Minutes
Informal meeting at the American Sociological Association, Annual
Meeting, San Francisco, CA, August 9, 2009.
A larger-than-expected group of us met in the lobby of the main
conference hotel and walked to Union Square, where we commandeered
chairs and lawn space and baked in the unseasonable San Francisco sun,
with at least one contingent abandoning the outdoors for a nearby
restaurant. Because of our large numbers, we were not able to convene
as a whole for introductions and a single focused discussion. The
suggestion was made that our numbers may now warrant more formal
meeting arrangements at future conferences, perhaps by asking
participants to sign up in advance and reserving a large table at a
restaurant near the conference site.
Small-group discussions included references to the job market for
Middle East sociologists, which seems stronger than the job market for
sociologists overall, and comparative research projects that may cross
over the traditional linguistic divides in the region.
We also made plans to look into scheduling regular and thematic
sessions for upcoming ASA conferences.
Minutes taken by Charles Kurzman, University of North Carolina, Chapel
Hill