Scholarship and Teaching

I’m a sociologist of punishment. My first book “Judging Addicts” examines the history of the social control of addiction in the criminal justice system. More recently, I have looked at drug panics for the role that class and race dynamic play in their depiction.

I also have written about celebrity and how social media interactively constructs deviance and have published articles about celebrity drug scandals.

I teach about deviance, punishment and celebrity. I also have developed a course Writing Flash Sociology where students work on creative non-fiction as a way to delve into the sociological imagination. I host a public reading for the students to share their work which has been a gratifying part of teaching creative writing.

I have a chapter in the forthcoming book Sociology Meets Memoir by Margaret K. Nelson where I write about my turn toward personal writing.