Assistant Professor
B.A., Sociology, Pacific Lutheran University
Ph.D., Sociology, 2000, University of Washington
Office: UW2-328
Phone: 425-352-3588
Email: klerum@uwb.edu
Website: http://faculty.washington.edu/lerum
Blog: Founder and Co-Editor of Sexuality & Society
Mailing: Box 358511, 11136 NE 180th Street, Bothell, WA 98011-1713
Teaching
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.
Recent Courses Taught
CUSP 104/107 Filming the Real: Digital Storytelling & Everyday Truths
BIS 219 The Politics of Sex Education
BIS 312 Approaches to Social Research
BIS 445 The Meanings & Realities of Inequality
BIS 493 Special Topics: Global & Local Health Inequalities
BIS 490 Senior Seminar: Multi-media Storytelling for Social Transformation
BIS 490 Senior Seminar: Commercial Sex Work, Sexual Health & Global Human Rights
HUM 498 Topics in Humanities: New Directions in Cultural Research
BCULTS 501 Cultural Studies Research Practices
Research/Scholarship
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.
Selected Publications
Lerum, Kari, and Dworkin, Shari. “‘Bad Girls Rule’: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Commentaryon the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls.” Journal of Sex Research 46 (4), Pp. 1-3, 2009.
Lerum, Kari, and Dworkin, Shari. “Toward an Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Youth, Sexualization, and Health.” Journal of Sex Research 46 (4), Pp. 1-14, 2009.
Lerum, Kari. “Sexuality and Reproduction.” Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, V. 2. Pp. Sage. 2008.
Parker, Suzan, Horby, Amanda, and Lerum, Kari. “Zines: Creative Expression and Social Inequality Analysis.” In Practical Pedagogy for Library Instructors, 2007.
Lerum, Kari. “Sexuality, Power, and Camaraderie in Service Work.” Gender & Society 18 (6), Pp. 756-776, 004.
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, 2001. (REPRINTED in the 4rd edition, 2006 edited by Jodi O'Brien and Peter Kollock).
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), 1998.
Book Reviews
Lerum, Kari. Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy & Identity, edited by Elizabeth Bernstein
and Laurie Schaffner. In Contemporary Sociology, 36, 6, Pp. 559-561, 2007.
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, 2004.