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Celebrating the Book

The Department of Sociology invites the York community to join us for Celebrating the Book, a new lecture series showcasing our faculty members and their recent publications. Each event features an engaging talk where the author discusses key themes, questions and contributions of their latest book. The series highlights the depth and diversity of sociological research taking place within our department. Audiences will have the opportunity to explore timely themes, discover new perspectives and engage with the ideas driving sociology today.

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Upcoming Events

Sept. 9
Oct. 20
Nov. 4
Nov. 11

The Reality of Knowledge: Towards a Critical Realist Sociology of Knowledge

Speaker: Philip D. Walsh

Date: Wednesday, Sept. 9 
Time: 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. 
Location: Kaneff Tower, Room 519

The Reality of Knowledge Book Cover with a sunflower and a wheel

Join Associate Professor Philip D. Walsh as he discusses his new book, The Reality of Knowledge. Drawing on the history of the discipline, Walsh presents a critical realist rethinking of the sociology of knowledge, exploring topics such as human cognition, universities, objectivity and everyday knowledge, while highlighting its convergence with Norbert Elias’s work.

Presenter Bio

Philip D. Walsh is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. His research focuses mostly on the theoretical foundations of the social sciences. His earlier work was oriented to epistemology in the critical theory tradition of the Frankfurt School. More recently, he has written on the significance of the work of the political theorist, Hannah Arendt, for sociology and sociological theory. His current research explores the significance of Critical Realism in the fields of the sociology of knowledge and of emotions. His books include Skepticism, Modernity and Critical Theory (Palgrave, 2008), Arendt Contra Sociology (Routledge, 2015) and (edited, with Peter Baehr) The Anthem Companion to Hannah Arendt (Anthem, 2017). His latest book, The Reality of Knowledge (2026) is published with Routledge.

The Reality of Knowledge: Towards a Critical Realist Sociology of Knowledge (Routledge, 2026) 

The Reality of Knowledge proposes a new approach to the sociology of knowledge, providing a cross-section of some of the major theories that have influenced the field and evaluating their contemporary relevance. 

Through a series of engagements with the history of the discipline, The Reality of Knowledge brings a critical realist perspective to bear on key topics within the sociology of knowledge. These include the social bases of human cognition, the normative structure of universities, the personal sources of knowledge in everyday life, and the problem of ‘objectivity’ in the contemporary social sciences. Moving away from the epistemological terms in which these topics are often discussed, this book affirms a more fully sociological account of knowledge. In addition, the book presents an account of the under-appreciated convergence between critical realism and Norbert Elias’s approach to the sociology of knowledge. 

The Reality of Knowledge will appeal to scholars and students of sociology and social theory with interests in the sociology of knowledge and critical realist thought. 

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Anti-Asian Racism and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada

Speakers:

Chandrima Chakraborty (McMaster University), Sibo Chen (Toronto Metropolitan University), Muyang Li (York University), Guida C. Man (York University), X. Alvin Yang (Max Planck Institute), Henry Yu (University of British Columbia) 

Date: Tuesday, Oct. 20
Time: 2:30 – 4:00 p.m.
Location: Kaneff Tower, Room 519

Anti-Asian Racism and the Covid-19 Pandenmic in Canada Book Cover

Join co-authors of Anti-Asian Racism and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada, as they examines the surge in anti‑Asian racism during and after the pandemic. Drawing on historical analysis, empirical research and community perspectives, the speakers explore how long‑standing racial stereotypes were revived during the pandemic, the social and mental health impacts, and the ways Asian communities have responded through resistance and solidarity. The event is presented with support of the York Centre for Asian research. 

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Presenter Bios

Chandrima Chakraborty

Chandrima Chakraborty is professor, Department of English and Cultural Studies; Director Centre for Global Peace, Justice & Health and the Global Peace & Social Justice Program; and Associate Scientist, Population Health Research institute at McMaster University. She is a member of the Royal Society of Canada's College of New Scholars, Artists and Scientists.

Photo of Sibo Chen in front of a grey background

Sibo Chen

Sibo Chen is an associate professor at School of Professional Communication, Toronto Metropolitan University. He is a critical communication scholar by training, with areas of interest that include Environmental Communication, Risk and Crisis Communication, and Transcultural Political Economy.  

Muyang Li

Muyang Li is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology at York University who examines how digitalization reshapes politics, publics and knowledge production.

