Christopher Uggen: "Sexual Harassment and the Life Course"

Date: 

Monday, December 11, 2017, 12:00pm to 1:45pm

Location: 

Allison Dining Room

Christopher UggenRegents Professor and Martindale Chair in Sociology and Law, University of Minnesota.

In December 2017, sexual harassment is commanding a degree of public attention not seen since the 1998 Clinton/Lewinsky case. In the ensuing two decades, my colleagues (Amy Blackstone and Heather McLaughlin) and I have undertaken a multi-method longitudinal study to address some of the key questions for science and policy: (1) how to conceptualize and measure harassment; (2) who is targeted and who mobilizes in response; (3) how different dimensions of “power” and legal consciousness structure these experiences;  and (4) the long-term impact on mental health and career attainment.

After addressing these and related questions, I outline prospects for a criminology of harassment and harassers to advance knowledge and better inform institutional responses.

Background reading

Heather McLaughlin, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone. “The Economic and Career Effects of Sexual Harassment on Working Women.” Gender & Society (June 2017).

Heather McLaughlin, Christopher Uggen, and Amy Blackstone. "The Costs of Sexual Harrassment." (Short Gender & Society blog post about the article)

About the speaker

Chris Uggen (pronounced You-Gun) is Regents Professor and Martindale Chair in Sociology and Law at the University of Minnesota. He studies crime, law, and deviance, firm in the belief that sound research can help build a more just and peaceful world.

With Jeff Manza, he wrote Locked Out: Felon Disenfranchisement and American Democracy, and his writing on felon voting, work and crime, and harassment and discrimination is frequently cited in media such as the New York Times, The Economist, and NPR. His research, teaching, and advising interests include crime and punishment, social and political inequality, and law and society.

Current projects include a comparative study of reentry from different types of institutions, employment discrimination and criminal records, and crime and justice after genocide, and the health effects of incarceration. A forthcoming book, Prisons and Health in the Age of Mass Incarceration, co-authored with Jason Schnittker and Michael Massoglia, is due out from Oxford University Press in 2018.

Uggen's outreach and engagement projects include editing Contexts Magazine and The Society Pages (with Doug Hartmann) and Public Criminologies (with Michelle Inderbitzin). Away from work, Chris is a father, jogger, and blogger.

Learn more about Chris Uggen's work
users.soc.umn.edu/~uggen/

 

See also: Fall 2017