Soc of Religion/Politics

[Webster]

Hey all,

I am having difficulty trying to find a good "fit" for me regarding a Sociology MA program. My interests pertaining to sociology of religion/politics include: Separation from Church & State, Religious/Political identity in family, the spread of Agnosticism/Atheism, and Social Movements. Considering this, I have two questions:

1.) I was wondering if there is a website or some sort of database I could use to sift through different professors based on interest and/or research??? It is a struggle trying to find ones that match my interests.

2.) Does anyone know anything about Oregon State Soc. program??? I've heard Purdue, Baylor, Indiana, Louisville, and Minnesota have outstanding programs but have not heard much about Oregon St and there is a specific professor (Sally Gallagher) who I think I'd work wonderfully with. Your thoughts are very appreciated! Thank you.

[jacib]

Hey all,

I am having difficulty trying to find a good "fit" for me regarding a Sociology MA program. My interests pertaining to sociology of religion/politics include: Separation from Church & State, Religious/Political identity in family, the spread of Agnosticism/Atheism, and Social Movements. Considering this, I have two questions:

1.) I was wondering if there is a website or some sort of database I could use to sift through different professors based on interest and/or research??? It is a struggle trying to find ones that match my interests.

2.) Does anyone know anything about Oregon State Soc. program??? I've heard Purdue, Baylor, Indiana, Louisville, and Minnesota have outstanding programs but have not heard much about Oregon St and there is a specific professor (Sally Gallagher) who I think I'd work wonderfully with. Your thoughts are very appreciated! Thank you.

Long story short: no. For a pretty good listing of programs with sociology of religion focus, check particularly the original post, and going crazy's pretty decent list of schools. Those are most PhD only programs, though, I think.

I also work with religion and politics, and around similar issues (secularism), but the vast majority of people working on "sociology of religion" just weren't suitable for advising me. It really depends on your specific interests. I thought Omar McRoberts was one of the most exciting sociologists I'd ever read, but I knew that our fits just weren't close enough for me to work with him because I wasn't interested in Urban Sociology. Sociology of religion is a small subfield, and most people who do it (except for maybe those who study under Wuthnow) do it as sociology of religion and sociology of something more popular. One of my friends just got his PhD looking at how religious upbringing affected educational achievement, but no one in his department worked specifically on religion--he worked with someone working on education. My own adviser hasn't explicitly published anything on religion either, but we have other interests in common. You might want to sell yourself at some schools as a "social movements" guy with a religion sub-interest. I definitely sold myself as someone who wants to do sociology of religion at some schools, political sociology at other schools.

As for other things, you might want to consider looking at anyone who publishes in the Immanent Frame, which if you're interested in religion, politics, secularism/secularization, is really the first place to look. They have a pretty useful "sociology of religion" and "sociology" tags and a less useful one for "social science", though they're somewhat inconsistently used. Other places to look might be anyone who's editing (or publishing in) the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion or Sociology of Religion or people who are officers in the professional organizations that publish those journals (the SSSR and ASR, respecitively). You might also want to consider selling yourself as, rather than agnosticism/atheism, talking a little more about "beliving without belonging", because that's kinda hot right now.

Generally what I had to do was just look at every school with a good program, go through all the people, and figure it out like that. Since I have very specific interests, there were really only 5 or 6 programs in the whole country I felt like I was a good fit for. A sociologist (a colleague of my father's) also helped me find more schools. Perhaps ask a sociology at your current program for advice. I also did something a little weird when I was applying to PhD programs in Religion, and that was I emailed, out of the blue, professors whose works I respected and who worked at schools that didn't have graduate programs--I told them what work I was doing and if they could recommend any places off the top of their heads that might be good for that. I also looked at where people whose work I liked got their degrees, Things like that. It's a long, painstaking process.

[lambspam]

Check out the 2011 ASA Guide to Graduate Programs of Sociology. It's $20 for student members and includes detailed info about departments and lists of departments by specialty. Each university page then lists the general research interests of each sociology professor. I found it very useful in finding departments that matched my interests.