Professional headshot of Muyang Li
Photo of Guida Man

Guida Man

Guida Man is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology and a member of the Graduate Program, York University. As faculty associate at York’s Centre for Feminist Research and York Centre for Asian Research, her research examines the intersections of immigration and transnationalism, social reproduction, gender and work, families, and racialization and racism.

X. Alvin Yang

X. Alvin Yang is an interdisciplinary scholar specializing in international relations, global political economy, and the sociology of knowledge and migration. He is a visiting postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin.

Henry Yu 

Henry Yu is a History professor at the University of British Columbia. His research and teaching has been built around collaborations with local community organizations, civic institutions such as museums, and multiple levels of government.

Photo of Henry Yu with grass and trees in the background

Anti-Asian Racism and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada  

Edited by Chandrima Chakraborty, Sibo Chen, Muyang Li,  Guida Man, and X. Alvin Yang  

(UBC Press)  

The global outbreak of COVID-19 led to an alarming increase in assaults and discrimination against individuals of Asian descent in many countries, including Canada. This surge in racism affected mental health, interracial relationships, and the representation of Asians in a variety of ways. Anti-Asian Racism and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada is a rigorous, comprehensive exploration of a phenomenon that affects millions.  

While similar surges in racial scapegoating have occurred during earlier global epidemics, the wave of anti-Asian racism prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic was particularly widespread and severe. The toxic “yellow peril” trope that originated in late-nineteenth-century public discourse was redeployed to defame Asians as an existential threat to the West. And even after the pandemic, Asian Canadians have continued to face COVID-19-related socio-economic and racial discrimination.  

Contributors draw on historical analysis, empirical research, and geopolitical insights to examine not only the rise in anti-Asian racism but also the strategies Asian communities have used to defend themselves and build solidarity. This effort to document and interpret the systemic factors that have brought centuries-old racialization and racism once again to the fore is essential in supporting the goals of combatting racial injustice and building an equitable society.  

“Anti-Asian Racism and the COVID-19 Pandemic in Canada is an important and timely work that adds significantly to the scant literature on anti-Asian racism during the pandemic. Reflecting a range of disciplines, contributors offer original perspectives, analyses, and insights into how this pandemic will be memorialized.”   

- Lloyd Wong, Department of Sociology, University of Calgary  

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Pandemic Urbanism: Infectious Disease on a Planet of Cities

Speakers: S. Harris Ali and Roger Keil

Date: Wednesday, Nov. 4
Time: 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. 
Location: Ross Building, Room 802 South

Pandemic Urbanism book cover that depics an illustarted city scape

Join professors S. Harris Ali and Roger Keil as they discuss their book, Pandemic Urbanism: Infectious Diseases on a Planet of Cities, exploring how recent outbreaks have reshaped urban life on a global scale. Drawing on historical and multidisciplinary perspectives, the authors examine the social, ecological and political dynamics that drive the spread of disease in cities, as well as the challenges of post-pandemic urban governance. 

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Presenter Bios

S. Harris Ali is a professor of sociology who teaches courses on environmental issues, disasters, infectious diseases, social theory and health.  He is currently the Director of the CITY Institute at York University. His research focuses on how the interplay of social, political and environmental factors promote the emergence of disease outbreaks and environmental disasters, as well as how this interplay influences the response to such phenomena. He has conducted various studies based on extensive fieldwork on different types of infectious disease outbreaks in various parts of the world, including E. Coli in Walkerton, Ontario, Tuberculosis amongst the homeless in Toronto, community-based responses to Ebola in Liberia, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (with Drs. Mosoka Fallah and Joseph Macarthy), and with his long-time research colleague - Roger Keil. 

Photo of Roger Keil in front of a window

Roger Keil is Distinguished Research Professor Emeritus at York University, Toronto, and a Fellow of CIFAR’s Humanity’s Urban Future program. He researches global suburbanization, urban political ecology, cities and infectious disease, and regional governance. He is the author of Pandemic Urbanism (2023, with S. Harris Ali & Creighton Connolly) and Suburban Planet (2018).  

Pandemic Urbanism: Infectious Diseases on a Planet of Cities 

By S. Harris Ali, Creighton Connolly and Roger Keil 

Emerging infectious disease outbreaks in recent decades have transformed the very nature of urban life worldwide, even as the extent and experience of pandemics are shaped by the planetary urban condition. Pandemic Urbanism critically investigates these relationships in a world faced with an unprecedented global pandemic, the first on a majority urban planet. 

