| thDear ~~first_name~~,
We hope you can join us for our next TASA Thursdays event, October 19th at 7pm AEDT, with UK sociologist Mark Carrigan speaking about 'From Social media to generative media (AI). The full details, including the registration link, are further down this newsletter.
Importantly, this is a final call regarding registering for TASA 2023 at the early bird rate. The deadline has been extended to midnight today October 12th AEDT. All current TASA 2023 information is available via TASAweb here. Note, we are also now calling for volunteers (see further down).
If you have any questions related to the Colloquium, or other TASA events, please contact our Events Manager, Penny Toth. To register, click on the orange button below:
| | TASA 2023 - Call for Volunteers
| We are calling for Volunteers to assist with TASA 2023, which will be held at the University of Sydney from Monday 27 November – Wednesday 29 November, 2023.
Lending a hand at the upcoming TASA 2023 Colloquium is a great opportunity to make connections with other sociologists and have a lot of fun too!
For those wanting to become more involved in TASA, it’s also a great first step to help you learn more about the work we do.
If you would like to volunteer, please click here to submit your expression of interest before Wednesday 25th October, 2023.
If you have any questions or queries please contact Penny Toth, TASA Event Manager, via events@tasa.org.au.
| | 2023 Biennial Membership Survey
| TASA's biennial membership survey will be distributed to all members next week. We hope you can respond to the survey, which will help us provide you, and your fellow members, with a high-quality professional association that meets members' needs.
|  | Join us for our October TASA Thursdays session 'From Social media to generative media,' presented by Dr Mark Carrigan.
Mark's initial work on generative AI has been concerned with issues of policy and practice within universities. Mark is writing a guide book for academics about how to use generative AI in reflective and creative ways, building on a previous book he wrote Social Media for Academics.
He originally saw the parallel as a matter of the challenges facing academics but Mark has since realised the interconnections are much deeper than this. Generative AI systems are trained on user generated content at a time when social platforms are running up against the limits of the digital advertising model and exploring new subscription-based approaches.
They have played an essential role in accelerating hype through end users sharing screenshots and influencers building capital out of this shared object of attention. What OpenAI euphemistically refers to as 'collective intelligence' has relied on social platforms to facilitate what Nancy Baym and Jean Burgess call public pedagogy: users developing their own ideas of what to do with a platform and sharing these with others. Generative AI is utterly entangled with social media while auguring a radical shift in it.
The humane technology guru Tristan Harris has talked about social media as our 'first contact' with AI and generative AI as our 'second contact'. This feels overly simplistic but it does raise the question of how we conceptualise the relationship between and historicise the emergence of generative AI in terms of a broader history of the platform economy.
EVENT DETAILS
Date: Thursday 19 October 2023
Time: 7pm - 8pm AEDT (Mark is based in the UK, which is why this event will be in the evening)
Format: Zoom Webinar
|  | Join us for TASA's Travelling Scholar Lecture: 'Judicial Work & Emotion: A Socio-legal Approach' which will be presented by fellow member Sharyn Roach Anleu on Thursday 26 October 2023.
The growing field of law and emotion examines the presence (and absence) of emotion throughout law and legal work. Impartiality is a foundational value and judicial officers are expected to be impersonal, emotionless, and detached in their courtroom work and decision making.
Sharyn Roach Anleu's socio-legal research that uses a variety of methods demonstrates the ways emotion is embedded in the everyday work of judges, magistrates and their courts. Judicial officers undertake emotion work to regulate their own feelings and display, shaped by the legal framework and feeling rules. They may also need to manage the emotions of others, especially in court. A socio-legal approach shows how emotion can be a valuable resource to enable fair treatment rather than undermining impartial judging.
EVENT DETAILS
Date: Thursday 26 October 2023
Time: 10:00am - 11:30am (ACST)
Location: Level 2, Savannah Room, Northern Institute, Charles Darwin University, Casuarina
Format: In person & Online
Cost: Complimentary
| | TASA MEM Hump Day: Networking
| TASA's MEM thematic group is hosting an online event via Zoom, 18 October, 2023 at 1PM AEDT / 12PM AEST / 11:30AM ACST / 10AM AWST
Speaker: Gianluigi Rotondo
Join the MEM thematic group for an online event on networking, hosted by TASA MEM co-convener Gianluigi Rotondo (Monash University). In this session, Gianluigi will focus on common issues, strategies as well as communication tips on how to effectively network.
Gianluigi is a sociologist who was awarded his PhD at Monash University in 2019. His research explores intercultural communication through interdisciplinary links with Performing Arts, Education and Translation Studies. A recent Italian immigrant and father of two young children, he has focused his most recent publications on the concepts of displacement, grounds of discrimination and communication.