[jacib]

Check out the 2011 ASA Guide to Graduate Programs of Sociology. It's $20 for student members and includes detailed info about departments and lists of departments by specialty. Each university page then lists the general research interests of each sociology professor. I found it very useful in finding departments that matched my interests.

....I had no idea that thing existed....

[Roll Right]

....I had no idea that thing existed....

Yeah that thing saved me a lot of head hunting. Awesome resource. Hows the PhD Jacib?

[jacib]

Yeah that thing saved me a lot of head hunting. Awesome resource. Hows the PhD Jacib?

Going pretty good, I feel like I have a million small projects going on, none of them quite what I'd anticipated. Doing more stats than I thought, less directly with religion. Realize other people probably see me as a "historical sociologists". Am writing what might turn into a thesis chapter. Am starting what might turn into an ethnography this summer, which will be completely separate from my thesis topic. Am also vaguely working on two quantitative projects, both unrelated to my thesis and each other. Got stars in my eyes. I really, truly respect everyone in my program, which is surprising, because I'm a hater at heart. People drink and go out a lot less than I expected. Just got my progress report from the department which said, "The department met last month to review the progress of students. We want you to know that the department was impressed with your progress. Good work!". So yeah, things are going good, academically I think. Having to figure out that famous "work-life" balance more than before though.

Yeah, but religion is a small competitive subfield, and from the first I was told "To get hired, you'll probably need sociology of religion & something else. Theory, qualitatives methods, political sociology, globalization, you're going to need to be able to teach more than just sociology of religion courses," but considering that my whole background has been in Religious Studies, I'm actually quite surprised with how far my academic interests have expanded. The people I respect most at my department are: my adviser, who is super historical, an urban ethnographer, and a guy who does very quant-y, social network-y stuff. I am trying to find excuses to work with all of them because they're all mind-blowingly intelligent. I haven't actually interacted with the sociologists of religion who works at my university, not because she's not great, but because we don't have that much in common. Hopefully, she will be an excellent "critical eye" for my work on religion. If you're going to do sociology of religion, you should really go into grad school with a pretty open mind about what you want to do. In fact, I'm probably exploring less in terms of main interests than all the other kids in my cohort but one (who came to grad school with awesome skills and outside funding for a specific project). Yeah, open mind, that's all I'm saying.

[Webster]

Thank you all so much this is very helpful!

Going pretty good, I feel like I have a million small projects going on, none of them quite what I'd anticipated. Doing more stats than I thought, less directly with religion. Realize other people probably see me as a "historical sociologists". Am writing what might turn into a thesis chapter. Am starting what might turn into an ethnography this summer, which will be completely separate from my thesis topic. Am also vaguely working on two quantitative projects, both unrelated to my thesis and each other. Got stars in my eyes. I really, truly respect everyone in my program, which is surprising, because I'm a hater at heart. People drink and go out a lot less than I expected. Just got my progress report from the department which said, "The department met last month to review the progress of students. We want you to know that the department was impressed with your progress. Good work!". So yeah, things are going good, academically I think. Having to figure out that famous "work-life" balance more than before though.

Yeah, but religion is a small competitive subfield, and from the first I was told "To get hired, you'll probably need sociology of religion & something else. Theory, qualitatives methods, political sociology, globalization, you're going to need to be able to teach more than just sociology of religion courses," but considering that my whole background has been in Religious Studies, I'm actually quite surprised with how far my academic interests have expanded. The people I respect most at my department are: my adviser, who is super historical, an urban ethnographer, and a guy who does very quant-y, social network-y stuff. I am trying to find excuses to work with all of them because they're all mind-blowingly intelligent. I haven't actually interacted with the sociologists of religion who works at my university, not because she's not great, but because we don't have that much in common. Hopefully, she will be an excellent "critical eye" for my work on religion. If you're going to do sociology of religion, you should really go into grad school with a pretty open mind about what you want to do. In fact, I'm probably exploring less in terms of main interests than all the other kids in my cohort but one (who came to grad school with awesome skills and outside funding for a specific project). Yeah, open mind, that's all I'm saying.