cheff

Hmm well I think my impression has always been that in the US, soc and anthro have different intellectual lineages, methodologies, and particular histories. soc in the us tends to be more conservative theoretically and politically and to utilize quantitative, demography and statistical analyses far more frequently than anthro or sociology in other countries. anthro in the us tends to be pretty up straight qualitative and ethnographic. one thing that ive noticed is the difference in how scholars and students describe their interests between anthro and soc. sociologists tend to list their sub-disciplinary allegiances e.g. "medical sociology, sociology of the body, critical race studies" where as anthropologists tend to list things like "subjectivities, politics of representation, US, Latin America" or one particular aspect of something- which falls under a subdiscipline of anthro but gets presented differently. Soc in the US is often preoccupied with policing the boundaries of subdisciplines and what counts as sociological knowledge. Largely because sociology doubled down on being scientistic because of institutional crises and works hard to pass as legitimate above all else, to the detriment, I would argue, of interesting, critical scholarship. abroad, at least in europe, sociology has far stronger ties to things such as critical theory (for lack of better term), cultural studies, media studies, etc and I think theres a lot more resonance with anthro as a result. not that theres not room for these things in the US but its a matter of finding good pockets in which to do this. you shouldnt really have a problem doing political economic work on South Asia, I shouldnt think. You might have to dance at certain points to make things "count" (often literally) but you should be fine. Can't speak to UMinn in particular tho.

I just got an interview at Rutgers. First signs of movement for me.

@Devil Liu, what programs did you apply to, out of curiosity?

science and technology studies, sociology of the body, medical sociology, contemporary theory

How important do you all think it is to have a project proposal in a SOP? A pretty big section of mine is outlining a potential project my research interests could become, with the idea of "show don't tell". I tried to make it as actionable as possible- outlining connections to a lab where I could do an "in situ" ethnography, etc. Overkill maybe?

Hey folks, so I am having a bit of a crisis of faith with regard to my writing sample. So I am applying to programs strong in science and technology studies, medical sociology, sociology of the body. I have a MSW, which is relevant to my research interests, which are on mental illness, technology, and governance more or less. I'm at a little bit of a loss with what to use as a writing sample. A MSW program does not require a thesis and is focused on being a clinician not a researcher so I don't necessarily have a no brainer writing sample from this program altho it feels pressing to have a sample from a recent masters program. So my options are thus: 1) Re-work a not great but not terrible essay on the biopolitics of homelessness from my history of social work class. This piece is partially a rip of a friend of mine's work, which might be apparent to one or two programs but I have a bunch of thoughts on how to work more interesting and relevant stuff into it. 2) Write an entirely new writing sample. I am doing a panel with some media studies folks on psychiatric surveillance technologies in May so it might be worth it now to just write that now and use that. However, I work full time as a social worker so it seems like it may be too much on my plate to write something from scratch. 3)I have a fantastic undergraduate thesis that I re-worked 2 years back and remains, if a little dated, still really excellent. Only problem is- its from undergrad and is, while still within science and technology studies, not particularly relevant to what I want to do in the future- its more animal studies, environmental soc kind of stuff than anything resembling medical sociology. I feel like animal studies is a bit out of vogue and may be a liability. What say you, internet? Thanks everyone! Also can we use this thread as a general forum for writing sample discussion?