Daphne M. Penn is a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Sociology and Population Studies Centre at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds a B.S. in Human and Organizational Development from Vanderbilt Peabody College, an M.S. in Sociology from Purdue University, and a Ph.D. in Education (with a concentration in Culture, Institutions, and Society) from Harvard University. She was also a Harvard Presidential Scholar. Her research focuses on the roots of racialised inequality in the United States, and the politics of ethno-racial stratification within the context of demographic change, specifically looking at the roles of schools, stakeholders, and decision-makers in the same. You can read more about Daphne's research on her website.

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Dr. Rebecca Gibson is a visiting assistant professor at the University of Notre Dame. Her published works include “Desire in the Age of Robots and AI: An Investigation in Science Fiction and Fact” (Palgrave Macmillan 2019) and “The Corseted Skeleton: A Bioarchaeology of Binding” (Palgrave Macmillan 2020). Her research areas of interest include corsets, skeletal anthropology, biological anthropology, science fiction and artificial intelligence. She holds a Ph.D. in Anthropology from American University, and when not writing or teaching can be found reading mystery novels amidst a pile of stuffed animals. You can take a look at Rebecca's research on her Google Scholar Page. 

On this episode, we discuss her work around robots, Artificial Intelligence (AI), desire, and fluid sexualities. 

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Ridhima Sharma is an incoming PhD scholar at the Department for the Study of Religion, University of Toronto and recipient of the Connaught Fellowship. She completed her MPhil titled Rethinking the Cow Protection Movement: Gender, Caste and Labour at a Gaushala in Contemporary Haryana’ at the Centre for Women’s Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. She has taught asa Visiting Faculty at Savitribai Phule Pune University and Flame University, Pune. Her research interests include anthropology of religion, feminist theory and methodology, caste and brahminism,nationalism, ethnography, oral histories, sexuality studies and ethnographic filmmaking. 

Her recent publications include her contributions in the edited volume Mapping India: Transitions and Transformations 18th -19th century by Routledge (2019) and Nation, Nationalism and the Public Sphere: Religious Politics in India by Sage (2020). She has (co)made two documentaries, HerStories and Kaaye Kaaye Sexual, both of which have been screened and have won various awards at national and international film festivals. More recently, she directed two films, Aas Ki Kiran (A Ray of Hope) and Dil Tuta Aashiq (The Heartbroken Lover) that deal with various aspects of the pandemic. The latter film was awarded the Gold Best Film Award (Amateur Category) by the Public Service Broadcasting Trust (PSBT).

On this episode, we discuss Ridhima’s MPhil dissertation- an ethnographic inquiry of a VHP-run cow shelter in Faridabad, Haryana, which also marked her point of entry into her doctoral work. You can access the complete publication here. 

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Claude S. Fischer is a semi-retired professor at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Sociology. He holds undergraduate and PhD degrees from UCLA and Harvard respectively, and has worked for Berkeley's Sociology Department for nearly fifty years (having joined in 1972). He has published eight books which centre around the themes of urbanism, networking, communication, inequality and family life in American society. He was also the founding editor of Contexts, the American Sociological Association's magazine of sociology for the general reader, 2001 - 2004. Fischer has won multiple awards and nominations over the course of his tenure, some of which include the 1986 Distinguished Scholarship Award, 1995 Dexter Prize (Outstanding Book), and 1996 Robert and Helen Lynd Award, among others. 

You can read more about Fischer on his UC Berkeley profile or Wikipedia page. Further, be sure to check out his blog, Made in America. On this episode, we discuss the array of the themes his research covers. 

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Dr. Jonathan Coley works at the Department of Sociology at Oklahoma State University, USA. He holds a B.A. in Political Science from Samford University, and M.A. and Ph.D degrees in Sociology from Vanderbilt university. His research focuses on social movements, politics, religion, education, sexuality and race. He also provided extensive editorial service to the discipline, including through past work as editorial associate of American Sociological Review and book review editor of Work and Occupations. He currently serves as the deputy editor of The Sociological Quarterly. You can find out more about Jonathan's research on his website. 

In this episode, we discuss his book, Gay on God’s Campus: Mobilizing for LGBT Equality at Christian Colleges and Universities, which looks at the experiences of LGBT students at Christian colleges and universities in the USA. This was published by The University of North Carolina Press and received the 2018 Distinguished Book Award from the Mid-South Sociological Association. You can buy the book at a discount of 40% on the UNC Press website using the discount code 01DAH40. 

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Nicolás Arenas is a current PhD student in sociology at the London School of Economics (LSE). His research interests include cultural studies, economic sociology, sociology of the body and emotions, marketing, rationality and political theory. He has authored two publications, both of which are in Spanish. In this episode, we discuss his PhD dissertation topic, Mediating the Non-Rational: Branding Consultants and the Role of Emotions in Marketing. 

To know more about Nicolas's research, you can take a look at his page on the LSE Sociology Department website. 

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Dr. Michael O. Johnston is an assistant professor of sociology from William Penn University, Iowa, USA. He holds B.A. degrees in sociology and psychology from Buena Vista University, an M.P.A. from Iowa State University, and a PhD in public administration from Walden University. His areas of specialisation include criminology, social problems, qualitative methods, juvenile delinquency, and marriage. In this episode, we discuss his publication: The Tulip Queen and Her Royal Court: A Content Analysis of Doing Gender at a Tulip Queen Pageant. 

He is also the host of the New Books in Sociology Podcast, and has his publications up on Google Scholar. 

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Jose Martin Aveldanes is a current third-year Ph.D. student in Sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. Last year (2020), he was was a National Institutes of Health Fellow in the Department of Demography under the Eunice Kennedy Shriver Branch for Child and Human Development Support. His research interests span the family, quantitative and computational methods, sexuality, social demography, stratification and inequality, and culture. You can take a look at Jose's profile and research on the UC Berkeley Sociology page. 

In this episode, we discuss his research on the well-being of same-sex parents in the USA. 

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Dr. Shai Dromi is a lecturer at Harvard University's department of Sociology. He is a cultural and comparative-historical sociologist with research on international humanitarian organisations and movements, transnational advocacy, and political culture. His research looks at the role of religion and cultural beliefs in creating civil society organisations and movements, and in shaping the production of social knowledge. Shai is currently co-authoring the book Moral Minefields: How Sociologists Debate Good Science, under an advance contract with the University of Chicago Press, which we discuss in this episode. You can find out more about Shai and his research on his website. 

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Surbhi Shrivastava is a second-year PhD student in Sociology at Emory University, USA. Her research focuses on gender and health, sexual and reproductive health and rights, and maternal health. Surbhi holds a Bachelor’s in Dental Surgery from Manipal University, India and an MPH in Health Policy, Economics and Finance from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, India. Previously, she has worked in public health research at non-profit organisations in Mumbai and Delhi. In this episode, we discuss her fieldwork and research in the area of obstetric violence in India. You can take a look at Surbhi's research on her Google Scholar page. 

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