Research & Scholarship
My research and scholarship centers on the critical study of social inequality, focusing on the relationship between sexuality, power, and context (including: organizational, institutional, cultural, and global contexts).
Current Projects
- Sexuality: The Basics (Book project, Routledge Press)
- Editor, "Mediations" section, in Contexts (a sociology magazine).
- Sex work/trafficking policy work. I am part of an ongoing U.S. team of human rights/sex worker activists and academics responding to the United Nation's Universal Periodic Review in Nov. 2010. Click here for our policy brief. Click here for a summary of our initial efforts. Directly inpired from this work are two additional projects:
- a journal article describing our efforts in Anti-Trafficking Review, &
- a community-based empirical research project assesing the needs of transgender sex workers in the Seattle area (funded by grants from the Harry Bridges Labor Center and the Pride Foundation).
- Other current projects:
- content analysis of US-based films about exotic dancers (with R. Gregory, J. Swift, & S. Wahab)
- entry on "Sexuality" for Sociology of Work encyclopedia.
Select Publications
(For a full listing of my publications, please see my CV)
Peer reviewed Journal Articles:
- Lerum, K, McCurtis, K., Saunders, P. Wahab, S. 2012. "Using human rights to hold the US accountable for its anti-sex work agenda. The Universal Periodic Review and new directions for US policy." Anti Trafficking Review, 1, pp. 80-103.
- Wahab, S., Baker, L., Smith, J. Cooper, K., Lerum, K.. 2010. "Exotic Dance Research: A Review of the Literature from 1970 to 2008." Sexuality & Culture.
- Lerum, K., and Dworkin, S. 2009. “‘Bad Girls Rule’: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Commentary on the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls.” Journal of Sex Research 46. 4.
- Lerum, K., and Dworkin, S. 2009. “Toward an Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Youth, Sexualization, and Health.” Journal of Sex Research 46. 4.
- Lerum, K. 2004. “Sexuality, Power, and Camaraderie in Service Work.” Gender & Society, 18, 6. 756-776.
- Lerum, K. 2001. “Subjects of Desire: Academic Armor, Intimate Ethnography, & the Production of Critical Knowledge.” Qualitative Inquiry, 7, 4, Pp. 466-483.
- Lerum, Kari. 1998. "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.
Academic Book & Encyclopedia Chapters:
- (Forthcoming 2012). Lerum, K. “What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Life Lessons from Multiracial Feminism.”In Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. Salt Lake: University of Utah Press
- Lerum, K. 2008. “Sexuality and Reproduction.” In Encyclopedia of Gender and Society, v. 2. Sage.
- Lerum, K. 2001. "'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 4th edition, 2006).
Popular Culture Book Chapters:
- Lerum, K. 2012. "My Trojan Dress." In Here Come the Brides: Reflections on Lesbian Love and Marriage, Pp. 59-71, edited by Michelle Kort and Audrey Bilger. Seal Press.
Book Reviews:
- Lerum, K. 2011. Review of The State of Sex: Tourism, Sex, and Sin in the New American Heartland. By Brents, B., Jackson, C., and Hausbeck, K. In Gender & Society.
- Lerum, K. 2011. Review of Strip Club: Gender, Power, and Sex Work. By Price-Glynn, K. In American Journal of Sociology 117, 1, Pp. 345-347. 2011.
- Lerum, K. 2011. Review of Intimate Labors: Cultures, Technologies, and the Politics of Care. Edited by Boris, E. and Parrenas, R. In International Review of Modern Sociology. Pp. 150-153.
- Lerum, K. 2007. Review of Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy & Identity, edited by Elizabeth Bernstein and Laurie Schaffner. In Contemporary Sociology, 36, 6, Pp. 559-561.
- Lerum, K. 2004. “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.
Blog Articles:
I am a frequent blogger for Sexuality & Society (a sociology-based blog sponsored by Contexts magazine) as well as Ms. Magazine and Rh Reality Check. Below are the titles of a selection of my articles which can be found on these sites.
- Burlesque Is So Gay. And That’s A Good Thing. December 2, 2010 by Kari Lerum. Ms Magazine Blog.
- Interested in Bully-Free Zones? (or Not?). by Kari Lerum, Nov 18, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- In annuling contract with O’Brien, Marquette can assume its Mission(ary) Position. by Kari Lerum, May 12, 2010. Sexuality & Society
- Sex Addiction clinics as Capitalist confession booths. by Kari Lerum, May 2, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- Catholic Priests, Sexual Abuse, and learning how to talk about sex in church
by Kari Lerum, Mar 29, 2010.Sexuality & Society. - Making Hate Fun: Facebook users continue to joke en masse about killing “hookers”. by Kari Lerum, Feb 12, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- In search of the “so-called G-spot”. by Kari Lerum, Jan 6, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- Iceland’s Abolitionist stance. by Kari Lerum, Apr 3, 2010. Sexuality & Society.
- Top Ten Sexual Stories of 2009. by Kari Lerum and Shari L. Dworkin, Dec 31, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- The real problem with “sexting”: Adult complicity in labeling teens “sluts,” “perverts,” and “criminals”by Kari Lerum, Dec 23, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- Growing global opposition to Ugandan “kill the gays bill.” by Kari Lerum, Dec 14, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- Pure Fashion Policing, by Kari Lerum, Dec 7, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- The New Abolitionists and their critics (second in a series on Anti-Trafficking efforts). by Kari Lerum, Oct 21, 2009. Sexuality & Society.
- Abstaining from evidence during National Sex Education week. by Kari Lerum, Oct 2, 2009. Sexuality & Society.