Over the past decade, Middlebury College Associate Professor Theodore Sasson has taught courses in political sociology, social problems, deviance, punishment and social control, mass media and collective violence. In addition, he teaches one of the large introductory courses in classical sociological theory.
Mr. Sasson's first book, "Crime Talk: How Citizens Construct a Social Problem" (Aldine, 1995) employed discourse analytic techniques to examine how small groups of city residents interpret the problem of street crime. Mr. Sasson's second book, "The Politics of Injustice: Crime and Punishment in America" (co-authored with Katherine Beckett) examines the sources of mass incarceration in the United States. A popular course adoption (recently revised and reissued), the book identifies the politicization of crime by political elites as the decisive factor shaping crime policy in the United States over the past several decades. More recently, Mr. Sasson has begun cross-cultural comparative research on the discourses of American and Israeli Jews on issues pertaining to Israel. This new research (collaborative with Ephraim Tabory) draws on a large sample of focus group interviews conducted among members of the Jewish public in Israel and the United States. The substantive goal of the project is to identify and map the core lines of conflict and consensus in the political cultures of American and Israeli Jews. From a more theoretical standpoint, the new research deepens Mr. Sasson's interest in popular constructions of social problems, the nature of political culture, and the possibility of studying these issues through close ethnographic analysis of everyday political rhetoric.
Mr. Sasson is a past chair of the Sociology/Anthropology Department at Middlebury College. He is also a Visiting Associate Research Professor at the Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies at Brandeis University.
Curriculum Vitae
EDUCATION
Ph.D., Department of Sociology, Boston College, 1994. William Gamson, Dissertation Committee Chair.
B.A., Department of Sociology, Brandeis University, 1987. Highest Honors. Phi Beta Kappa.
CURRENT PROJECTS
Theodore Sasson & Ephraim Tabory (co-authors). Framing Israel: How Israelis define borders, democracy and the Jewish character of the state. Book manuscript, in preparation.
Theodore Sasson. Dilemmas of Diaspora Nationalism: Israel’s meaning for American Jews. Book manuscript, under contract with the American Jewish Committee.
BOOKS
Beckett, Katherine and Theodore Sasson (co-authors). The Politics of Injustice: Crime and Punishment in America. Pine Forge Press, 1999. Second Edition, fully revised, Sage Press, 2004.
[Extracts from The Politics of Injustice (Second Edition), reprinted in Defending Justice: A Resource Kit, edited by Shah Palak. Boston, MA: Political Research Associates, 2005.]
Sasson, Theodore. Crime Talk: How Citizens Construct a Social Problem. Aldine de Gruyter, 1995. Social Problems and Social Issues Series (Joel Best, editor).
[Extracts from Crime Talk, reprinted in Social Problems: Constructionist Readings, edited by Donileen R. Loseke and Joel Best. Hawthorne, NY: Aldine de Gruyter, 2003.]
BOOK CHAPTERS
Sasson, Theodore. “A Jewish and Democratic State? How American Jews Construct Israel’s Identity Dilemma.” In Dynamic Belonging, edited by Steven Cohen and Ezra Kopelowitz. Forthcoming, 2007.
Sasson, Theodore. “William Horton’s Long Shadow: ‘Punitiveness’ and ‘Managerialism’ in the Penal Politics of Massachusetts, 1988-1997”. Pp. 238-51 in Crime, Risk and Insecurity: Law and Order in Everyday Life and Political Discourse, edited by Richard Sparks and Tim Hope. London: Routledge, 2000.
Beckett, Katherine and Theodore Sasson (co-authors). “The War on Crime as Hegemonic Strategy: A Gramscian Theory of the New Punitiveness in U.S. Criminal Justice Policy.” Pp. 61-84 in Of Crime and Criminality: The Use of Theory in Everyday Life, edited by Sally Simpson. Thousand Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2000.
Beckett, Katherine and Theodore Sasson (co-authors). "The Media and the Construction of the Drug Crisis in America." Pp. 25-43 in The New War on Drugs: Symbolic Politics and Criminal Justice Policy, edited by Eric Jensen and Jurg Gerber. Cincinnati, OH: Anderson Publishing Company, 1997.
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Sasson, Theodore and Ephraim Tabory. “A House Divided: Religious Zionist Perspectives on the Gaza Disengagement and the Future of the West Bank.” Under revision for Journal of Church and State.
