 | Dear ~~first_name~~,
There is plenty happening across TASA at the moment, and it is wonderful to see the breadth of activity across our community.
We are delighted to welcome 11 new members and to highlight a range of opportunities, including new publications from members, as well as current job and scholarship opportunities. We also encourage you to catch up on recent events, including last week’s TASA Thursdays session featuring Raewyn Connell on Trans Lives, and to join us for today’s session on the Postgraduate Impact and Engagement Award.
We are also very pleased to share that we have received 413 abstract submissions for TASA 2026. This is a fantastic response, and we are very much looking forward to bringing sociology to regional Queensland.
If you missed the recent Senate Committee hearing on the Higher Education Support Amendment (Reverse Job-Ready Graduates Fee Hikes and End 50k Arts Degrees) Bill 2025, you can access the recording online here. TASA Vice President and Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences (CHASS) Board member Naomi Smith spoke at the hearing (at the 3:44 mark). You can read TASA’s submission here.
Finally, we are pleased to share a recent bursary reflection from Steph Daughtry, submitted following an extended period of leave. You can catch up with Steph Daughtry's bursary reflection here.
| Welcome to this week's new members:
Mujib Abid, Buddhi Bahadur Adhikari, Abideen Amodu, Lucy Crothers, Amanda Gabb, Asangi Gunawansa, Abhishek Gupta, Zhixuan Li, Max Melit, Emily Rose and Kathryn Squires.
It's great to have you with us. If new or renewing members have a question about TASAweb, our programs and services, please do email Ali at membership@tasa.org.au -- it brightens the day when we hear from our members.
| | TASA THURSDAYS POSTGRAD - TASA's Postgraduate Impact and Engagement Award| 30th APRIL | 12:30PM AEST
Join us next week for a TASA Thursdays webinar exploring the Postgraduate Impact and Engagement Award. Hosted by Brooklyn Donnelly, TASA's Postgraduate Portfolio Leader, this session will unpack the award’s purpose, criteria, and assessment process. Hear from 2025 winner Natalie Merryman as she shares insights, experiences, and practical tips for applicants. Discover how sociological research can drive meaningful impact and strengthen your application.
| | | | TASA THURSDAYS -The Sociology of Emotions and Wellbeing in Music Worlds: Orchestras, Hip-Hop and Feminist Punk Rock | 14th May | 12:00PM AEST
Join us for a TASA Thursdays webinar on 14 May exploring the intersections of music, wellbeing, and emotional life. Featuring speakers from the Sociology of Music and Sociology of Emotions and Affect thematic groups, this session examines how music shapes identity, mental health, and collective expression across diverse contexts. From orchestral performance to Hip-Hop listening and feminist punk, the talks highlight music’s complex role in navigating pressure, wellbeing, and affect in contemporary social life.
| | | SOCIAL THEORY WEBINAR SERIES | 4TH JUNE | 12:30PM AEST | ONLINE
Join us on Thursday 4 June for the next Social Theory Thematic Group webinar with Paul Joosse (University of Hong Kong). This compelling session explores the “Trump phenomenon” through the lens of charisma, introducing the concept of the “incredulous onlooker” and its unexpected role in amplifying charismatic power. This is a timely and thought-provoking discussion for anyone interested in political sociology, social theory, and contemporary global dynamics.
| | |  | | This annual award recognises the impact and engagement of a Postgraduate TASA member’s scholarship that is of high social value to Australian society and/or sociology. We invite TASA Postgraduate members to submit an application (or nominate others) for outstanding impact or engagement with sociological scholarship. Nominations are also welcome from supervisors or peers.
This award is not limited to publications, but also outstanding contributions in teaching, community work and non-traditional academic outputs.
