Dear ~~first_name~~,
With just 11 sleeps to go until the start of TASA 2025, the countdown is officially on. There’s still time to register!
We're happy to share new publications from our members, announce a fantastic $5,000 writing prize, and highlight a new job opportunity that could be perfect for someone wanting to move overseas. Plus, don’t miss details on the postgraduate reading group, where early career researchers are connecting and exchanging ideas.
We invite you to read on to catch up on all the latest news.
Sally, Penny and Ali
TASA Team
| A warm welcome to this week's new members Manpreet Kaur and Zahra Stardust, it's great to have you on board. And a big thank you to our renewing members, your continued support is vital to maintaining the community of sociologists that we all value.
| | TASA 2025 Conference Program
You can search by day, track, thematic group, workshop, social function, or keynote, and even download a personalised program containing only the sessions you wish to attend.
You can access the program here. | | | | TASA Reading Group: Medicalisation
Join us next Tuesday 18th November at 10am AEDT for this month’s TASA Reading Group, where we’ll explore the theme of medicalisation. Together we’ll discuss two influential articles offering critical perspectives on medicalisation and its sociological implications:
- Conrad (1992) Medicalization and Social Control
- Busfield (2017) The Concept of Medicalisation Reassessed
Participants are welcome to read one or both articles.
| | | | TASA PG Reading Group: The Sociology of Nothing
Join us on Tuesday 9th December 2025 at 10am (AEDT) for the final 2025 Postgraduate Reading Group as we explore the sociology of nothing—an exciting and elusive emerging concept that examines absence, silence, and the unmarked in social life. We’ll be discussing Scott’s (2018) A Sociology of Nothing: Understanding the Unmarked.
Don’t miss this thought-provoking session!
| | | New: Assistant or Associate Professor
Hong Kong Shue Yan University
The Department of Sociology is inviting applications for a full-time Assistant or Associate Professor. Rank will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. Candidates should have a doctorate degree in sociology, anthropology or related disciplines, and demonstrate the ability to effectively teach at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels while pursuing an active research agenda.
| Kenny, K., Harrison, M., & Smith, A. K. J. (Eds.). (2025). Timescapes of health, illness and care. Palgrave Macmillan.
| | This book brings together cutting-edge theoretical work across a range of disciplines in service of developing better understandings of the nature and experience of time in relation to health, illness and care. While the passage of time – smooth or otherwise – is a universal experience, it is often felt acutely in relation to compromised health and/or the need for care. These are key sites for understanding how time is managed and made meaningful in healthcare settings and in everyday life. Timescapes of Health, Illness and Care takes an interdisciplinary and international approach to understanding how considerations of time – its ontological standing, normative value, and embodied and intersubjective experience – are vital to understanding experiences of health and illness, the governance of healthcare institutions, and the cultures that circulate around (and often obscure) informal care. Read on... | | | |
Burns, B., R. Grace, and S. Avery. 2025. “ Building a Culture of Voice and Agency for Aboriginal Children in Out-of-Home Care: A Review of Policy in New South Wales and Victoria.” Australian Journal of Social Issues 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajs4.70081 [full access].
Phan, T. (2025). Testing-in-the-wild: Innovation nationalism and the colonial dynamics of new technology testbeds. Dialogues on Digital Society, 0(0). https://doi.org/10.1177/29768640251392332 [full access].
Squire, T. (2025). Theorizing Breastfeeding Support Assemblages: Developing a More-Than-Human Conceptualization for Breastfeeding Support Studies. Qualitative Health Research. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323251386997 [full access].
| | Sociologists out West - end of year gathering
| Introducing Special Sections
Following the recent launch of a new paper type for Journal of Sociology, Teaching Notes, the JoS team are launching a new feature called Special Sections. They invite proposals at any time for thematic sections that consist of three or four standard 8,000 word papers, framed with a 4,000 word introduction. This will be an ideal format for developing and publishing outcomes from, for instance, a conference panel, a smaller research network, or papers in conversation around a hot topic. Special Sections are designed to be a smaller, more manageable version of a special issue and will feature in standard issues along with regular papers.
If you would like to pitch a special section, please write firstly to our Managing Editor, Dr Amy Vanderharst.
| The latest special issue of the Journal of Sociology explores ‘Equity in the creative industries’ in the context of a changing employment landscape in Australia. Inequality is central to understanding the social consequences and distribution of cultural work. The COVID-19 pandemic, rise of digital cultural production, growth of media sharing platforms, and instability of changes in government (and policy) have both disrupted and re-organised cultural work. The collection of articles aims to develop debate on competing imaginaries of the lived experiences of workers, and to shed light on the struggle and complexities of contemporary creative labour.
All articles have been published on open access and are available here.
| Other Events, News & Opportunities
| New: The Sorrento Creative Writing Prize
The Prize celebrates the annual Sorrento Writers Festival and its mission to bring writers and readers together.
The winner will receive $5,000 and their writing featured at the 2026 Sorrento Writers Festival and at www.writing.org.au
| SHAPE Futures, a network for EMCRs in the HASS disciplines, is holding its 2025 Annual Convention on Thursday 27th November from 230-5pm at the Jim Potter Room at The University of Melbourne.
The event, which is on the topic of 'Navigating the Funding Landscape' is occurring at the same time and in the same location as our TASA Conference.
The event is completely FREE and involves a catered networking function. It is a great opportunity to mingle with other EMCRs in the HASS disciplines.
Further details are provided in the flyer on the left and you can register here.
| | | Academic Freedom: The right to enquire?
