Ghassan Moussawi is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Recently, Professor Moussawi received an honorable mention from the ASA's sexuality section for his co-authored piece with Salvador Vial-Ortiz titled "A Queer Sociology: On Power, Race, and Decentering Whiteness”. Sociological Forum (2020). Earlier this year, Professor Moussawi won the SSSP award on this same article. Click here to read the full article. 

Abstract: "In this article, we argue for "a queer sociology" that centers race and processes of racialization, while naming and decentering Whiteness. "A queer sociology" is a field that foregrounds relations of power, particularly: race, class, empire, gender and gender identity, and sexuality, and that does not use queer in a reductionist way (or merely in reference to LGBT identity-based projects). We question the uses of queer theory in sociology and show how previous iterations miss/ignore multiple genealogies of the field, like Black feminist thought, women of color feminisms, and queer of color critique. "A queer sociology" centers power relations beyond gender and sexuality, recognizing the invisible and overarching work of Whiteness and the U.S. (as unnamed centers of analyses) in structuring not only the sociology of sexualities, but sociological thinking overall. We invite sociology to engage with our theorization of "a queer sociology" as a way to transform our categories of analysis and how we conceive power".