Sociology Seminar Series
The latest research and thought on contemporary sociology presented by leading sociologists.
All staff and students, graduate and undergraduate, are welcome. This year’s series is convened by Professor Patrick Baert.
Time: 12.30 – 2pm
Dates: Alternate Tuesdays during term time
Venue: Sociology Seminar Room, Free School Lane, Cambridge CB2 3RQ
Access information: The seminar room is accessed via two flights of steps/a lift and then a further two flights of stairs accessed through a heavy set of doors. There is no step-free access. The lift is not accessible to wheelchair users, but may assist with other mobility issues. Please contact enquiries@sociology.cam.ac.uk with any questions.
Michaelmas Term 2026
- Tuesday 13th October: Putting a Price on Suffering: The Institutional Logics of Compensation
Speaker: Prof Rosemary Taylor, Tufts University
Discussant: Dr Alexandre White
Chair: Dr Lorenza Antonucci
- Tuesday 27th October: Demographic Anxieties: Bodies, Borders, and Reproductive Injustice in Palestine/Israel
Speaker: Dr Gala Rexer, University of Warwick
Chair: Dr Ali Meghji
- Tuesday 10th November: The True, the Good and the Beautiful: Structures of Social and Political Thought
Speaker: Prof John Levi Martin, University of Chicago
Chair: Prof Hazem Kandil
- Tuesday 24th November: How (some) Films do Social Theory
Speaker: Prof Kate Nash, Yale University
Chair: Prof Monica Moreno Figueroa
- Monday 30th November: Perspectival Dualism: As a Subjective Experience and an Institutionalized Relationship
Speaker: Prof Hartmut Rosa, Friedrich-Schiller University
Chair: Dr Robert Dorschel
Previous seminars
- Tuesday 5 May: One liberation is bound to another’: beyond liberal shortcuts
Speaker: Professor Miriyam Aouragh, University of Westminster
Chair: Professor Monica Moreno Figueroa
Watch on YouTube
- Tuesday 19 May: Dramatic Intellectuals and the Social Power of Ideas
Speaker: Dr Javier Pérez-Jara, University of Seville and Nicolás Rudas, PhD candidate Yale University
Chair: Dr Sebastian Raza
Watch on YouTube
- Tuesday 2 June: Esther's Army: The Christian Women Who Power the American Right
Speaker: Dr Kate Gaddini, Stanford University
Chair: Professor Ella McPherson
- 17 February: Nation of Strangers: Rebuilding Home in the 21st Century
Speaker: Ece Temelkuran, writer, political thinker and public speaker
Watch on YouTube
- 3 March: Social conflicts in the ‘Short-term City’: Platform capitalism and the contentious politics of short-term rental housing regulation in Europe
Speaker: Prof Claire Colomb, Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge
Watch on YouTube
- 17 March: Book Launch: Insecurity Politics
Speaker: Dr Lorenza Antonucci, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge
Watch on YouTube
- 21 October: Discrimination and health inequalities
Speaker: Prof Martin Aranguren, Sciences Po Centre for Research on Social Inequalities
Watch on YouTube
- 4 November: Recent thoughts on the ecology of addiction
Speaker: Prof Darin Weinberg, University of Cambridge
- 18 November: Violence and Lies: the exercise of power from the conquest of the Americas to the climates crisis
Speaker: Dr Lorenzo Posocco, University of Copenhagen
Watch on YouTube
- 2 December- No such thing as society? Lessons from AI on the street
Speaker: Prof Noortje Marres, University of Warwick
Watch on YouTube
- 20 May: Frantz Fanon and the Diagnosis of Social Pathologies
Speaker: Dr Sarah Bufkin, University of Birmingham
Watch on YouTube
- 6 May: Hey ChatGPT, are you racist? An exploration of sociopolitical inequalities manifested in Generative Artificial Intelligence
Speaker: Dr Dhiraj Murthy, The University of Texas at Austin
- 25 February: Born to Rule: the Making and Remaking of the British Elite
Speakers: Professor Sam Friedman and Professor Aaron Reeves, London School of Economics
Watch on YouTube
- 11 February: The Love Jones Cohort: Examining the Lifestyles of those Single and Living Alone in the Black Middle Class
Speaker: Dr Kris Marsh, University of Maryland
Watch on YouTube
- 28 January: The Struggle for Meaning in Post-Assadist Syria
Speaker: Dr Zeina Al-Azmeh, University of Cambridge
Watch on YouTube
- 26 November: Non-White Meta-Categories in the US and UK
Speaker: Mari Sanchez, Harvard University
Watch on YouTube
- 12 November: The Sociology of Religion without 'Religion'?
Speaker: Dr Lois Lee, University of Kent
Watch on YouTube
- 29 October: The Love of Books in the UK
Speaker: Dr María Angélica Thumala Olave, University of Edinburgh
Watch on YouTube
- 15 October: The Problem of White Normativity
Speaker: Professor Eduardo Bonilla-Silva, Duke University
Watch on YouTube