Workshops

Students in sociology are invited to participate in a program of Graduate Workshops in the Humanities and the Social Sciences, a series of interdepartmental discussion groups that bring faculty and advanced graduate students together to discuss their current work. Selected workshops in which sociology students participate are listed below.

Chicago faculty as well as outside speakers often present portions of books or other projects in which they are currently engaged while students frequently present portions of their dissertations and other research. Some examples of the workshops which draw students from sociology are:

Computational Social Science Workshop
This weekly workshop highlights the work of those pioneering data science analytical techniques and social science and computation methods while bringing together graduate students, post-docs, and faculty all working at the nexus of computation and big, social science questions. The workshop also allows regular participants to share works in progress for feedback, fosters robust dialogue between young scholars in these emerging fields, and showcases local scholars leading pedagogical seminars on new papers or methods.
 

Demography
This workshop is sponsored by the Committee on Demographic Training in collaboration with the Population Research Center of NORC and the University. Visitors from other campuses as well as Chicago faculty discuss current research activities in population studies. The Donald J. Bogue Demography Workshop is held on Thursdays from 12:30 – 1:50 p.m. at the NORC conference room, Room 232 at 1155 E. 60th St. Students, faculty, and all interested researchers are encouraged to attend.

The Empires Forum
The Empires Forum features ongoing research by students and scholars at the University of Chicago and beyond in a workshop format. Meeting multiple times per quarter, the Forum offers a space for work-in-progress to be read, discussed, and debated. The work under discussion includes histories and/or historical sociologies of empire, imperialism, colonialism, and related processes from an interdisciplinary perspective.

Gender and Sexuality Studies
This workshop provides an interdisciplinary forum for the development of critical perspectives on gender and sexuality. Its primary purpose is to promote analyses of the ways in which these categories intersect with other practices, constructs, or systems of domination. In bringing together readings in queer and gender theory, workshop members will build a vocabulary and analytical tools to evaluate presentations with informed perspectives on how gender and sexuality theories inform and constitute one another. Graduate student presentations may focus on any area of gender and sexuality studies, with gender and sexuality understood as always already embedded in other social practices and categorizations.

The Immigration Workshop
The Immigration Workshop provides a space for academics at the University of Chicago to present their works-in-progress dealing with critical issues of global human mobility. We pride ourselves on our interdisciplinarity, with presenters in fields throughout the social sciences and the professional schools. The workshop is uniquely situated to address important topics in the current historical and political climate through a multidisciplinary approach to understanding the evolution of migration and its implications for individuals and society. 

Politics, History, and Society
The Politics, History, and Society (PHS) Workshop aims to provide an intellectual home for graduate students and faculty utilizing historical, comparative, and/or institutional case-study methods. Our regular attendees' substantive interests range from political sociology, sociology of the state, and social movements, to law and society, sociology of knowledge, and sociology of religion. PHS’s primary purpose is to provide detailed feedback on working papers, thus PHS sessions are characterized by lively, extended discussion of pre-circulated papers and do not include formal presentations.   

The Workshop on Education
This interdisciplinary workshop alternates between two types of sessions: 1. Methodology and 2. New Findings in Education. The Methodology sessions focus on methodological problem solving and works in progress for individuals seeking guidance on methodological problems. The New Findings in Education section functions as a typical University of Chicago workshop with detailed discussions regarding student and faculty papers. Open discussion is encouraged after each workshop.