ASA 2026 Body & Embodiment Sessions and Events
SATURDAY AUGUST 8
Body & Embodiment Mentoring Roundtables
Sat, August 8, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Third Floor, Trianon Ballroom
Sociology of the Body and Embodiment Section Open Call Paper Session
Sat, August 8, 4:00 to 5:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Sutton South
Presider
SUNDAY AUGUST 9
Body Politics, State Power, and Resistance
Sun, August 9, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hilton, Floor: Fourth Floor, New York
Presiders
Sociology of the Body and Embodiment Section Roundtables
Sun, August 9, 10:00 to 11:00am, Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Regent
Table 1: Theory, Methods, and the Body
Table Presider
Table 2: Beauty and Idealized/Stigmatized Bodies
Table Presider
Table 3: Bodies & Health
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Table 4: Embodiment in Politics, Resistance, and Social Movements
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Table 5: Embodied Trauma, Death, and Addiction
Table Presider
Sociology of the Body and Embodiment Section Business Meeting
Sun, August 9, 11:00 to 11:30am, Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Regent
Embodied Labor and Laboring Bodies (Co-sponsored by Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section)
Sun, August 9, 12:00 to 1:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Fourth Floor, New York
Presider
Idealized Bodies
Sun, August 9, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Fourth Floor, New York
Presider
Body and Embodiment Reception, 7:30 to 9:30 pm, Hunter College, Hunter West Faculty/Staff Cafe, 8th Floor of West Building on 68th Street Campus at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue (904 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10065)
Joint with the sections on Sex and Gender, Sexualities, and Reproduction (section-in-formation), and co-sponsored with Hunter College’s Department of Sociology. Catering provided by La Morada, a Bronx-based Mexican restaurant, and will include chicken, vegetarian, and vegan options, as well as non-alcoholic beverages (lemonade, hibiscus and fruit Agua Frescas).
MONDAY AUGUST 10
The Transnational Lives of Dead Bodies (Co-sponsored with the Global and Transnational Sociology Section)
Mon, August 10, 2:00–3:30pm, CUNY Graduate Center, 9th floor, Room 9205
Presider
TUESDAY AUGUST 11
Transgender and Queer Embodiments
Tues, August 11, 10–11:30am, CUNY Graduate Center, C-Level, Room C201
Presider
Body & Embodiment Mentoring Roundtables
Sat, August 8, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Third Floor, Trianon Ballroom
- Wondering about going on the academic job market as a body scholar? Have questions about a new research idea you’re working on? Thinking of including more body-focused readings in one of your classes? Come meet with other Body & Embodiment scholars to ask questions and offer advice about research, teaching, grad school, the job market, and more! All sociologists are welcome—from grad students to tenured professors—please join us to have a conversation and share your experiences as a body and embodiment scholar. No advanced sign-ups necessary—just show up!
- NOTE: The Sociology of Culture Section has generously agreed to let us use two tables in their Roundtable Session room. Once you arrive, please look for table signs that say “Body & Embodiment Mentoring Roundtables.”
