The Pacific Sociologist, Newsletter of Summer 2026
Volume 33, Issue 1
Pacific Sociological Association’s 98th Annual Meetings/Conference
Thursday, March 18 to Sunday, March 21, 2027
Sociology In A Time Of Monsters Join us for the 98th Annual Meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association, PSA 2027, in Oakland, CA. This year’s theme is, of course, taken from Antonio Gramsci’s famous quote about living through the end times of capitalism, “The old world is dying, and the new world struggles to be born: now is the time of monsters.” Each of us has likely witnessed our share of monsters in the last several years, but we continue to be motivated by the hope that these presage the turbulence of a new and better world being born, the last gasps of a society in crisis, if you will. Sociology itself is a discipline that was born in crisis, as our founders attempted to understand and delineate the new world of capitalism and its various discontents. It is only fitting then that we go back to our roots as we attempt to understand the new world struggling to be born. What monsters have emerged and how do we confront them? What can sociologists do to steer the ship in the directions we collectively wish, between Scylla and Charybdis? This conference invites participants to address these questions and speak from our various experiences to this question of where we are as a society, how we got here, and – importantly – how we might proceed moving forward. Registration is currently open on our website at PacificSoc.org. Graphic by Molly Klingler and the Visual Arts Community at University of Idaho.