The logo element of the template header section Angle element of the template header section.

Sociology and Criminology

Sociology and Criminology

Val Marie JohnsonDr. Val Marie Johnson 
(Associate Professor, Full-Time Faculty)

Personal Profile

  • Ph.D. (Sociology and Historical Studies) New School for Social Research, 2003
  • M.A (Sociology) University of Toronto, 1990
  • B. A. (Honours With Distinction, Sociology and History), University of Toronto, 1989

My research and teaching interests center in theories and histories of how we produce and govern the self, others, group dynamics, and social spaces and institutions.  I am interested in how human beings mobilize and resist ideas and tactics that differentiate and deploy people in hierarchies, and that shape the unequal distribution of resources.

The particular ideas and tactics that my research explores include those involved in how we imagine and govern urban spaces and populations, gender and sexuality, moral worth, class, race and ethnicity, citizenship, age and youth, and "crime" and "justice".

My current work includes research on late-19th and early-20th century political struggles over racial segregation, and urban communities and institutions, in Brooklyn and New York City.

Selected Publications

  • Val Marie Johnson, "American History as the History of Sexuality and Gender" (Review Essay), Journal of Urban History 37 (November 2011): 1000-1009.
  • Val Marie Johnson, "Chronologies and Complexities of Western Neoliberalism: Introduction," Social Science History 35, n.3 (Fall 2011): 323-336 [Introduction author & Section editor for Social Science History Special Section on the history of Western neoliberalism].
  • Val Marie Johnson, "Reading the Criminalization of Poverty" in Crocker & Johnson (eds.) Poverty, Regulation, and Social Justice: Readings on the Criminalization of Poverty (Blackpoint, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2010) .
  • Diane Crocker and Val Marie Johnson (eds.), Poverty, Regulation, and Social Justice: Readings on the Criminalization of Poverty (Blackpoint, NS: Fernwood Publishing, 2010).
  • Michele Byers and Val Marie Johnson (eds.,), The "CSI Effect:" Television, Crime, and Governance (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009).
  • Michele Byers and Val Marie Johnson, "CSI as Neoliberalism: An Introduction" in Byers & Johnson (eds.), The "CSI Effect:" Television, Crime, and Governance (Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2009).
  • Val Marie Johnson, "'Look for the moral and sex sides of the problem': Investigating Jewishness, Desire and Discipline at Macy's Department Store, 1913." Journal of the History of Sexuality 18, n.3 (September 2009): 457-485.
  • Val Marie Johnson, "'The Rest Can Go to the Devil': Macy's Workers Negotiate Gender, Sex, and Class in the Progressive Era." Journal of Women's History 19, n.1 (March 2007): 32-57.
  • Val Marie Johnson, "'The moral aspects of complex problems': New York City Electoral Campaigns Against Vice and the Incorporation of Immigrants, 1890-1901." Journal of American Ethnic History 25, nos.2-3 (Winter/Spring 2006): 74-106.
  • Val Marie Johnson, "Policing Borders, Citizenship, and Cities: the Gendered and Racialized Inspection & Regulation of Immigrants at the Turn of the Last Century." In Uniform Behavior: Localism, Reform, and Police-Community Relationships in Modern America . Edited by Stacy K. McGoldrick, Palgrave Macmillan, New York, NY , 2006, 25-54.
  • Val Marie Johnson, "Protection, Virtue, and 'the power to detain': the Moral Citizenship of Jewish Women in New York City, 1890-1920." Journal of Urban History 31 (2005): 655-684. Nominated by the JUH for the 2005 Berkshire Conference Article Prize.

Selected Presentations and Conferences

  • “Context for Ehyrn Torrell’s ‘Self-Similar’: sociological visions of and questions on cities, built & destroyed environments, and the human condition” for “Unbuilding the City: Urbanisation and its Trace in Chine and Canada” (Panel inspired by Torrell’s “Self-Similar” exhibit), Saint Mary's University Art Gallery, 12 September, 2012
  • “'The grand endeavor of surpassing a moral revolution': Maritcha Remond Lyons and Racial Justice Politics in late-19th and early-20th century Brooklyn” Presented at the Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, June 11 2011, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  • "Grounding Sexual & Moral Regulation in the Political History of a City" Presented at the Bonham Centre for Sexual Diversity Studies, 17 November 2009, University of Toronto
  • “Beyond category and lineage: what does 1960s Canadian Youth Justice Reform teach us about theories and histories of politics and law?” Presented at the Social Science History Association Annual Meeting, 13 November 2009, Long Beach CA
  • "Governing Youth, Justice, and Liberalism in Canada, 1960-1971" Presented at the European Social Science History Conference, 27 February 2008, University of Lisbon.
  • "New York Jewish Women's Sexual Politics and the Investigation of Macy's Department Store, 1913." Presented at Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Washington, D. C., April 2006.
  • Co-Organizer (with Diane Crocker) and Participant, "The Criminalization of Poverty," 8 & 9 November, 2004 Halifax Colloquium involving academics, the Law Commission of Canada, and local community and politicians in a forum on how policing and fear of crime intersect with homelessness and housing, social services and poverty policy.
  • "Seeking 'the moral law' and Citizenship: Gendered Relations of Class and Ethnicity in New York City Campaigns Against Vice." Invited Presentation, Transcending Borders: Migration, Ethnicity, and Incorporation in an Age of Globalism, New York University, 1 November, 2003.

Courses Taught

  • Classical Theory (Fall 2012)
  • Contemporary Criminological Theory
  • Advanced Criminological & Sociological Theory 
  • Gender & Law (Winter 2013) 
  • Law & Society 
  • Criminal Law 
  • Critical Criminology (Winter 2013) 
  • Issues in Juvenile Justice 
  • Urban Sociology: Introduction & History (Winter 2013) 
  • Urban Regulation 
  • Regulating Gender & Sexuality 
  • Theories of Feminism 
  • Theories and Histories of Sexuality

Student Supervision

  • Dee Dooley (Criminology MA) “The Victim-Criminal Narrative: Gender and Discourse in R v Ryan” (Thesis chapters in progress)
  • Lisbeth Nielsen (Women & Gender Studies MA) “ Low Income Mothers’ Critique of Services: A Participatory Study” (Thesis research in progress; SSHRC funded)
  • Jennifer Donovan (Women & Gender Studies MA) “Expert versus Survivor Truths about Electroconvulsive therapy” (Proposal in progress)

Community Work

  • Member Governing Co-operative, Out of the Cold Emergency Winter Shelter, St. Matthew’s Church, Halifax