Sociology of the Body and Embodiment Section Open Call Paper Session
Sat, August 8, 4:00 to 5:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Sutton South
Presider
- Kate Mason, Wheaton College
- American Hoops beyond the Great Wall: Embodied Competition and Transnational Training in Chinese Professional Basketball - Teng Ge, University of Chicago
- Clothing The Self: Dressing as Identity Work, Ritual, and Sartorial Labor - Alexandria Vasquez
- Socialization of Children about Bodies and Fatness by Mothers in the Fat Acceptance Movement - Ariane I. Prohaska, University of Alabama; Sharla Biefeld; JaiOnna Terry; Shaylee Smith
- The Intersectional Patient Work of Living with Hidradentitis Supprativa (HS) - Natalie Ingraham, SUNY-Farmingdale
- David J. Hutson, Pennsylvania State University-Abington
SUNDAY AUGUST 9
Body Politics, State Power, and Resistance
Sun, August 9, 8:00 to 9:30am, Hilton, Floor: Fourth Floor, New York
Presiders
- Madeleine Pape, University of Lausanne
- Virginia Kuulei Berndt, McDaniel College
- Bodies, space, and democratic backsliding: Everyday sporting territoriality in Hong Kong - Kylie Chiu Yee Lui, The University of Hong Kong
- Empire Becomes Intimate: Muslim Visibility, Affective Labor, and the Personal as Political after 9/11 - Asena Karipek, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
- From Sidewalk to Global Feed: Women’s Video Activism and the Politics of the Body in Iran - Soodeh Mansouri, University of Illinois
- The State Draws Blood: Law Enforcement Phlebotomy as a Tool of Biopolitical Power - Anne Kathleen Johnson, Washington State University Vancouver
- Madeleine Pape, University of Lausanne
Sociology of the Body and Embodiment Section Roundtables
Sun, August 9, 10:00 to 11:00am, Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Regent
Table 1: Theory, Methods, and the Body
Table Presider
- Susan Markens, CUNY-Lehman College
- Doing Bodies: Ethnomethodology, Gender Accountability, and the Problem of Going Flat - Beth Gaines, University of South Florida; S. L. Crawley, University of South Florida
- Embodied Inquiry: Amazigh Girlhood, Yoga Practice, and Methodological Innovation in Morocco’s High Atlas Mountains - Jordan Ashley Katz, Souljourn Yoga Foundation
- Latin American Sociology and Embodied Pedagogies: Body, Emotion, and Critical Formation for Educational Equity - Diana Carolina Varón Castiblanco
- On the Interactional Resignifiability of Sex and Gender: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Sociology, Linguistics, and Gender Studies - Paddy Lehleiter, New York University
Table 2: Beauty and Idealized/Stigmatized Bodies
Table Presider
- Jeannine A. Gailey, Texas Christian University
- Is Beauty a Blessing? Examining the Association Between Attractiveness and Mental Health - Jayne Yerrick, Stony Brook University
- Managing (Un)Feminine Bodies: Reflexive Embodiment and Ideal Bodies in Polycystic Ovary Syndrome Patients - Dunahay Pereyra, University of Connecticut
Table 3: Bodies & Health
Table Presider
- Brandon James Moore, California State University-San Marcos
- Glucose Monitoring Technology and the Hidden Risks of Health Optimization - Megan Kelly, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
- The Taming Disease: How Long Covid Crushes Previous Socializations - Mattéo Lanoë, Sciences Po
- When the Hand Stops: Corporeal Reorganization, Masculinity, and Body Work in Dementia Caregiving - Elisa Castellaccio, The University of Bologna; Cameron Gabriel Beckett, University of Chicago
Table 4: Embodiment in Politics, Resistance, and Social Movements
Table Presider
- Ariane I. Prohaska, University of Alabama
- Neoliberal Aesthetics and Plantation Ecosystems: Commercialization and gender dynamics in contemporary carnival - Leslie-Ann CR Foncette, University of Maryland-Eastern Shore
- Sterilization, A Site of Gametic Governance - Neha Jangeti, University of North Texas
- The Racial Politics of Disposition: Spatial Inequalities in Governing the Unclaimed Dead - Charity Coleman, University of Illinois-Chicago
Table 5: Embodied Trauma, Death, and Addiction
Table Presider
- Rebecca F. Plante, Ithaca College
- Governance of Endurance beyond Telos: Observing Conduct of Conduct in Situ - Noa Vana, University of Nevada, Las Vegas; Robert Futrell, University of Nevada-Las Vegas; Shane W. Kraus, UNLV
- “I Used to Enjoy Sex”: Exploring How Sexual Violence Trauma Impacts the Body & Sexuality - Lauren M. Fishel, University of Oklahoma
- “Killing Me from the Inside Out:” Heterosexual Rape as the Sexualized Trespass of the Embodied Self - Gabrielle Sara LaFleur
- The Deathly Child: Representations of Young People Becoming Deathly via Videogames - Myra M Hannett, Maria College / Schenectady County Community College
Sociology of the Body and Embodiment Section Business Meeting
Sun, August 9, 11:00 to 11:30am, Hilton, Floor: Second Floor, Regent
- This is our annual Business Meeting and Award Presentation session. If you are interested in learning more about the section and exploring more ways to get involved, this is a great place to meet other section members. All current, former, and prospective section members are welcome to attend!
