Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Women's & Gender Studies News
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USC Upstate's Annual Award to Faculty for Scholarly and/or Creative Pursuits Goes to the Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Women's & Gender Studies for Two Years in a row! Dr. Brigitte Neary, associate professor of sociology, received the Annual Award to Faculty for Scholarly and/or Creative Pursuits at the University’s May Commencement Exercises. Dr. Clif Flynn, chair of the Department received the award in 2009.
Clif Flynn, professor of Sociology, and chair of the Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice, and Women's Studies, recently served on a review panel for the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to review grants on “The Role of Human-Animal Interaction in Child Health and Development.” The purpose of this NIH initiative was to build an empirical research base on how children perceive, relate to and think about animals; how pets in the home impact children's social and emotional development and health (e.g. allergies, the immune system, asthma, mitigation of obesity); and whether and under what conditions therapeutic uses of animals is safe and effective. This is the first time that NIH has ever sponsored research in this area.
Lizabeth Zack, assistant professoer of Sociology, published a short dispatch titled ‘Waking the Red-Dead’
in the award-winning Middle East news magazine Middle East Report (Spring 2010, #254).
Brigitte Neary, associate professor of Sociology, had a paper, "The Privilege of Not Being German: Unpacking the Social Construct," accepted for presentation in the session, Social Construction of Race, at the Southern Sociological Association's Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Ga., April 21-24, 2010. She has also been recruited to preside over this session.
Dr. Calvin Odhiambo, assistant professor of Sociology, will present a paper titled “The Impact of HIVV/AIDS on the Natural Environment” at the annual meeting of the South Carolina Sociological Association on February 19 at Claflin University.
Dr. Brigitte Neary, has been appointed for a three-year term to the Committee on Sociological Practice of the Southern Sociological Society. Established in 1935, the Southern Sociological Society is a society of professionals that promotes the development of sociology as a profession and scientific discipline by the maintenance of high academic professional and ethical standards, and by encouraging effective teaching of sociology, valid and reliable methods and research in the study of human society, diffusion of sociological knowledge and its application to societal problems, cooperation with related disciplines and groups, recruitment and training of sociologists, and development of sociology programs in educational and other agencies.
Dr. Neary traveled to Stuttgart, Germany to accept a human rights award on December 12 for her research and publications dealing with the expulsion of 15 million Germans from east central Europe in the aftermath of World War II. The award is known as the Menschenrechtspreis der Volksgruppe der Donauschwaben, or Human Rights Award of the Ethnic German Danube Suevians. The organization presenting the award, Volksgruppe der Donauschwaben, is one of several groups in Germany that endeavor to direct attention to the plight of Germans expelled from their homes and homelands in East Central Europe, and forced to bear horrific suffering and death in what some scholars are now calling ethnic cleansing. Read more...
Dr. Lisa Johnson, Director of the Center for Women's and Gender Studies, attended a conference called Rethinking Marxism: New Marxian Times, hosted by the Association for Economic and Social Analysis at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, where she presented a paper titled "Dirty South: Queer Affect, Ludic Feminism, Materialist Praxis (and the Politics of TrapMusic)" as part of a series of panels addressing sexual politics under late capitalism. She used "trap music" (music about the 'dope' trade) as a vehicle through which to think about the politics of transgression in women's and gender studies as an academic discipline.
Dr. Laura Jennings, assistant professor of Sociology, had her poster titled, “Place Settings: Social Aspects of the Body Image/Eating Relationship," accepted for presentation at the Carolina Women’s Health Research Forum, to be held at USC Columbia on October 30, 2009.
Brent Metcalf, instructor of Criminal Justice, has been selected as the president of the South Carolina Probation and Parole Association. The association is a professional organization of federal, state, and nonprofit community based correctional officials serving the state of South Carolina. Brent is the former Agent-In-Charge of the State Probation and Parole Office in Spartanburg. He currently serves as an United States Probation Officer serving the United States District Court, District of South Carolina.
Dr. Lisa Johnson, Director of the Center for Women's and Genders Studies, delivered a lecture titled, “Bottled Up,” sponsored by the Spartanburg Youth Council. Her lecture, which dealt with the cross-addictions between substance abuse and romantic infatuation, was held at the Spartanburg County Public and was attended by school counselors, local addiction counselors, public school teachers, and nonprofit organization directors.
