In recent years departmental staff have organised many conferences and workshops on various topical themes in sociology.

Current and Forthcoming

Submissions are now welcomed for a day conference on 'Happiness and Wellbeing: Advancing the Contribution of Sociology' with keynote speaker Ruut Veenhoven which will take place here at Leicester on 23 September 2011.

Previous

As part of the Research Unit on Civil Society, Carlo Ruzza has organised a series of workshops about aspects of Civil Society. These include "The Power of Civil Society" (10 June 2009) "Governance Through Civil Society" (16 October 2009), "Civil Society and the Governance of Health Care" (20 November 2009) and "Populism: Left and Right" (27-28 November 2009).

On 14 May 2009, Ipek Demir organised a BSA Theory Study Group Symposium on Understanding Diaspora: The Case of Kurds in London. This symposium provided a forum for reflecting on and discussing ‘diaspora’ by focusing on the case of Kurds from Turkey. Since the late 1980s there has been a significant migration of Kurds from Turkey to the various countries in Western Europe. Even though Kurds from Turkey make up a significant proportion of London’s ethnic minority population, they constitute an ‘invisible’ diasporic community, both in terms of the current debates surrounding ethnicity and Muslim minority in the UK and in diaspora studies. The papers considered theoretical and political dimensions as well as discussing current empirical work.

In 2006, the Department hosted the successful conference Elias in the 21st Century on the sociological legacy of Norbert Elias, one of the most famous sociologists to have taught in the department.

In 2006, Ellen Annandale and Barbara Misztal (in collaboration with the Centre for Research in Social Policy at Loughborough University), gained funding from the Foundation for the Sociology of Health and Illness for a symposium in Leicester on Trust and Professionalism in Healthcare.

In April 2005, Jane Pilcher organised a day conference on "Children and Fashion".

In 2002, Jane Pilcher, Chris Pole and John Williams organised the Departmental hosting of the British Sociological Association 51st Annual Conference entitled Re-Shaping the Social between 25 and 27 March.

In March 2001, Jane Pilcher and John Williams organised a day conference entitled "Sociology for 2000: Teaching the New ‘A’ Level Curriculum in Sociology".

In 2001, Professor Ian Hutchby organised the two-day international conference Language and Therapeutic Interaction (taking place at Brunel University), attracting speakers and delegates from the United States, Netherlands, Hong Kong, Finland, Belgium and the UK. Delegates at this event subsequently formed an international network of researchers in conversation analysis and therapeutic dialogue which continues its activities with further conferences held at the Universities of Manchester (2004), Loughborough (2005), Helsinki (2006) and Bologna (2007), and special conference panels taking place at the International Pragmatics Association conference in Italy (2005) and the International Conference on Conversation Analysis in Helsinki (2006).

In September 1999, Dr Jane Pilcher and Chris Pole organised a day conference entitled "Mind the Gap! Changing Boundaries of Childhood in the 1990s".

Sociology Seminar Series

The department holds weekly sociology seminars in which members of staff and PhD students (as well as visiting speakers from other UK and overseas Universities) present papers followed by discussion. All members of staff and PhD students attend, as well as guests.

Sociology Seminar Series