Embodied Labor and Laboring Bodies (Co-sponsored by Organizations, Occupations, and Work Section)
Sun, August 9, 12:00 to 1:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Fourth Floor, New York
Presider
- David J. Hutson, Pennsylvania State University-Abington
- Anger, Laughter, Compassion: The Emotional Labor of Bureaucrats in Gujarat’s Citizen Service Centers - Puja-Arti Patel, University of Warwick
- Blood Veins for Hire: Leveraging the Body as an Income-Generating Tool Amidst Rising Economic Inequality - Analidis Ochoa, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
- “Showing Willingness”: Business Drinking, Embodied Evaluation, and Gendered Boundary Work in China - Xuanchi Liu, McGill University
- The Making of a Desirable Body: Gendered Labor and Competing Consumer Desires in Lucha Libre - Miguel Chavez, Northwestern University
- The Ponytail Paradox: Uniformed Women and Aesthetic Labor in Male-Dominated Occupations - Caroline Carter, North Carolina State University
- David J. Hutson, Pennsylvania State University-Abington
- Mariana Craciun, Tulane University
Idealized Bodies
Sun, August 9, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Hilton, Floor: Fourth Floor, New York
Presider
- Danielle Bessett, University of Cincinnati
- “The Perfect Body”: Constructing Korean Masculinity and Muscular Hierarchy through Physical: 100 - Danny Lee, Indiana University-Bloomington; Alex Manning, Yale University
- Aesthetic Color Blindness in the Beauty Industry - Rebekah Burroway, Stony Brook University
- Beauty is in the AI of the Beholder - AJ Alvero, Cornell University; Alejanda Regla-Vargas, University of Pennsylvania; Heeyon Kim, Cornell University; Jasmine McNealy, University of Florida; Rene Kizilcec, Cornell University
- Deserving Patients and Undeserving Consumers: Intersecting Identities in Narratives of GLP-1 Takers - Alka Menon, Yale University
- Erynn Masi de Casanova, University of Cincinnati
Body and Embodiment Reception, 7:30 to 9:30 pm, Hunter College, Hunter West Faculty/Staff Cafe, 8th Floor of West Building on 68th Street Campus at 68th Street and Lexington Avenue (904 Lexington Avenue New York, NY 10065)
Joint with the sections on Sex and Gender, Sexualities, and Reproduction (section-in-formation), and co-sponsored with Hunter College’s Department of Sociology. Catering provided by La Morada, a Bronx-based Mexican restaurant, and will include chicken, vegetarian, and vegan options, as well as non-alcoholic beverages (lemonade, hibiscus and fruit Agua Frescas).
MONDAY AUGUST 10
The Transnational Lives of Dead Bodies (Co-sponsored with the Global and Transnational Sociology Section)
Mon, August 10, 2:00–3:30pm, CUNY Graduate Center, 9th floor, Room 9205
Presider
- Ara Francis, College of the Holy Cross
- Black-Adjacency and Biopower in the Vietnam Years - Kit Lam, University at Buffalo
- Figures into the Afterlife: Reforming the Dead Migrant Trans Women - Salvador Vidal-Ortiz
- Getting over COVID: A Cross-National Comparison of Pandemic Press Coverage - Timothy Recuber, Smith College
- “In Ashes, Patriots Return Home”: The Transnational Lives and Deaths of South Korean Diasporic Cremains - Miliann Kang, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
- Jyoti Puri, Boston University
TUESDAY AUGUST 11
Transgender and Queer Embodiments
Tues, August 11, 10–11:30am, CUNY Graduate Center, C-Level, Room C201
Presider
- Alyson K. Spurgas, Trinity College
- The Social and Political Stakes of the Body: Biological Sex - Merrily LeBlanc, Northeastern University
- Extreme Male Brains and Impossible Women: Transmisogyny in Autism and Trans Research - Nic Rios, Barnard College
- Trans Health: Prioritizing The Cookie Cutter Patient and Denying Everyone Else - Lindsay Toman, Colgate University
- Jinsun Yang, University of Oregon
