Drawing on collaborative, interdisciplinary work carried in Guatemala and Denver in the past four years, Dr. Alejandro Cerón discusses the difficulties he encountered finding coherence between his conceptual criticisms of the notion of culture and the practical demands (communication, methods) of doing interdisciplinary work aimed at informing public policy. He draws some lessons from his experience and puts them in the context of contemporary anthropological debates.

Alejandro Cerón is Assistant Professor at the Department of Anthropology, University of Denver. He received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Washington. He also holds a Master in Public Health and received his Physician and Surgeon Licentiate, both from the University of San Carlos, School of Medicine, Guatemala. In his work, Alejandro Cerón combines a focus on applied anthropology and public health with a strong concern for building inclusive societies. His research examines how people evaluate and procure medicine in Guatemala’s public health system. He also examines chronic kidney disease in Guatemala and teases out how risks factors, treatment adherence, and health seeking behavior shapes people’s accessibility and usage of health care in Guatemala. His work has appeared in the International Journal of Equity in Health, BMC Pharmacology and Toxicology, and American Journal of Public Health.

For more information regarding the MAGH lecture series, please contact Marieke van Eijk.

Symbolic politics scholars have argued that politicians’ use of symbolic language blaming groups like racial minorities or immigrants for society’s problems may not only encourage popular support for exclusionary policies but also influence public views of the targeted groups themselves. Nevertheless, there is little direct evidence that elite statements do in fact shape individual attitudes. René Flores tests this widespread assumption by analyzing the attitudinal effects of Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign announcement speech, in which he referred to Mexican immigrants as “rapists” and “criminals.” To provide causal estimates, she employ a counterfactual approach by comparing the immigration attitudes of survey respondents interviewed right before the speech with those interviewed right after. She finds that Trump’s statements had a negative effect on public opinion towards immigrants. Second, using a national panel survey experiment, she confirmed elite statements’ attitudinal effects and uncovered a structural trait: their effects are short-lived. This feature explains why nativist politicians like Trump need to constantly prod natives to keep their messages’ effects from dissipating. In addition, she finds little evidence that messages by elites are more impactful than those uttered by non-elites suggesting that the power of elite rhetoric lies primarily in its capacity to reach the masses via the news media.

The Department of Sociology at Syracuse University invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor position to begin Fall, 2017. They seek a scholar with a strong background and interest in health, with a strong preference for someone whose research intersects with aging and the life course and who will be a faculty associate in the Aging Studies Institute. Preference will be given to candidates with established scholarly publication, grant, and teaching records.

Preference will be given to candidates who can contribute to other strengths in the sociology department as well as to Maxwell School-wide priorities. Candidates must have a Ph.D. in Sociology or a related discipline by the time of appointment and must show success in or a strong promise of scholarly achievement and productivity, as well as a commitment to graduate and undergraduate teaching. For full consideration, all application materials must be submitted by January 9, 2017.

For consideration, interested candidates must apply at www.sujobopps.com by completing a brief faculty application. Candidates must attach a letter of interest, vita, teaching statement, and one publication or writing sample online. In addition, candidates must ask three people to submit letters of reference by January 9, 2017. Candidates will be notified if additional letters are needed.

The Department of Sociology at the University of Cincinnati invites applicants for a tenure-track position at the Assistant or Associate level to begin August 15, 2017.

The focus of the position is urban inequalities, including but not limited to such concerns as health, education, crime and punishment, and racial and ethnic relations. A PhD in Sociology or a related field by August 14, 2017 is required. Applicants will be evaluated on the basis of fit with the department’s areas of expertise, and record of or potential for scholarly research and publication, extramural funding, teaching and advising at the undergraduate and graduate levels, service to the department, university, and profession, and participation in interdisciplinary research teams.

This position is a part of a $4 million Urban Futures Initiative by the University of Cincinnati (UC) to recruit five faculty members in Sociology, Urban Planning, Criminal Justice, Education, and Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies. Unless a joint appointment is desired, the selected candidate will hold a full appointment in the Department of Sociology. As part of the initiative, the faculty member will be provided funds to select and work with an Urban Scholar Graduate Fellow and an Urban Scholar Undergraduate Research Assistant.

Applicants must apply online at https://jobs.uc.edu/ (enter 14161 in the search box) by submitting a cover letter, curriculum vitae, and 5,000 character or fewer statement of experience with and/or commitment to principles of diversity and inclusion. Please do NOT send letters of recommendation, writing samples, or other materials unless the recruitment committee requests them. If you have questions about the application process, please email Jeff Timberlake, search committee chair, at jeffrey.timberlake@uc.edu. Review of application materials will begin October 31, 2016 and will continue until the position is filled.

The symposium Real Women, Real Voices: Where the People Meet the Policy is a groundbreaking discussion highlighting issues and concerns that affect incarcerated women. The panels feature currently and formerly incarcerated women discussing the effects of incarceration and the carceral state on themselves, their children, and their communities.

The National Council for Incarcerated and Formerly Incarcerated Women and Girls is a grassroots policy initiative focused on the gendered impacts of the carceral state. It has convened organizing meetings around the country and engaged women and girls in prisons, jails, and immigrant detention based on the motto “nothing about us without us.” There will be a reception preceding the event at 4 pm.

Registration is now open for the 26th Annual Women in Science and Engineering (WiSE) conference. Workshops and presentations will be offered all day that speak to the STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) educational and career opportunities as well as professional and personal development. Women scholars of science and engineering at all levels are encouraged to attend. There are great opportunities to network and explore.

If you or your department has not participated in the past, this conference is focused toward the woman scholar who is interested in and/or pursuing engineering and science from high school through graduate level and beyond. Here is a list of ways we invite our campus community and departments to be involved in the conference:

1.  Share with your department students and encourage them to attend the conference.
2. Sponsor registration for students in your department to attend. Student registration is $25 per student.
3. Provide general conference sponsorship at $100 minimum:
   1. This includes participation in the conference Career Resource fair (CRF) by having a 6X6 (and two chairs) department information table. CRF Time: 12:00 – 1:30. Lunch will be included for up to two volunteers. If additional student or staff volunteers would like to volunteer at your table, the cost is $20 and you may register them as a student.

For your convenience, department and student sponsorship registration can be completed online at the link below.

• UW departments registration Access code: DAWGS2017 (not case sensitive).
• Please note the on-line registration will close Saturday, January 28th, 2017. There will be no on-site registration.

WiSE appreciates our campus departments’ financial and in-kind support in previous years and is looking forward to your continued participation. Any inquiries about the conference registration process may be directed to Katherine Glesser.