Rupture: 2026 Department of Sociology Conference

The Annual Sociology Conference showcases the breadth of research in the department, including the work of our PhD students, academics, recent graduates, visiting scholars and researchers.

Moments of societal rupture are a defining characteristic of modernity and a crucial and enduring object of sociological inquiry. In some parts of the world, the recent sequence of wars, revolutions, ecological catastrophes, economic and health crises, and abrupt technological shifts upended what may have appeared to be a period of relative stability. These moments of societal fracturing often reveal and reconfigure underlying systems of power and inspire the emergence of new paradigms. Both momentary and gradual, these fractures produce uneven impacts and multilayered consequences.

At this year’s conference, we aim to address the many manifestations, impacts, opportunities and qualities of rupture. We invite contributions that examine breakdown as a methodological challenge, theoretical puzzle, political opportunity and ultimately a frame through which we can expand the sociological imagination. We welcome papers that engage with rupture across diverse scales, temporalities and contexts, exploring both the conditions that produce divergence and the possibilities for repair that emerge in their aftermath.

• How does rupture become visible, and to whom does it remain obscured?
• What kinds of material, political, or economic realities emerge from different societal relationships with crisis?
• What assumptions become unsettled in periods of social schism?
• Which epistemologies endure, which are abandoned, and what new forms of knowledge become possible?

Conference programme

10am | Welcome Tea and Coffee

10.30am to 11am | Opening Address by Professor Aaron Reeves

11am to 12.40pm | Panel 1: Outburst, chaired by Dr Giulia Torino

• Nitzan Amitay: "After Belief: Rupture and the Utopian Imagination at Tamera"
• Rajesh Bhattacherjee: "Disintegration: Black and South Asian Political Organising in the Long-1970s"
• Anno Bolender: "Socially Engaged Projects – Walking a Tightrope Between Filling the Gaps and Systemic Relevance"
• Dr Olivia Umurerwa Rutazibwa: "Reading Black Thought: disruptions and rehearsals"

12.40pm to 1.30pm | Lunch

1.30pm to 3.10pm | Panel 2: Breach, chaired by Dr Sacha Hilhorst

• Dogukan Dere: "Crisis, Rapture, and Repair: Making of a Labor Common at VioMe"
• David Ilkiw: "Hazy Atmospheres: Bodies, Breath, and the Mundane Politics of Wildfire Smoke"
• Pratap Jayaram: “We’ll make the same mistakes again”: The evolution of the lending industry amidst opportunity and crisis
• Dr Patrick McGovern: "Economic restructuring and institutional analysis in comparative employment relations"

3.10pm to 3.25pm | Break

3.25pm to 4.40pm | Panel 3: (Re)configuration, chair TBC

• Dr Benjamin Brundu-Gonzales: Proudly undeserving? Educationism without Meritocracy among French Elite Students
• Ragini Khurana: "We are not the same: Contrasting symbolic and functional relations to the urban environment"
• Sanne Pieters: "Becoming front row worthy: a pedagogy of hierarchy in indoor cycling studios"

4:40pm to 4:50pm | Break

4.50pm to 5.50pm | Creative Workshop, Delilah Wallbank

6pm to 8pm | Reception | Staff Common Room, Old Building

The organising committee includes PhD Candidates (Julian Asbaeck, Olivia Boucher-Rowe, Joan Mukogosi, Benedikt Stranak, and Delilah Wallbank), faculty members (Dr Ayça Çubukçu, Professor Kristin Surak and Dr Giulia Torino) and the Department Research Manager (Rachel McDermott) from the Department of Sociology. They are collectively selecting the papers, organising the programme and chairing sessions during the conference. The organising committee is grateful for the generous support and guidance of Dr Will Kendall, the department’s former Research Coordinator.

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