HxA Event: "Conservative Sociology: What Is It and Do We Need It?"

Event Title:
“Conservative Sociology: What Is It and Do We Need It?"

How to Watch:
This online event is FREE, but you need to register to get the Zoom link:
https://wayne-edu.zoom.us/j/92911317005?pwd=X1Il9WbWvUAboNvaJ8ENvmmpdiZ759.1#

Event Topic:
Join the HxSociology community for a virtual discussion on conservative sociology. Contemporary sociology is not ideologically neutral. As sociologist Christian Smith has argued, the discipline is organized around what he calls “the sacred project of American sociology”—a moral and intellectual framework closely aligned with progressive and left-liberal commitments.

This orientation does more than shape values; it influences what counts as a legitimate question and which conclusions are embraced versus dismissed as “problematic.”

If the field is structured around a dominant ideological project, then the issue is no longer whether ideology matters, but how to respond to it:

• What forms of intellectual pluralism are necessary to sustain a credible discipline?
• Does sociology need a distinct conservative paradigm to introduce genuine epistemic competition?

About the Speakers:
* Jukka Savolainen is a Heterodox Academy Writing Fellow, former Director of the National Archive of Criminal Justice Data (USA), and a Professor of Sociology & Criminology at Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan.
* Laura Ford is an Associate Professor of Law at Faulkner University and a Assistant Professor of Sociology at Bard College.
* Frank Lechner is a Professor of Sociology at Emory University.
* Jesse Smith is a Professor of Sociology at Ohio State University

About the Event Host:
The Heterodox Academy (HxA) is a nonpartisan collaborative of thousands of professors, administrators, and students committed to enhancing the quality of research and education by promoting open inquiry, viewpoint diversity, and constructive disagreement in institutions of higher learning. It was founded in 2015 by Jonathan Haidt, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, Nicholas Quinn Rosenkranz, a Georgetown University law professor, and Chris Martin, an Emory University sociologist.

To learn more about their mission, go to https://heterodoxacademy.org/our-mission/