Dear ~~first_name~~,
Exciting news for TASA 2025—we are thrilled to announce that Professor Jenny Davis will be joining us as a keynote speaker! A leading voice in digital sociology, Professor Davis’s work explores identity, technology, and social change, coupled with AI, making her an invaluable addition to our conference lineup.
With TASA 2025 abstract submissions closing on April 22, now is the time to submit your work and be part of the conversation. Don’t miss your chance to contribute!
In this edition, we also shine a spotlight on postgraduate engagement with details of today's TASA Thursdays event dedicated to discussing the Postgraduate Impact and Engagement Award.
Plus, we have a wealth of member publications, including two articles on Netflix’s new series, Adolescence, as well as new PhD opportunities for those looking to take the next step in their research journey.
Read on for all the details!
| Keynote Speaker Announcement
| | We’re excited to announce Professor Jenny L. Davis as a keynote speaker for TASA 2025.
Jenny is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Chair and Professor of Sociology at Vanderbilt University and an Honorary Professor at ANU. Her work explores how social forces and technologies—like AI and algorithms—shape one another. She is author of How Artifacts Afford: The Power and Politics of Everyday Things (MIT Press) and co-director of Vanderbilt’s AI Grand Challenge.
A leader in AI ethics and sociology, Jenny will bring powerful insight to our 2025 theme: Sociology in Action! Wellbeing, Policy and Activism in Times of Crises and Change.
Registrations for TASA 2025 will open soon. | | |
For more information about the submission process, read on...
| | Join us TODAY Thursday April 3rd, 12:30pm - 1:30pm AEDT, for an engaging online webinar dedicated to discussing TASA's Postgraduate Impact and Engagement Award. Hosted by Molly Saunders, TASA's Postgraduate Portfolio Leader, this session will provide invaluable insights for aspiring applicants, featuring a panel of past winners who will share their experiences and offer tips for successful submissions.
| | | Join us at 12:30pm (AEST) on 17th April for a TASA Thursdays session which will explore 'The Sociology of Music in Action.'
Within this session, we will be discussing emerging research projects presented by fellow member PhD candidates Hannah Fairlamb & Christie Bosworth from the Sociology of Music Thematic Group.
Event Details:
Date: Thursday 17th April 2025
Time: 12:30pm - 13:30pm (AEST)
Format: Zoom
Cost: complimentary
Read more here | | | There are six bursary categories available, and eligible members may apply for multiple categories. However, note that each member can only receive one bursary, and submitting an application does not guarantee funding, as bursaries are limited. The categories are:
The application deadline for all TASA 2025 bursaries is April 22nd, which aligns with the abstract submission deadline. As a result, you will need to submit your bursary application before receiving the outcome of your abstract submission.
| | The call for expressions of interest for our 2026 Gary Bouma Workshop Program is now open. TASA can fund up to two workshops at AU$5000.00 each.
Successful workshops will advance research within sociology and showcase TASA as the face of sociological/interdisciplinary research in the region; engaging with issues of national concern; advancement of knowledge; support innovative ideas, and, the potential of feeding into policy and practice development.
Expression of interest deadline: July 14th.
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The annual TASA Career Development Grant is now open for applications. The grant seeks to support the career development activities of TASA members where these activities are not covered by other funding.
A total of AU$4,500 is available, with a maximum of AU$1,500 available per applicant.
| | | Wolfinger, E. (2025). From Harlots to Irresponsible Economic Citizens: Shifting Discourses on Sole Mothers. In Andrea O'Reilly and Casey O'Reilly-Conlin (Eds.), Gone Feral: Unruly Women and the Undoing of Normative Femininity. Demeter Press. https://www.jstor.org/stable/jj.26084238
| Prankumar, SK., Watson, SR., Wong, H., & Noor, MN. (2005). Sexual citizenship. In Cover, R., & Newman, CE. (Eds), Elgar Encyclopedia of Queer Studies, Edward Elgar Publishing. https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/elgar-encyclopedia-of-queer-studies-9781803922096.html
| Laura Tarzia, Carolina Navarro Medel , Elizabeth McLindon, Paulina Ezer, Helen Forbes-Mewett , Ly Thi Tran, Adele Murdolo and Kelsey Hegarty (2025). Experiences of Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence Among Women International Students in Australia, Violence Against Women. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/10778012251323267 [Open Access]
Woelert, P, Chesters, J., Martinussen, M. and Gannaway, J. (2025) Fewer restructures, more consultation, better recognition: key recommendations on tackling administrative burdens from Australian universities’ professional staff, Journal of Higher Education Policy and Management, https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/1360080X.2025.2478135? [Open Access]
Karinna Saxby, Sara Hutchinson Tovar, Glenda M. Bishop, Ian Down, Ricki Spencer, Dennis Petrie, Zoe Aitken - Gender identity and mental health inequalities 2001–2022: population-level evidence from an Australian cohort study: BMJ Mental Health 2025;28:e301277. https://mentalhealth.bmj.com/content/28/1/e301277 [Open Access]
Chan, R., Lam, M. S., Mao. L., Wong, HTH., & Prankumar, S.K. (2025). Intracommunity intersectional discrimination and its impact on psychological distress and smoking among ethnically diverse sexual minority men. Social Science & Medicine, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117723. [Open Access]
Noor, MN., Prankumar, SK., Alkhaldi, M., & Torres, I. (2025). Academic voices on the health and humanitarian crises in Gaza. Medicine, Conflict and Survival, https://doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2025.2473802.
