Morris Rosenberg Memorial Lecture
Please join the Department of Sociology for its annual Morris Rosenberg Memorial Lecture on November 7, given this year by Dr. Ann Morning, Divisional Dean for the Social Sciences and the James Weldon Johnson Professor of Sociology at New York University. This year's lecture is titled "Sociology in Real Time: Evolving Concepts of Race in the U.S."
Talk Abstract
Racial conceptualization—that is, the complex of beliefs about the nature of race and racial difference that individuals hold—has not received much attention from sociologists. While the sociology of race has long held an important place in our discipline (particularly as it is practiced in the United States), we have focused on other aspects of it: on “race relations,” socioeconomic inequality, prejudice and discrimination, institutional racism, and in more recent years, identification and classification. Yet racial conceptualization underpins many phenomena of interest to sociologists: race-related attitudes, practices, and policies. It comes as no surprise then that race—a fundamentally sociopolitical creation—has been, and continues to be, the object of political discourse across the party spectrum. I use pronouncements on the nature of race from two living U.S. presidents, one Democratic and the other Republican, to underscore not just the import of racial conceptualization but also the nimbleness with which sociologists have to attend to societal shifts as they unfold in real time.
A reception will follow the talk.
For questions about the event, please contact Aaron Tobiason at tobiason@umd.edu or by phone at 301.405.6394.
The Morris Rosenberg Memorial Lectureship was established in the Department of Sociology at the University of Maryland to pay tribute to the scholarly contributions made by Dr. Rosenberg. The lectureship brings eminent sociologists to campus who have made substantial scholarly contributions to the discipline. The inaugural Rosenberg Lecture was given by Charles Tilly in October 1999. Since then, the Lectureship has brought some of the most prominent sociologists to speak to the UMD Sociology community.