The authors reveal the historical context of recent infectious disease events and how they have variously transformed the urban social fabric. They highlight the important role played by socio-ecological processes associated with the global urban periphery – suburban or post-suburban zones and hinterland areas of extended urbanization – bringing to light the increased significance of social media, changing mobility patterns, and new forms of urban governance and pandemic response. The book takes forward theoretical approaches to understanding pandemics grounded in urban political ecologies of disease and landscape political ecology, developing novel insights for post-pandemic urban governance and planning. In doing so, it reveals a paradox at the heart of pandemic urbanism: our urban way of life at close quarters enables contagion to spread easily, yet it also makes it easier to contain and respond to disease outbreaks. 

Multidisciplinary in approach and written by three proven experts in the field, this book is an invaluable, accessible primer on the origins, pathways, and management of infectious disease. 

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On Being Human: The Voice of Scholar, Poet and Activist Emma LaRocque

Speaker: Elaine Coburn

Date: Wednesday, Nov. 11
Time: 2:30 – 4:00 p.m. 
Location: Ross Building, Room 802 South

The Emma LaRocque Reader On Being Human Book Cover with flowers in the background

What does it mean to be human? How do we live with loneliness, honour the people and places that shape us, and make sense of histories that both reveal and conceal? In this event, Elaine Coburn, editor of The Emma LaRocque Reader: On Being Human, introduces the powerful body of work of Cree Métis scholar, poet and activist Emma LaRocque. 

Drawing on writings that span from 1975 to today, Coburn explores how LaRocque’s work engages questions that are at once deeply personal and broadly shared: from colonialism and feminism to memory, inequality and the possibility of more just futures. Bringing together poetry and prose, The Emma LaRocque Reader offers an intimate window into one of Canada’s foremost Indigenous thinkers, whose voice reminds us that our shared humanity is always grounded in the uniqueness of lived experience.  

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Presenter Bio

Elaine Coburn is a Professor in International Studies, Glendon and the Graduate Programme Director in Sociology. Her research focuses on unjust inequalities and how we challenge them. Her scholarship spans international financial institutions, climate change and Indigenous studies, the last from an outsider’s perspective. Her scholarly writing appears in the International Feminist Journal of Politics, Philosophy Today, and Political Studies, and for general publics in the Literary Review of Canada, the London School of Economics Review of Books and Philosophy Now, among other publications.

The Emma LaRocque Reader: On Being Human

Emma LaRocque was born in 1949 in Lac La Biche into a Cree-speaking Métis family. She grew up in a one-room, kerosene-lit log cabin built by her father. Age nine, she fought her parents to attend school, where she encountered English and the colonizer’s harmful stereotypes of Indigenous peoples. Confronting the contradictions of colonialism sparked her journey as a writer and scholar, as she sought to understand the dissonance between her identity and the world around her. The Emma LaRocque Reader is a comprehensive collection of her most significant writings, poetry and prose, offering an intimate window into the mind of one of Canada’s foremost Indigenous scholars. Through her work, LaRocque provides profound insights into the intersections of colonialism, sexism, and racism in Canada, while also critically celebrating the beauty of her community and culture. In the afterword, she reflects on fifty years of challenging the colonial enterprise. A vital contribution to postcolonial literature, The Emma LaRocque Reader, edited by Elaine Coburn, intertwines the personal and the political to explore what it means to be human, offering a powerful testament to Indigenous resistance, resilience and vision. 

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Past Events

How does a girl growing up in Ghana get swept into the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa through music, art and radio without ever setting foot in South Africa? How would the lives of Soweto, Winnie Mandela, Wangari Maathai, Funmilayo (and Fela) Ransome-Kuti inspire solidarity and interest in human rights? In this talk, Professor Sylvia Bawa takes us on a journey through the hope-giving work of solidarity and human rights in a world in turmoil. Drawing on the book, Truth Commissions and State Building, Bawa weaves a thread through music, geography, biography and solidarity to discuss the work of constructing truth, nation, hope and progress.

Sylvia Bawa is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology. Her research focus is on the interconnections of globalization, human/women's rights, human-non-human connections, and critical development in postcolonial contexts. She is interested in the mobilizing impact of human rights; how discourses of rights, self-determination and development evolve and are shaped by global events, new technologies and opportunities.