Samad, S., Irving, I., Prankumar, S.K., Wong, H., Noor, M. N., & Saliba, B. (2025). Analysing the health of queer Muslims through the 4M framework: a scoping literature review. Sexuality & Culture, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-025-10342-3.[Open Access]
Sudarto, B., Chow, EPF., Chang, C., Gomes, C., Prankumar, SK, Reeves, K., Coelho, Al, Fairley, CK., Phillips, TR., & Ong, JJ. (2025). Exploring barriers and opportunities for tertiary education providers to deliver sexual and reproductive health education to international students: a qualitative study. Sexuality Research and Social Policy, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13178-025-01108-5. [OPEN ACCESS].
| TASA Awards currently open for nominations include:
Nominations for these four awards close on 17 July.
Due to the assessment process, nominations for these two awards close earlier on 15 May.
Nominees will be notified of the outcome in August (for most awards) and October (for the JMA). Award recipients will be formally announced at our TASA 2025 Conference Dinner in November.
| Postdoctoral Research Fellow / Research Fellow in Parents Managing Climate Anxiety
University of Queensland
This is a research focused position.
Part-time (Level A 0.7 FTE or Level B 0.6 FTE), fixed-term position for up to 2 years
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
University of Adelaide
This ONI Grant Funded Researcher (B) position is an opportunity to develop new insights into young people’s exposure to, and interpretation of, extreme material online. It will use in-depth qualitative methods to collect novel data and provide an evidence-base for points of intervention. It is part of an ONI Discovery Research Project titled ‘Digital pathways to violent extremism in young Australians: Intelligence imperatives and implications’ in a research group led by Prof. Tim Legrand. The successful applicant will be part of a vibrant research team, including academics from the University of Adelaide and Flinders University, and have regular engagement with stakeholders in government and community sectors.
Application Deadline: TODAY 3rd April. Read on...
Postdoctoral Research Fellow in Sociology (part-time)
Fellow member Leah Williams Veazey is recruiting a part-time Postdoctoral Research Fellow to work with her at the Sydney Centre for Healthy Societies at The University of Sydney. The successful candidate with contribute to a growing program of research about migration, im/mobility and belonging. In particular, they will work with Leah on projects relating to her current focus area of healthcare worker migration.
Application Deadline: 27th April. Read on...
| | Scholarship Opportunities
| New: PhD Scholarships
Three PhD scholarship opportunities are available as part of a new Australian Research Council funded Discovery Project: Youth Futures after Mobility (YFAM). Deakin University x 2 & Edith Cowan University x 1.
Project 1 (Deakin): Comparison of Mobile Youth (quantitative), with fellow member Anita Harris.
Project 2 (Deakin): Mobile Youth, Transitions & Settling (qualitative/mixed methods), with fellow member Anita Harris.
Project 3 (ECU): Mobile Youth, Transitions & Settling (qualitative/mixed methods).
Applications will remain open until candidates are appointed.
| | Alcohol reduction and hope
Two Phd Scholarship opportunities $33,511 per year (for 3 years) plus a full tuition fee waiver
Torrens University
An Australian Research Council funded study on alcohol reduction, midlife women and hope
Application deadline: April 30th. | | | | Sober Curiosity
Two PhD scholarships worth $33,511 per year (for 3 years) plus a full tuition fee waiver
Torrens University
A National Health and Medical Research Council funded study on reducing alcohol consumption through sober curiosity.
Application deadline: April 30th
| | | | Other Events, News & Opportunities | Visiting Professorship Opportunity
| 2026 Visiting Professor of Australian Studies
Seoul National University (SNU)
The Visiting Professor position is a funded 11-month visiting academic position commencing in early 2026 at SNU which aims to support innovative research collaborations and promote mutual understanding of Australia and Korea’s history, cultural heritage, and modern outlook.
Application deadline: April 27th. Read on...
| National Library of Australia Fellowships
Applications are now open for the 2026 Fellowships offered by the National Library of Australia. Researchers and creative writers are encouraged to apply for nine philanthropically funded Fellowships offered by the National Library of Australia in 2026.
