TSP Tuesdays | September 9th, 2025

Mallory Harrington‘s weekly Clippings is back! In this week’s coverage of sociology in the news, sociologists and scholars weighed in on politics, gender, and justice. Michel Anteby defended the role of bureaucrats as crucial public safeguards, while Tristan Bridges analyzed Hasan Piker’s ability to challenge gender norms through “jock insurance.” Meanwhile, David Garland critiqued America’s penal state, architects were urged to draw on sociology, Robert Putnam and Richard Reeves revisit the “boyhood crisis,” and Patrick Bergemann explored the dynamics of whistleblowing and social control.
Money Talks in the American Workplace by Francesca Bernardino covers research in Social Forces by Patrick Denice, Jake Rosenfeld, and Shengwei Sun showing that while workplace norms and bans often suppress “pay talk,” younger and raise-seeking workers increasingly break these rules to pursue fairer wages and challenge pay inequality.

Trump’s crime crackdown is again considering giving prosecutors more power to pursue the death penalty, despite research showing the death penalty’s limited-to-no impact on deterring crime. Read more from our 2019 piece covering Trump’s death penalty efforts in his first term.
The NFL season started last week, with some close games leaving fans very happy (shoutout to the Minnesota Vikings win last night against the Bears). Sociologically speaking, TSP and our partner Engaging Sports has many pieces covering research on the role of college and professional football in society. Check out this 2020 football NCAA round up for some great pieces to ground your college football discussions.

Last Friday TSP held its first Fall 2025 graduate student board meeting. We are lucky to be welcoming a new cohort of public oriented scholars to the board and begin work on new projects. During these initial weeks, we typically start with orienting folks on our Discoveries process where we 1) locate recent publications with high research rigor, 2) take turns “pitching” three of these pieces to the full board, 3) we then workshop each piece in front of the full board and Chris and Doug (a both stressful and incredibly beneficial experience for new and old board members alike) and 4) post on the site for the world to see.

Aging with Imagination by Colter J. Uscola writes up research by Juliane Jarke and Helen Manchester on participatory workshops help older adults challenge AI-driven, ageist narratives and instead imagine futures of aging on their own terms.

BDSM Without the Sex: What Kink Practitioners Can Teach Us About Building Community? by Alicia M. Walker and Arielle Kuperberg shows how kink communities, through consent, boundary-setting, and collective care, model intentional forms of connection that challenge individualist approaches to happiness and offer lessons for building stronger, supportive communities.