If you are interested in this event, please RSVP to ivy.m.vuong@student.uts.edu.au
| This Saturday, 14 October 2023, Australians will have their say in a referendum about whether to change the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing a body called the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice. Voters will be asked to vote 'yes' or 'no' on a single question. Below is a list of resources for you to view and share.
| | Members' Engaging Sociology | Manouchehri, B., Burns, E. A., Sharifi, A., & Davoudi, S. (2023). Inclusion in the Non-Inclusive Community: Exploring children’s Exclusion from the Urban Planning Process in Iran. In P. Albanese, R. Berman, & X. Chen (Eds.), Sociological Research and Urban Children and Youth (Vol. 32) (pp. 67–84). Bingley, UK: Emerald. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1537-466120230000032005
| Fomiatti, R., Pienaar, K. Savic, M., Keane, H. & Treloar, C. (2023). Improving understandings of trauma and alcohol and other drug-related problems: A social research agenda. International Journal of Drug Policy, 121, 10419. 50 free copies available here.
| Hamilton, G., Ridgway, A., & Heydon, G. (2023). Family Violence and Sexual Harm: Research Report. RMIT University. DOI:10.25439/rmt.24208758.v1 [OPEN ACCESS]
| TASA Executive seeks to appoint a new editorial team for the Journal of Sociology for the four-year term 2025–2028.
The term of the current editors expires at the end of 2024, although copy for the first issue of 2025 will be organised.
The journal receives financial and administrative assistance from TASA and from the publisher, Sage. Manuscript submission is done online through ScholarOne. All members of the editorial team must be TASA members and ideally will be located within a department of sociology or a School/unit that offers a major sequence of sociology, including doctoral studies. The Executive are willing to consider applications from an editorial team at a single university or a consortia of staff at two or more universities. Such consortia will be required to demonstrate that they have the capability to work effectively across locations. TASA will provide the Managing Editor with a complimentary TASA membership.
Applicants are also required to show that they have institutional support for the management of the journal, and to specify the nature of this support. Selection protocols and application instructions are available via the orange link below. Additional information is available from the TASA President, Alphia Possamai-Inesedy or from the current Editor in Chief, Helen Forbes-Mewett.
Expressions of interest should be emailed to TASA Admin by 9am Monday October 16th, 2023.
| New: Research Officer, Safer Futures
La Trobe University
This position has been created to work on a new research project, Creating safer futures: Raising public awareness of child sexual abuse among young adults through digital storytelling. Work with fellow member Katie Wright (project lead).
Assistant Professor (2 positions)
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
| The Jobs Board enables you to view current employment opportunities. As a member, you can post opportunities to the Jobs Board directly from within your membership profile screen.
| | | | The Scholarships Board enables you to view available scholarships that our members have posted. Like the Jobs Board, as a member, you can post scholarship opportunities directly from within your membership profile screen. | | | | In case you are not aware, you can add job and scholarship opportunities to our publicly searchable Jobs & Scholarships Board via your TASA membership profile, see image below: | | Other Events, News & Opportunities | Journal: Special Issue - Call for Papers
| New: Muslim women in the 21st Century: Agency, influence, lived experience.
Religions: a Q1-ranked, peer-reviewed, open-access journal
Muslim women are often portrayed monolithically in popular as well as political discourse. Even the academe has, at times, been dominated by an Orientalist gaze that exoticises the “Muslimwoman” to use miriam cooke’s neologism. This special edition aims to challenge this homogenizing discourse by featuring a range of diverse voices and perspectives.
| New: Designing inequality: Capturing attention, dividing users
Speaker: Beverley Skeggs
Free, online event
Wednesday, 18 October, 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM AEDT
For details, and to register, read on...
New: THE “HAVES” AND THE “HAVE YACHTS” - Socio- Spatial Struggles in London between the Merely Wealthy” and the “Superrich”
Speaker: Roger Burrows
Free in-person and online event
Thursday 19 October, 3.30-5 pm, Melbourne and online
For details, and to register, read on...
| Small Area Population Forecasting Methods
Keynote: Dr Kim Johnstone, PhD MBA (demographer)
The workshop is free (and catered)
Tuesday October 24th, 9:30am – 4:00pm
Woodward Conference Centre, University of Melbourne.
