Brown Bag Lecture Series
The Humanities, Social Sciences, and the Arts Brown Bag Series is always free, open to faculty, staff, students, and the public, and provides a congenial interdisciplinary forum for the discussion of recent research by the HSSA faculty. See the information below for upcoming brown bag talks.
Lectures are held on Mondays in Stevenson 3900 from 12:00pm-1:00pm.
Spring 2025 Brown Bag Lectures
Speaker: Professor Allison Ford, ANTH-GEP
Is self-sufficiency the answer to the climate crisis? Many Americans participating in cultural movements like prepping and homesteading seem to think so. Based on ethnographic research on self-sufficiency movements, especially prepping, this talk explores the implications of trying to solve complex, socio-environmental problems with individual, household level solutions. Increasingly uncomfortable with reliance on complex institutions that mediate between people and their basic ecological needs (food, water, energy, etc.), preppers argue that the system is doomed to collapse and when it does, that nobody's coming to help. This talk argues that this outcome is not inevitable, but a product of political choices Americans have made. Self-sufficiency is not the answer--but what is?
Speaker: Professor Andy Martinez, PSY
The principal goal of Andy Martinez’s project is to better understand the determinants of psychological well-being (or happiness). Professor Martinez will discuss the multifaceted nature of psychological well-being, particularly emotional well-being, life-evaluation, and meaning-in-life. Because the dataset for this project is a representative sample of Californians, Martinez asks the question: are Californians (on average) happy?
Speaker: Professor Willie Gin, POLS
Willie Gin’s research has found that for some, TikTok’s ‘For You’ page personalizes more quickly than others. For example, Christian and party identities like Republican and Democrat personalize more quickly than LGBTQ+ identities. Professor Gin and student researchers are seeking to understand why the algorithm has this discrepancy and are in the process of testing possible causes of why some identities/occupations personalize or don’t personalize on TikTok’s algorithm.
Fall 2024 Brown Bag Lectures
Speaker: Professor Bryan Burton, CCJS
"I worked on a co-authored book with Dr. Diana Grant titled Understanding the Myths and Realities of White-Collar Crime. There are many myths about white-collar crime, but this summer, we focused on the myth that there is nothing we can do about it. Such crimes incur various costs - financial, physical, mental, and social - often encompassing more than one. For instance, healthcare fraud (such as physicians billing for services never provided) alone incurs more financial costs than all street crimes combined."
Speaker: Professor James Joseph Dean, SOCI
This talk explores the intersectional identity construction of queer and straight beauty creators on social media and the role their intersectional identity plays in their content creation. Drawing on in- depth interviews and digital ethnography with queer male and straight female beauty creators on Instagram and TikTok, I explore the content creation practices of beauty influencers, their relationship to their followers, and their ability to secure brand sponsorships. In particular, I theorize the role of bodily capital, and how bodily capital is shaped and constructed intersectionally across sexuality, gender, and race for this diverse group of creators. By bringing a focus on beauty creators on social media platforms to the discipline of sociology, this project promotes interdisciplinary dialogues across the fields of sociology, social media studies, and LGBTQ+ studies to understand the evolving nature of social media, queer and straight identities and cultures, and the meaning of beauty and bodily capital today.
Speaker: Professor Alexis Boutin, ANTH
Located in Eldridge, California, the Sonoma Developmental Center (SDC) opened in 1891, eventually serving thousands of residents who would today be described as developmentally or physically disabled, mentally ill, or deviating from social norms. Between 1892 and 1960, its “Home Cemetery” received the remains of over 1900 residents—after which its use ceased and gravemarkers were removed. The SDC closed in 2018, and the core of its 945 acre campus is now slated for redevelopment. Our research project works collaboratively with stakeholders to document and preserve the cemetery as a site of social memory and cultural heritage. In this presentation, I will discuss how we are using non-invasive bioarchaeological methods to reconstruct the contextualized biographies of residents who lived at the SDC during the early 20th century, a time characterized by a growing eugenics movement as well as the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. The circumstances of their lives and deaths, and their commemoration—or lack thereof—in the SDC cemetery, offers a unique opportunity to explore the concepts of ancestorhood and social memory within the contexts of disability, disease, and institutionalization.
Speaker: Professor Wenwen Ni, PSY
In this talk, Professor. Ni will discuss her new paper on how interactions between mental healthcare providers and their patients can be an important contributor to racial/ethnic disparities in mental health. Specifically, social psychological research has shown that biases, including stereotypes, prejudice, and discrimination, can affect patient-provider interactions and contribute to mental health disparities. Recommendations for how to reduce biases will be discussed.
Speaker: Professor Benjamin Smith, ANTH & HD
Professor Smith gives an account of how young men in Southern Peru contend with the coloniality of the gaming world through practices of peer socialization in internet-mediated play. In doing so, they both resist and partially reclaim stereotypes of "Indian-ness."