Christopher Powell, Ph.D.

 

2011

 

My book, Barbaric Civilization: A Critical Sociology of Genocide, is available in bookstores. The trade paperback edition retails for $29.95. You can order the book online:

        - direct from MQUP

  1. - McNally Robinson

  2. - Chapters-Indigo

  3. - Amazon


I have made a number of public and media appearances in relation to the book:

  1. - July 14th – Launch talk with Q&A

  2. - Aug 4th – StreetzFM Interview Part 1, Part 2

        - Sept 7th – Winnipeg Free Press Article

  1. - Sept 19th – APTN Interview

  2. - Oct 6th – Mondragon Bookstore & Coffeehouse

  3. -Oct 13th – University of Alberta

  4. -Oct 14th – Grant MacEwan University

  5. -Nov 2nd – Concordia University

  6. -Nov 3rd – Montréal Institute for Genocide and                            Human Rights Studies

  7. -Feb 3rd - Department of Psychology,
    University of Manitoba

  8. -Feb 10th - Arthur V. Mauro Centre for Peace and Justice Studies

  9. -Feb 29th - Visionary Conversations, Victoria and Vancouver

 

Why does “difference” mean “danger” so persistently throughout Western cultures?  Why does hierarchy keep cropping up, even in radically egalitarian social movements?  How can bottom-up politics be practically effective without buying in to one single program, identity, or value-system?  How can a global society premised on constant economic expansion adjust to ecological limits to growth, without catastrophic violence?  And what contribution can academic sociology make to the practical struggles on the ground for a free, equal, inclusive, and sustainable human society?  These are some of the key questions that animate my engagement with sociological theory.


I am a reluctant theorist, driven by questions of practical social change, but persistently drawn to analytic problems and conceptual questions.  My work draws on Marx, feminism, Foucault, deconstruction, historical sociology, postmodernism, science studies, and postcolonial theory. I’m invested in taking “the material turn after the cultural turn”, making off with the radically relativising insights of critical cultural theory, in order to work them into a revised and rejuvenated materialist sociology.

 

About my work

 

Assistant Professor

Department of Sociology

University of Manitoba


Ph.D. Sociology
Carleton University 2005


M.A. Sociology

Carleton University 1998


B.A. Honours
Sociology & Political Science
University of Toronto 1996


Email: chris_powell@umanitoba.ca

Phone: (204) 474-8150

Fax: (204) 261-1216

Barbaric Civilization