Sociology, like most disciplines/institutions in racialized (and other oppressive) social systems, are steeped with policies and practices that are designed to maintain the status quo. Thus, they are partly responsible for the gatekeeping, careerism, racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination that plague our scholarly communities. In this piece, an extension of my 2018 Presidential Address to the Association for Humanist Sociology, I challenge academics to push back and find better ways, through critical humanist sociology, to serve the public good.
BellDerrick. 1993. Faces at the Bottom of the Well: The Permanence of Racism. New York, NY: Basic Books.
2.
CamicCharles. 2007. “On Edge: Sociology during the Great Depression and the New Deal.” Pp. 225–80 in Sociology in America: A History, edited by CalhounCraig. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
3.
Du BoisWilliam DavidDean WrightR.2002. “What is Humanistic Sociology?” The American Sociologist33(4):5–36.
4.
Du BoisW. E. B.1903. The Souls of Black Folk. Chicago, IL: A. C. McCLurg.
5.
EmbrickDavid G.2017. “Discontents within the Discipline: Sociological Hypnagogia, Negligence, and Denial.” Social Problems64(2):188–93.
Hill CollinsPatricia. 2000. Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York, NY: Routledge.
8.
LeeAlfred McClung. 1976. “Presidential Address: Sociology for Whom?” American Sociological Review41(6):925–36.
9.
LewisAmanda E.EmbrickDavid G.2016. “Working at the Intersection of Race and Public Policy: The Promise (and Perils) of Putting Research to Work for Societal Transformation.” Sociology of Race and Ethnicity2(3):1–10.
10.
LippardCameron D.Scott CarterJ.EmbrickDavid G.2020. Protecting Whiteness: Whitelash and the Rejection of Racial Equality. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press.
11.
MorrisAldon D.2015. The Scholar Denied: W. E. B. Du Bois and the Birth of Modern Sociology. Berkeley: University of California Press.
12.
SchechterPatricia A.2001. Ida B. Wells-Barnett and American Reform, 1880-1930. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of North Carolina Press.
13.
ScottJohn. 2005. “Sociology and Its Others: Reflecting on Disciplinary Specialization and Fragmentation.” Sociological Research Online 10. Accessed October 1, 2020. (http://www.socresonline.org.uk/10/1/scott.html).
14.
ThomasJames M.2020. Diversity Regimes: Why Talk is Not Enough to Fix Racial Inequality at Universities. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.
15.
WrightJ. TalmadgeEmbrickDavid G.KelseyHenke. 2015. “Interdisciplinarity, Post-Disciplinarity, and Anomic Specialization: Where Do We Locate Sociology?” Humanity & Society39(3):267–73.