Criminal justice instructor Dr. Robert Daly has been retained by the Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York to testify as an expert witness in an upcoming case in the Federal District Court in Manhattan. Daly’s testimony will focus on contemporary correctional standards governing the force in an institutional setting. In this case, an inmate alleges that a correctional officer and other staff members assaulted him without cause. Daly will be testifying on behalf of a correctional officer, who claims he was attacked by the inmate and that he acted properly in restraining the inmate. Daly has a law degree from St. John’s University School of Law. He has extensive experience working with the New York City Department of Correction, including serving as Director of the Legal Division, General Counsel, and Acting First Deputy Commissioner. Daly currently serves as an expert witness on the use of force and prison security for the New York State Attorney General. He is qualified as a corrections expert in the Federal District Courts.
Dr. Brigitte Neary, associate professor of Sociology, has published an online review of In 1945 They Were Children: Flight and Expulsion in the Life of a Generation by Alena Wagnerova and Julie Winter.
Dr. Calvin Odhiambo, assistant professor ofSociology, has had his workshop presentation, titled “The Risks of Cardiovascular Disease among African Americans who are HIV Positive” accepted for The United States Conference on AIDS, October 29-31, 2009 in San Francisco, CA.
Dr. Lizabeth Zack, assistant professor of Sociology, published a review of American Empire and the Politics of Meaning: Elite Political Cultures in the Philippines and Puerto Rico during U.S. Colonialism, reviewed in the May 2009 issue of Contemporary Sociology.
Dr. Reid Toth, assistant professor of criminal justice, was interviewed on the local news on Tuesday, July 7 regarding the recent Gaffney serial killer case. She did an excellent job, of course, and the interview can be seen at WSPA’s Web site.
A chapter from Dr. Lisa Johnson’s, Center for Women's and Gender Studies, book Third Wave Feminism and Television: Jane Puts It in a Box (Reading Contemporary Television), entitled “Ladies Love Your Box: The Rhetoric of Pleasure and Danger in Feminist Television Studies,” has been reprinted in the recently published anthology, Media/Cultural Studies: Critical Approaches by Peter Lang Publishing (May 2009).
Dr. Clif Flynn, profesor of Sociology, has published a chapter in Women-Battering, Pet Abuse, and Human-Animal Relationships in Andrew Linzey (Ed.), The Link between Animal Abuse and Human Violence. Sussex Academic Press, 2009.)
Dr. Laura Jennings, assistant professor Sociology, has a book chapter coming out in print this fall. “Public Fat: Canadian Provincial Governments and Fat on the Web.” in Esther Rothblum, Sondra Solovay, and Marilyn Wann (Eds.), Fat Studies Reader. New York University Press. (Forthcoming, Nov. 2009).
Dr. Jennifer Parker, associate professor of psychology, and Dr. Diane Daane (at left), professor of criminal justice, participated in the Child Advocacy Studies Conference at the National Child Protection Training Center on the Winona State University campus in Winona, Minn. this July. Only 40 professors from 20 colleges and universities nationwide were selected to attend this conference, which is designed to assist universities in developing an interdisciplinary professional curriculum to prepare graduates to pursue a career in child protection and related fields.
Dr. Daane has also published two chapters “Victim Response to Sexual Assault” and “The Ripple Effect: Secondary Sexual Assault Survivors” in Frances P. Reddington and Betsy Wright Kreisel (Eds.), Sexual Assault: The Victims, the Perpetrators, and the Criminal Justice System, 2nd ed., Carolina Academic Press, Durham, NC. (August 2009).
Dr. Calvin Odhiambo, assistant professor of sociology, attended the Summer Institute Program to Increase Diversity (SIPID) in Cardiovascular Health Disparities Research. The Institute was held at SUNY Downstate Medical Center in Brooklyn, NY from July 12-25.
Dr. Clif Flynn Receives USC Upstate's Annual Award to Faculty for Scholarly and/or Creative Pursuits
Dr. Clif Flynn, chair of the Department of Sociology, Criminal Justice and Women’s Studies at the University of South Carolina Upstate received the Annual Award to Faculty for Scholarly and/or Creative Pursuits at the University’s May Commencement Exercises on May 5. This award sponsored by Bank of America honors faculty members who have made an impact within their fields of expertise. Read more...
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