University of Melbourne
25th November, 8:30am - 6pm
Earnest discussions about academic freedom are often prompted by events outside the academy. The McCarthy era “loyalty oaths” imposed in some 1950s US universities provide one example. More recently, there have been some high-profile cases of alleged deplatforming accompanied by persistent populist anxieties about speech codes, cancel culture, and safe spaces.
As Robert French AC has recognised, it is important, in thinking about academic freedom, to distinguish what it permits (and in turn requires) from more general notions of freedom of speech. Academic freedom is recommended on the grounds that it is crucial to effective knowledge-making and, unlike unfettered freedom of speech, is practised subject to the norms and values of scholarly and scientific enquiry.
This symposium seeks to explore these enduring as well as pressing themes, questions and dilemmas.
| Edited Volume - call for contributions
| Constructive Alcohol: production, consumption, everything else (working title)
The book will be a response to Mary Douglas’ ground-breaking work Constructive Drinking (1987). Published nearly 40 years ago, Constructive Drinking continues to be a touchstone for research that foundationally acknowledges that ‘drinking’ is always socio-culturally constructed, historically contingent and morally relativistic. Douglas and her contributors firmly rejected approaches that assumptively problematized or pathologized alcohol and instead critically analysed benefits ascribed to alcohol in different social settings. Moreover, our proposed book comes at a time when alcohol is subject to multiple criticisms and challenges, not least of which are the World Health Organisation’s repeated declarations that there is no safe level of alcohol consumption; the impacts of climate change; and declining consumption globally.
| Mark Davis' Thesis 11 Annual Lecture - Relational Sociology in Action! Zelizer and the Climate Crisis
Thursday November 27th, 6-8pm AEDT
Greek Centre for Contemporary Culture, Melbourne
Prof Mark Davis joins TASA 2025for the Thesis Eleven annual lecture to explore sociology’s role in addressing challenges like the climate crisis.
2025 Agnes Heller Lecture - AI, Care, and Ageing Futures
Presenter: fellow member Barbara Barbosa Neves
Level 2, Room 2.10, La Trobe City Campus
November 18th, 1:45pm - 3:30pm AEDT
From courtrooms to care homes, AI is remaking what it means to be old. On one hand, AI-driven hiring platforms are facing lawsuits for discriminating against older applicants. On the other, headlines celebrate robots to solve the so-called aged care crisis, alongside multimillion-dollar investments in chatbots that promise to cure loneliness among older people.
| Kohli Fellowship 2026
Berlin Social Science Center (WZB)
The Kohli Fellowship is awarded to a promising early-stage researcher in sociology. The fellowship is awarded for 24 months. The current monthly stipend is € 2,500, subject to revision.
Application deadline: November 16. Read on... | Newcastle Youth Studies Online Seminar Series
The Newcastle Youth Studies Centre is a collaborative group of researchers who work with young people to understand their lives, cultural, and economic forces they are living in. They have the following online seminars scheduled:
- ‘Your mum didn’t take selfies’: Youth and image cultures on social media (November 19)
| BSA Annual Conference 2026: 75 Years of Sociology
University of Edinburgh, UK
8-10 April 2026
Predoctoral Preconference
Work and Family Researchers Network Conference
The Predoctoral Preconference will provide workshops intended to help graduate students form meaningful connections with diverse scholars, learn about publication strategies, as well as how to engage with stakeholders such as organisational leaders or policy advocates.
| | Reimagining Boyhood: Addressing the wellbeing of boys and young men through education
21 January, 2026
The University of Queensland
Key Speakers include fellow member Garth Stahl.
This event brings together leading international voices, cutting-edge research, and the shared commitment of schools and educators to shape the future of boys’ education, exploring identity, wellbeing, belonging, and learning in boyhood. With keynote speakers, expert panels, and interactive workshops, this full-day program offers evidence-based insights and practical strategies that educators can apply directly.
| | | Special Issues - call for submissions
| Professionalism beyond the Global North: A Space for New Theoretical Developments
Current Sociology Monographs
This issue invites contributions that advance sociological research on professions, professionalism, and expertise in the Global South—broadly defined to include Africa, Asia, Latin America, Southern and Eastern Europe, and Oceania
The Normative Turn in Sociology. Opening the Black Box
Sociology’s special issue hopes to lay the groundwork for a sociology of normativity; that is, a form of sociology (be it “critical” or otherwise) which is expressly normative. Editors are looking for contributions, theoretical and/or empirical, that engage with the question of normativity in sociology.
Paper submission deadline: 22 January. Read on...
Earning while Learning: Experiences, patterns and the political economy of working students
Work, Employment and Society’s new special issue aims to interrogate and fundamentally reconceptualize the relationship between earning and learning, bringing together different disciplinary approaches to interrogate student work and the global political economy that shapes it.
Paper submission deadline: 27 February. Read on...
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
The guest editors of this journal are seeking submissions for the forthcoming edition ‘Reframing artificial intelligence: Critical perspectives from AI social science’
In an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), public and academic discourse is often dominated by polarised narratives—either heralding AI as a solution to complex problems or warning of its dangers … this Collection invites social science perspectives to advance the study of AI’s sociotechnical, cultural and political dimensions.
Submission deadline: 30 April. 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
Digital Publications Editor (Roger): digitalpe@tasa.org.au
Thematic Groups (Naomi): thematicgroups@tasa.org.au
Postgraduates (Molly): postgraduates@tasa.org.au | |