Graduate Student Workshops

Culture, Organizations, and Politics Workshop:  The Workshop is the primary activity organized by the Center for Culture, Organizations, and Politics at the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE). The Workshop has been in existence since 1996 and is organized by Professor Fligstein, Director of the Center. The Workshop meets biweekly and is composed of mostly graduate students and faculty in Sociology.  Over the years it has drawn on students and faculty from Political Science, the Business School, and Law and Society, as well as visitors from the U.S. and abroad. The Workshop discusses individual scholars’ work in progress. Papers will be distributed beforehand, and the session will involve no formal presentations by the papers’ authors but will instead involve free-flowing and open discussion. Almost all of the presenters in the workshop are students. This workshop gives students an opportunity to get feedback on their papers to prepare them for publication.  Around 150 papers presented at the Workshop have been published since the Workshop started.

The principal theme of the workshop is theoretical, not substantive. Papers in the Workshop focus attention on how social fields (defined as social arenas where actors gather, know one another and engage in interaction under a set of rules) come into existence, engage in piecemeal social change and are transformed. Work is theoretically and empirically eclectic. As such, over the years, we have read papers in a large number of fields in sociology including the sociology of work, political sociology, social movements, sociology of science, economic sociology, globalization, education, race, gender, and law. The theme of culture, organization, and politics reflect the broad theoretical issues raised by the creation of fields.

Culture is used to define the ways we perceive ourselves and the system of power in which we are embedded. Formal organizations are the primary vehicle by which fields are propagated. The formal politics of law and society impinge on most aspects of modern life including who gets to be an actor and what forms of organizing are possible. The informal politics of organizational life pervades social growth within and across organizations. Together, culture, society, and politics are the building blocks that produce fields that work to both enable and constrain people.

Dates/Time/Location for F21: 5:00 - 6:00 PST in 402 Social Sciences Building (SSB)/ Zoom

Wednesday September 15 Neil Fligstein and Janna Huang "Finance and the Organization of a Corporate Response to Climate Change"

Wednesday September 29 Armando Lara-Millan "American Healthcare Spending: Power, Language, and the Pricing of Advanced Medical Technology"

Wednesday October 13 Kelly Quinn "Domestic Outsourcing in the United States, 1979-2019"

Wednesday November 13 Nataliya Nedzhetskaya "Passive Investment, Active Isomorphism: Index Funds as Innovation in the U.S. Mutual Fund Industry, 1980-2008"

Wednesday November 17 Jasmine Sanders "The Power of Capital in the Changing Demographic of NCAA Division I Men's Basketball" 

Wednesday December 1 Matt Stimpson “The Flip Side of Monopoly: Losses, Mergers, and the Growing Gap Between Small and Large Corporations”

Contact Professor Neil Fligstein at fligst@berkeley.edu to be added to the list.

Gender/Sexuality Workshop:  In the Gender/Sexuality workshop, we take a broad view of the study of gender and sexuality, placing it into conversation with studies of race and ethnicity, immigration, religion, labor, work, development, social theory, crime and punishment, culture, aging and the life course, social movements, education, medicine, and other subfields. The group was formed by sociology graduate students in 2009 to create a space to discuss graduate student and faculty work on gender and sexuality in the department as well as to support and connect students. We meet several times throughout the semester to workshop papers and read books of interest.

We meet at the beginning of the semester to see who wants to present work and to decide on a schedule collectively. For each session, we have one or two people perform their work and assign a discussant to provide thorough feedback, although everyone is expected to have read the work before we meet. Although it is okay if participants have to miss a couple of sessions, we appreciate it if people come to as many sessions as they can, particularly during semesters that they are presenting work. Meets regularly throughout the semester.

Dates/Time/ Location for F21Meets every other Monday on Zoom (at least for now) from 10am-11:30am, starting 9/13. You do not need to have work to present in order to participate and newcomers are always welcome. 

If you would like to participate, contact one of the three grad student organizers who will add you to the mailing list and send you the zoom link: Rae Willis-Conger (rebeca_willisconger@berkeley.edu), Payal Hathi (phathi@berkeley.edu), Paul Salamanca (salamanca@berkeley.edu)

Interdisciplinary Immigration Workshop: IIW meets every two weeks during the academic year so members can share work-in-progress about any aspect of research on migration/ immigration. It welcomes contemporary and historical research on migration, immigrants and their children, in the US and around the world. This fall semester the workshop is open to any researcher at UCB—grad students, faculty, staff, post-docs. The Interdisciplinary Immigration Workshop is facilitated by Irene Bloemraad and Cybelle Fox of the Department of Sociology. But we warmly encourage participation from diverse disciplinary and methodological approaches. The workshop is grateful for funding from the Institute for Research on Labor and Employment (IRLE).

During every workshop, we will discuss two papers no more than 25 pages in length (they can range from research proposals to articles in preparation for publication). One discussant/respondent will be in charge of providing detailed comments for each paper, and all workshop members can provide additional feedback. Papers are sent out the Monday before the workshop meets to allow all participants ample time to read through the work in progress. 

Dates/Time/ Location for F21: Virtual meetings via zoom almost every other Monday from 12:00 to 1:30 pm.  Meetings will be restricted to people with a @berkeley.edu email. If you would like to stay in the listserv please reply to this email by Friday, September 4th.  The specific dates for this semester are: 9/13, 10/4, 10/18, 11/1, 11/15, 11/29

Graduate students are encouraged to subscribe to the workshop as a one-unit class (Sociology 292) using CCN 15044 (see below for requirements).

Workshop Requirements
Units and Requirements: You can come without officially enrolling, but you are encouraged to register for this 1 unit P/NP class through the Sociology department. Enrollment helps justify the budget and course to the department. In order to pass, you are required to either: come to most sessions, OR present a work in progress, OR act as a discussant for one of the papers.