Successful applicants will each receive $35,000 to support a sustained residency at the National Library in Canberra, as well as supported access to the Library’s collections, increased borrowing privileges, a dedicated desk in the Library’s Petherick Reading Room, and an allowance for high resolution digital copies of collection materials.
| | Bite Back! Food, Activism, and Care
Hybrid, May 27th
| | | | Virtual Influencers in the Asia Pacific
Online, Tuesday 8 April, 1400-1700hrs AWST (GMT+8)
A symposium exploring the impact, iterations, and industries of virtual influencers in the Asia Pacific region. Spanning several local incarnations of the virtual—including virtual influencers, virtual YouTubers (vTubers), and virtual idols—the papers in this event attest to the vibrancy of the Asia Pacific region as a site for virtual encounters and experiences.
| | | Call for Papers - Journals
| New: Building Inclusive Pandemic Preparedness: Perspectives from Sexuality and Cultural Studies in the COVID-19 era
Special Issue – Culture, Health and Sexuality
The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed and intensified existing inequalities along intersecting lines of sexuality, gender, race, ethnicity, health status, and socio-economic background. Institutional responses to other global health crises – including HIV, Ebola, Zika, MPox, and the challenges of antimicrobial resistance – have further augmented these disparities and amplified their socio-political effects. These crises have also shaped and been shaped by evolving discourses of biopower, citizenship, and the politics of life and death. This special issue examines and advances the concept of “inclusive pandemic preparedness”, focusing on the intersections between cultural and social dynamics with health and sexuality in times of crisis, with particular attention to HIV and COVID-19. Read On…
Abstract submission deadline: April 15th. Read on....
Differential Mobilities in Contemporary Cities
Special Issue - Journal Forum Sociológico
The literature on urban mobility has made progress in recognising the diversity of commuting practices that emerge in contemporary cities. Based on a critique of the view that normalises and generalises commuting centred on home-work journeys, new research has highlighted differential mobilities that reveal the complexity of existing daily practices.
| Disability and Rights: The Possibilities and Limits of Rights Discourse under Neoliberalism
An online, two half-day conference
Friday, 13th June, 12:30 - 17:30 BST (UK Time) & Saturday, 14th June, 09:30 - 14:30 BST (UK Time).
Plenary Speakers:
- Ravi Malhotra, Professor of Law, University of Ottawa.
- Peter Bartlett, Professor of Mental Health Law, University of Nottingham.
Abstract submission deadline: Friday, 11th April, 5pm BST (UK Time). Read on...
Religion and the Contemporary Phase of Globalization: Possibilities and Challenges
3rd World Conference for Religious Dialogue and Cooperation
June 23-27. 2025, Krusevo, North Macedonia (Hotel Montana)
Abstract submission deadline: April 15. Read on...
| | Senses & Emotions
Online, October 4th & 5th
Sociologists have long understood that the social world it not a solely rational place: it is messy, it is interactional and it is felt. Emotion management has a key role in supporting both work done to nonhuman animals (e.g. animal testing, fHarming, slaughter), and for nonhuman animals (e.g. activism, caretaking, critical animal research).
Submission deadline: May 31st. Read on...
| | |  |  | The Jobs & Scholarships Board allows you to view opportunities that TASA Admin and fellow members have posted.
In 4 easy steps, you can upload job & scholarship opportunities from your member's profile screen. For instructions, visit here.
The Jobs & Scholarships Board is a public facing searchable feature of TASAweb.
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 | TASA’s Executive Committee (EC) governs the Association and manages its daily business as outlined in the Constitution and by established policies. A call for nominations for the 2027 – 2028 Executive term will be disseminated on July 1, 2026.
The November 2024 - November 2026 Executive Team can be viewed on TASAweb here.
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 | TASA was officially established under the name of the Sociological Association of Australia and New Zealand (SAANZ) in 1963, crystallising what was a long, and perhaps delayed process of the discipline’s development in Australia.
For the 50th anniversary celebrations in 2013, pages on TASA's history were added to TASAweb.
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 | The more members TASA has, the stronger our association can be.
To help spread the word about TASA, you can quickly and easily gift a TASA membership to someone from within your TASA membership profile.
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 | | TASA members have free 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 online resources. |
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 | TASA currently has 27 thematic groups in operation and members can join up to 4 groups. This can be done quickly, and easily via your membership profile.
Watch the very short video (1:30) to learn how to join a thematic group/s.
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 | TASA's Membership Directory allows you to search for members by country and state. It also has search functions for members of a particular thematic group, and members who are available for supervision and/or mentoring.
To learn how to search the Membership Directory, watch this very short video (1 min).
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 | Via your membership profile, you can update many options including adding a secondary email address, and indicating if you are available for mentoring, supervising, consulting, and/or talking to the media, for example. If you are in a Tier 2, Tier 3 & Tier 4 membership category, you can also opt in or out of receiving a hard copy of the Journal of Sociology.
All of these changes can be done quickly and easily. To learn how, watch this video (1 min). |
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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.
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 | 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 email through details of your latest publication/s (fully referenced & with a link, where possible), events, job adverts etc. for the next newsletter, to TASA Admin (right click to retrieve the email address). Usually, the newsletter is disseminated every Thursday morning. |
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 | As part of the agreement with Taylor & Francis, TASA members are entitled to a 30% books discount. This discount is valid on any full priced CRC Press or Routledge book.
To access the book discount, click on the following link and then log in to TASAweb: book discount link. |
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Admin (Sally): admin@tasa.org.au
Events (Penny): events@tasa.org.au
Membership (Ali): membership@tasa.org.au
Indigenous (John): indigenousmembership@tasa.org.au
Thematic Groups (Naomi): thematicgroups@tasa.org.au | |