| Collaboration Opportunity | A Southern Brisbane Suburban Forum Inc. (SBSF) collaboration opportunity
The Southern Brisbane Suburban Forum Inc. (SBSF) is a local volunteer organization that has been formed to give a democratic voice to the local community. The forum creates the opportunity for a collective discussion and narrative among local stakeholders to drive desired changes in their suburbs. The SBSF is part of a renewed movement in the recent history of community, taking control of knowledge production and knowledge transfer, as governments have eroded the opportunity to teach and research the necessary-but-lost sub-fields of applied philosophy, history and sociology. The SBSF is seeking support from the academy, and looking to make connections for the purposes of community-based research and funding auspice. For further information, contact, Dr Neville Buch, President of the Southern Brisbane Suburban Forum Inc. and TASA member, nbuch61@gmail.com
| | So Fi Zine #14
So Fi Zine publishes fiction, poetry and visual art inspired by social science.
Edition #14 will be published in late 2023.
Send your sociological fiction, poetry and visual art!
Submission deadline: October 31. | | | Looking Back, Looking Ahead: Marking 10 Years Since the End of Australian Car Manufacturing was Declared
A one-day research symposium, Adelaide, Thursday 15 February 2024
This one-day research symposium has been organised to mark 10 years since Australia’s last carmakers announced plans to close domestic manufacturing operations. By February 2014, all remaining carmakers had announced plans to end the domestic manufacture and assembly of passenger cars over the following 3-4 years. By October 2017, Australia’s car manufacturing industry had shut down completely.
Note, some funding is available to support the participation of Early-Career Researchers (ECRs), HDR students, low-income or unwaged researchers, or researchers from outside the academy, e.g., from industry, policymaking, or community organisations, including potential to subsidise travel and accommodation for participants travelling from outside Adelaide/South Australia.
| Kohli Fellowships 2024
The Kohli Fellowship for Sociology promotes researchers who have successfully finished their dissertation with excellent success. It provides financial support for a two-year postdoctoral stay at the Berlin Social Science Center (WZB) starting October 2024. This time should be used to engage in a new research project, to advance publications, and to develop research collaborations. As Kohli Fellow at the WZB you will form part of a vibrant intellectual community and participate in the scholarly life of your host research unit. Scholars of all nationalities whose research relates to the WZB’s research program are eligible to apply for the Kohli Fellowship for Sociology. We particularly welcome research projects with a focus on life course and generational issues – but other topics are equally considered.
Early Career Work and Family Fellowship Program
The Work and Family Researchers Network (WFRN) is seeking applicants for its 2024-2025 Early Career Work and Family Fellowships. The goal of the program is to help promising young scholars establish career successes and integrate them within the WFRN research community. Fellows receive a 2024 membership in the WFRN, conference registration, and $250 to attend an Early Career Fellowship Preconference (June 19, 2024) and the 2024 WFRN Conference (June 20-24, 2024) in Montreal, Canada.
| Gift memberships, for any membership category, can now be accessed at anytime via your membership profile screen. If you would like to gift a membership, to someone new or to a current member, please follow the steps below:
STEP 1: Click here and log in
STEP 2: Click on the drop down menu to the right of your name in the purple bar (RH) at the top of the website (see 1st image below)
STEP 3: Click on Profile (see 1st image below)
STEP 4: Click on the Gift Memberships menu item and complete the details, see yellow highlights in 2nd image below. | | Submitting Newsletter Items | | We encourage you to support your colleagues by sharing details of your latest publications with them via this newsletter. No publication is too big or too small. Any mention of sociology is of value to our association, and to the discipline, so please do send through details of your latest publication (fully referenced & with a link, where possible) for the next newsletter, to TASA Admin. Usually, the newsletter is disseminated every Thursday morning. | | Updating your Member Profile | Personal pronoun preferences can be added to your profile. There are 9 combination options to choose from. Please let Sally in TASA Admin know if your preference/s is not on the list and we will have them added.
| | TASA Documents and Policies | In case you are not aware, you can access details of TASA's current Executive Committee 2023 - 2024, and their respective portfolios, as well as documents and policies, including the Constitution, Values Statement, Statement on Academic Freedom, Code of Conduct, Grievance Procedures, Safe & Inclusive Events, Sustainable Events and TASA History.
| | Accessing Online Materials & Resources | | TASA members have access to over 90 peer-reviewed Sage Sociology full-text collection online journals encompassing over 63,000 articles. The image on the left shows you where to access those journals, as well as the Sage Research Methods Collection & the Taylor and Francis Full Text Collection, when logged in to TASAweb. If needed, here is a short instructive video on how to access the journals. | | | TASA Admin (Sally): admin@tasa.org.au
TASA Events (Penny): events@tasa.org.au | |