we encounter are more similar than we realise. We all seem to...

Special Issue

Introduction: Graduate Student Advice Month

My first year of graduate school was rough. Really rough. I had a hard time transitioning and moving from an undergraduate institution that I loved to a school (though I love it now) that was no where near the top of my list of schools I wanted to attend. To make matters worse, when I sought out advice from other graduate students, there was no place, no sense of community, for the graduate students to gather and discuss. When I...

Special Issue

Free Special Issue on the Geography and Sociology of Religion

Interdisciplinary research has much to offer scholars of different fields – widening perspectives and opening up avenues to new research. The burgeoning field of the geography and sociology of religion is one such field. As the global economy and increased migration result in more complex and rich societies, so the resultant intersections of cultures and faiths from across the world become more interesting and multifaceted. In this Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Issue encompassing “Religion and Place”, we have sought to bring together...