If you have any questions, please e-mail Nadia Almasalkhi (nadiaalmasalkhi@berkeley.edu).

Job Market Workshop: These workshops for Sociology grad students are held throughout the academic year. All students who are considering entering the job market should attend the spring workshop (introduction to the job market), which will show them how to find job openings, prepare application materials, and request and submit letters of recommendation. All students who are on the job market should attend the fall workshops (the job talk, the campus visit, negotiating the job offer), which collectively will reveal how the job market process works post-application.

Academic Job Market Overview Monday, August 30th, 12-1:30pm (Zoom); Speaker: Robert Braun Campus Visits and Job Talks Monday, September 20th, 12-1:30pm (Zoom); Speakers: Robert & Daniel Aldana Cohen Job Offers and Negotiation Monday, December 6th, 12-1:30pm (Zoom); Speakers: Robert & Yan Long

Contact Assistant Professor Robert Braun at robert.braun@berkeley.edu

Public Sociology Workshop: In the Public Sociology workshop hosted by the Berkeley Journal of Sociology (BJS), we seek to create a supportive community for writing and publishing public sociology. The goal here is to extend beyond the internal academic debates of the sociological discipline and translate academic research into forms that are accessible to wider publics. We will meet several times throughout the semester to workshop a wide variety of mediums in the spirit of public-facing sociology. In this workshop, we encourage papers, essays, photo-journals, interviews, videos, appropriate fieldnotes, and other creative outlets. We will also invite guest speakers who practice public sociology (e.g. editors of The Society Pages and Contexts, public policy makers, public science writers/creatives, social activists). Participants in this workshop are encouraged to have their work featured in the Berkeley Journal of Sociology, whether in print or online. 

Our first meeting will be held on Friday, October 1st, 2021. If you are interested in joining, please fill out this when2meet to help us decide on a meeting time for that date. We will discuss our meeting schedule for the rest of semester at our first meeting. If October 1st does not work, let us know at berkeleysociologyjournal@gmail.com

Contact: Tiffany Hamidjaja (tiffanyhamidjaja@berkeley.edu), Janna Huang (jannahuang@berkeley.edu), Elena Amaya (elena_amaya@berkeley.edu)

Race/Ethnicity and Inequality (REIW) Workshop:  REIW is a student-led workshop in which members share research in progress on topics related to race/ethnicity and inequality. This workshop has included work related to race theory, empirical work on racial/ethnic disparities in the U.S. and internationally, and work on inequality more broadly (for example, related to housing, education, or incarceration). We welcome both qualitative and quantitative work and read papers at all stages, from paper proposals to MA papers to dissertation chapters and R&Rs. Participants circulate their work a week before the meeting, and we have an informal discussion about the article, with an eye to whatever type of feedback the presenter would find most useful. We do not have formal presentations or a discussant. Non-presenters are always welcome to attend, and all presenters are asked to participate throughout the semester to offer feedback to all other presenters. Non-presenting participants may participate in the meetings according to their schedule/interest, but presenters are asked to attend regularly. As a student-led workshop, formal enrollment is not required.

REIW Spring 2024 Dates:

Thursday, February 1, 2024, 3 - 4 pm 
Thursday, February 22nd, 2024, 3 - 4 pm 
Thursday, March 14th, 2024, 3 - 4 pm 
Thursday, April 4th, 2024, 3 - 4 pm
Thursday, April 25th, 2024 3 - pm 
 

To join remotely, here is the Zoom link: 
https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/99971274701

Meeting ID: 999 7127 4701

Contact graduate student Steven Herrera Tenorio (rsherreratenorio@berkeley.edu) for more information.

Scholars Writing Accountability Group (SWAG): If you're looking to kick up your productivity in a supportive setting, in time for a fall semester like no other, join our co-working group! SWAG (the Scholars' Writing Accountability Group) has a multitude of sessions to fit your schedule. All times are PST. For those who are new to this, all of these groups work along the same lines: We have three fifty minute sessions of independent work with ten-minute breaks for stretching, chatting, and snacking. You are welcome to join for all or only some sessions. Please contact Isabel Garcia Valdivia at isabel.garcia@berkeley.edu with any questions, or please contact the specific session leaders. Morning sessions (all-week note different zoom links): Days/time: Mon-Friday, 7:10am-10:00am PST Virtual Location: WhatsApp (we send a group invite to people who want to join) Lead: Matty Lichtenstein - mlicht@berkeley.edu Days/Time: Monday, Tuesday and Friday, 9am-12pm (HYBRID: in-person and Zoom) Physical / Virtual Location: ISSI Buster Room Virtual Location: https://berkeley.zoom.us/j/95394194026 Note: Isabel or other regular attendess will open Zoom at the start of each session around 9am. If no one shows up by the start of the first session (around 9:10am) they may close the window. You can be added to a text group to send updates or quesions (for example, if you can only a later session) or you can also email Isabel. Lead: Isabel Garcia Valdivia - isabel.garcia@berkeley.edu

The Computational Social Science Forum: The Computational Social Science Forum is an informal setting for the interdisciplinary exchange of ideas and scholarship at the intersection of social science and data science. We welcome social scientists with interests in data science methods and tools and data scientists with applications or interests in the social, behavioral, and health sciences. Our participants include graduate students, postdocs, staff, and faculty. Our goal is to improve computational social science research, support the development and research of our members, and foster new collaborations. At our weekly meetings, we engage in a variety of activities such as presentation of work in progress, discussion and critique of recent papers, introductions to new tools and methods, discussions around ethics, fairness, inequality, and responsible conduct of research, and professional development. Dates/Time/ Location for F21: Meets Tuesdays 4-5 via Zoom. Interested participants should complete this brief form to be included on the mailing list.