The award seeks to value and encourage an understanding of scholarship and impact that extends beyond publication and citation metrics. This award draws on the Boyer model of scholarship recognising the value of Discovery, Integration, Application and Teaching.
|  | TASA's Prize for the most distinguished peer-reviewed article published by an Early Career Researcher is an annual process that uses academic peer review to select a paper of outstanding quality published (online or in print) in any journal during the previous three calendar years (ie the 2026 Award will assess papers that were published from 2023 – 2025). The Prize was established in 2016 to provide more opportunities for early career sociologists to gain recognition for the quality of their scholarship and enhance their reputations, especially within interdisciplinary teams.
An 'Early Career' definition can be found on the prize page.
| | |
| TASA's Career Development Grant seeks to support the career development activities of TASA members where these activities are not covered by other funding.
TASA's Career Development Grant is targeted at TASA members who are PhD students, early career (5 years post-PhD) or mid-career members (10 years post-PhD) with career interruptions, considered. The grants are intended for members who have limited or no access to funding for career development activities.
A total of AU$4,500 is available, with a maximum of AU$1,500 available per applicant.
Applications close on 12 May.
| | | | TASA's Gary Bouma Memorial Workshop Funding, for 2027 events, is open for applications. Successful workshops will advance research within sociology and showcase TASA as the face of sociological/interdisciplinary research in the region; engaging with issues of national concern; advancement of knowledge; support innovative ideas, and, the potential of feeding into policy and practice development.
Funding of AU$5,000 (per workshop) available for workshops to be held in Australia.
Applications close on 17 July, 2026.
| | | Book Chapters
Fomiatti, R., Pienaar, K. & Nourse, G. (2026). Rethinking the sexual subject: Assembling intoxication, gender and consent in the law.
In Flacks S & Seear K (Eds). Judging Drugs: Key Issues in Law and Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Op-ed / Commentary
Judith Bishop, Ben Santilli, Juliane Roemhild & Sara James (2026)
| Journal of Sociology, 62 (1)
| Health Sociology Review, Volume 35, Number 1 (March 2026).
A special issue on, ‘Healthy’ Food Practices: Moving Beyond Healthy Choices and Food Systems, is guest edited by Natalie Jovanovski and Bhavna Middha.
All articles in this special issue are available here.
| DEADLINE EXTENDED: Indigenous queer health and wellbeing: Anticolonial meanings and praxis
Health Sociology Review 2027 Special Issue
This special issue will take an anti-colonial approach to the fields of Indigenous Sociology, Queer Theory, Sociology, Health and/or Wellbeing. However, the special issue will not be limited papers to Sociology alone, aiming for a multidisciplinary approach and a critical engagement with the special issue’s overarching theme in different settler colonial contexts, nationally, regionally and internationally.
Abstract submission deadline: TODAY 30 April. Read on...
| Applications are invited for the editorship of Health Sociology Review (HSR) for the three-year term 2027 - 2029.
Transition arrangements will begin later in 2026, although the content for the first issue of 2027, and possibly the second, will be finalised by the out-going editorial team.
The application deadline is Monday 22nd June, 2026.
The full details of the call are available on TASAweb here.
| Scholarship Opportunities
| New: Media Representation & Public Perception of RNA Vaccines and Therapeutics in Australia
PhD Scholarship
University of Newcastle
Working with fellow member Caragh Brosnan
Creating Safer Sport Communities from Rural to Urban Australia
This is part of an ARC Discovery project Creating Safer Sport Communities from Rural to Urban Australia
The PhD will be housed within Griffith University’s Centre for Social and Cultural Research, Arts, Education and Law group and the Department of Tourism and Marketing, Griffith Business School.
| New: Lecturer in Indigenous Knowledges and Heritage Studies
Charles Darwin University
Continuing Full Time Appointment
Some details are available here.
Application deadline extended to 6 May. Read on...
