B.A., Sociology, Pacific Lutheran University
Ph.D., Sociology, 2000, University of Washington
Office: UW2-328
Phone: 425-352-3588
Email: klerum@uwb.edu
Mailing: Box 358511, 11136 NE 180th Street, Bothell, WA 98011-1713
I strive to achieve a warm, open-minded classroom atmosphere where difficult issues are discussed with rigor, mutual respect, and laughter. I approach each course differently, depending on the content and the participants, but a few principles unite my overall approach: I hope to invoke in students an understanding of the structural, material conditions that can explain patterns of inequality; inspire students to examine their own subject positions within these patterns; have students understand social scientific standards for evaluating both theoretical claims and evidence, and empower students to integrate their knowledge into their everyday lives.
BIS 312 Approaches to Social Research
BIS 331 The Family in U.S. Society
BIS 445 The Meanings and Realities of Inequality
BIS 493 Special Topics: Global & Local Health Inequalities
BIS 490 Senior Seminar: Feminist Theories & Practices
BIS 490 Senior Seminar: History and Sociology of Sex Work
HUM 498 Topics in Humanities: New Directions in Cultural Research
My work focuses the intersections of sexuality, culture, institutions, and power. In the past this has included ethnographic research on sex work and other forms of service work; currently I am working on a number of projects affiliated with "sexuality education" for children and adults on the local/domestic front, and HIV/AIDS activism for sex workers on the global scale. I have worked with the Pat Graney Dance Company's Prison project as videographer and am currently an affiliate board member of the Pat Graney Prison Transition program (a Gates-funded arts-based program that will begin fall 2008). In graduate school I produced several local documentaries, examining topics such as sex work, pirate radio, and heroin use in the Seattle music scene; currently my main film activities involve serving as a sexuality and media mentor for Reel Grrls, and organization that empowers girl youth to become filmmakers.
2007 Lerum, Kari. Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy & Identity, edited by Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schaffner. In Contemporary Sociology (in press).
2007 Parker, Suzan, Horby, Amanda, and Lerum, Kari. "Zines: creative expression and social inequality analysis." In Practical Pedagogy for Library Instructors
2004 Lerum, Kari. "Sexuality, Power, and Camaraderie in Service Work." Gender & Society, 18, 6. 756-776.
2004 Lerum, Kari. "Defining the Emotional Contours of Exotic Dance." A Review of G-Strings and Sympathy: Strip Club Regulars and Male Desire by Katherine Frank, and Bare: On Women, Sex, and Power by Elizabeth Eaves. Sexuality & Culture 8, 1.
2001 Lerum, Kari. "Subjects of Desire: Academic Armor, Intimate Ethnography, & the Production of Critical Knowledge." Qualitative Inquiry, 7 (4), Pp. 466-483. (Special issue on Critical Ethnography.)
2001 Lerum, Kari. "'Precarious Situations' in a Strip Club: Exotic Dancers and the Problem of Reality Maintenance." In The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings in Social Psychology (3rd edition), Pp. 279-287, edited by Peter Kollock and Jodi O'Brien. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press.
Reprinted in The Production of Reality: Essays and Readings in Social Psychology (4rd edition), 2006.
1998 Lerum, Kari. "12-Step Feminism Makes Sex Workers Sick: How the State and the Recovery Movement Turn Radical Women into ‘Useless Citizens'." Sexuality & Culture, 2, Pp. 7-36. (Special issue on Sex Work and Sex Workers).