Lecturer in Geography, Sociology and Political Science
Hong Kong Baptist University
The role includes teaching courses in human geography, physical geography, public administration, general sociology, statistics, research methods, and advanced topics in quantitative analysis across these disciplines.
| Other Events, News & Opportunities
| New: Fellow member Na’ama Carlin's (et al.) latest book is out tomorrow. In case you missed details from a previous newsletter, the book, 'Being Patient: Close Encounters in Cancer World' opens the 'black box' of Cancer World to consider its impact on patients, carers and healthcare workers. The beating heart of the book is the many conversations the three authors had with each other, as well as dozens of patients, carers, and healthcare workers about the hard, frightening, and sometimes joyful moments that people experience once they enter or work in Australia's oncology system.
There are two book launches coming up on on Gadigal-Wangal and Bidjigal lands:
Thursday, 7 May 5.30-7pm
Australian Research Centre for Cancer Survivorship
UNSW Health Translation Hub, Kensington (near Prince of Wales Hospital)
Light refreshments provided
To register, read on...
Thursday, 14 May 6.30-8pm
Gleebooks, Glebe
Light refreshments provided
| The Paul Bourke Awards for Early Career Research
Academy of Social Sciences Australia
The Paul Bourke Awards for Early Career Research honour Australians in the early part of their career who have achieved excellence in scholarship in one or more fields of the social sciences.
| Seminars
ANU School of Sociology Seminar Series
The program for the ANU School of Sociology Seminar Series is now online. All seminars are hybrid, with options to join via Zoom. Please visit the School’s Humanitix page, here, to view and register for upcoming seminars.
Newcastle Youth Studies Centre (NYSC) 2026 Online Seminar Series
The full 2026 program for the Newcastle Youth Studies Centre’s online seminar series is now out (see below), you can check out each seminar, and register for them, at the NYSC Eventbrite page here.
Note, you can watch the full 2025 recordings at the NYSC's YouTube playlist here.
| Conferences
10th Biennial Social Science Methodology Conference
November 24-26, University of Sydney
Sport, Politics, and Society
The Tunisian-Mediterranean Association for Historical, Social and Economic Studies (TMA for HSES) and the Tunisian World Center for Studies, Research, and Development (TWC for SRD)
December 1, 2, 3 / 2026 (Beja - Tunisia).
| | Internationalising Vegan Sociology
International Association of Vegan Sociologists (IAVS)
Online, October 3 & 4, 2026
The 2026 IAVS annual meeting will showcase research related to veganism, animal rights, and sociological theories of international relevance. They welcome submissions for individual presentations (15 minutes and an additional 5 for questions) or panels (45 minutes with 15 for questions) to be delivered in an online format.
| | | Call for Submissions
Social Conditions, Clinical Logics: Rethinking Young People’s Engagement with Drug Treatment
International Journal of Drug Policy
This special issue invites submissions that explore or examine how the social conditions of young people’s substance use shape their engagement in drug treatment. Editors are looking for papers that critically explore, among other things, biomedical and psychologised approaches to AOD care, how contexts of crisis and social inequity shape treatment experience, and how treatment might be experienced differently by First Nations, LGBTQ+, refugee, migrant and racialized youth.
Humanities and Social Sciences Communications
The guest editors of this journal are seeking submissions for the forthcoming edition ‘Reframing artificial intelligence: Critical perspectives from AI social science’
In an era increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence (AI), public and academic discourse is often dominated by polarised narratives—either heralding AI as a solution to complex problems or warning of its dangers … this Collection invites social science perspectives to advance the study of AI’s sociotechnical, cultural and political dimensions.
Submission deadline: 30 April. Read on...
| For membership information, processes, and frequently used resources, visit the Members' Navigator. To contact a member of the team directly, see our TASA Staff page.
| Admin (Sally): admin@tasa.org.au
Events (Penny): events@tasa.org.au
Membership (Ali): membership@tasa.org.au
Indigenous (Yasmin): indigenoussociology@tasa.org.au
Digital Publications Editor (Roger): digitalpe@tasa.org.au
Thematic Groups (Molly): thematicgroups@tasa.org.au
Postgraduates (Brooklyn): postgraduates@tasa.org.au | |