Sasson, Theodore and Shaul Kelner. “From Shrine to Forum: Massada and the Politics of Jewish Extremism.” Under revision for Israel Studies.
Sasson, Theodore and Ephraim Tabory. “Divergent Political Cultures? Discourses of American and Israeli Jews on Israel as a ‘Jewish and Democratic’ State.” Under review.
Charles Kadushin, Shahar Hecht, Theodore Sasson and Leonard Saxe (co-authors). “ Identifying and Understanding Successful Tours: ‘Triangulation’ and ‘Mixed methods’ in the Evaluation of an Israel Experience Program.” Journal of Field Methods. Forthcoming.
Beckett, Katherine and Theodore Sasson (co-authors). “Crime, Politics, and the Public: The Sources of Mass Imprisonment in the U.S.” Japanese Journal of Sociological Criminology (in Japanese, with English abstract). October, 2004.
Sasson, Theodore. “How Science Matters: Discourse on Deterrence in a Death Penalty Debate.” Studies in Law, Politics and Society. 30(2004):161-181.
Sasson, Theodore and Margaret Nelson (co-authors). “Danger, Community and the Meaning of Crime Watch: An Analysis of the Discourse of White and African American Participants.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 25(1996):171-200.
Sasson, Theodore. “African American Conspiracy Theories and the Social Construction of Crime.” Sociological Inquiry, 63(1995): 265-85. [Reprinted in Politics, Crime Control and Culture, edited by Stuart Scheingold. Dartmouth Publishing Company, U.K., 1997.]
Gamson, William A., William Hoynes, David Croteau and Theodore Sasson (co-authors). "Media Images and the Social Construction of Reality." Annual Review of Sociology, 18(1992):373-93.
BOOK REVIEWS
Sassont, Theodore. “Qualitative Research on American Jewry.” Contact 8:4 (Summer 2006).
Sasson, Theodore. Review of Israel, Diaspora, and the Routes of National Belonging by Jasmin Habib. Israel Studies 11:2 (2006).
Sasson, Theodore. Review of Crime in Literature by Vincenzo Ruggiero. Contemporary Sociology. 35 (2005).
Sasson, Theodore. Review of Crime and Social Change in Middle England, by Evi Girling, Ian Loader and Richard Sparks. Punishment & Society. January, 2004.
Sasson, Theodore. Review essay on Lockdown America by Christian Parenti, Race to Incarcerate, by Marc Mauer, and Power, Politics and Crime, by William Chambliss. Punishment & Society Vol 3(4):547-72.
Sasson, Theodore. Review of Malign Neglect by Michael Tonry. Bimonthly Review of Law Books, 10(1995):11.
Sasson, Theodore. Review of Crime and the American Dream by Stephen Messner and Richard Rosenfeld. Contemporary Sociology, 24(1994):800-1.
CONFERENCE PAPERS
“Massada and the Politics of Jewish Extremism.” (With Shaul Kelner). Association for Jewish Studies. San Diego, December 2006.
“Teaching the Political Sociology of Israel at a Liberal Arts College.” (Contribution to a roundtable discussion). Association for Jewish Studies. San Diego, December 2006.
“National Religious Responses to the Gaza Disengagement.” (With Ephraim Tabory). Association for Israel Studies. Banff, Canada, June 2006.
“Religiosity and the Readiness for Peace: Religious and Nonreligious Israeli Jews’ Perceptions Regarding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.” (With Ephraim Tabory). Association for the Sociology of Religion, Philadelphia, August 2005.
“A Comparison of the Discourses of American and Israeli Jews on Israel as a Jewish and Democratic State.” (With Ephraim Tabory). World Union of Jewish Studies, Jerusalem, August 2005.
“Religious Pluralism in Comparative Perspective: The Discourses of Israeli and American Jews.” (With Ephraim Tabory). Association of Jewish Studies Annual Meeting, Chicago, December 2004.
“A Jewish and Democratic State? How American Jews Discuss Israel’s Identity Dilemma.” Silberman Symposium, Middlebury College, November 2004.
“American Jewish Discourses on Israel.” Hebrew University Advanced Institute Conference: “Dynamic Belonging: Shifting Jewish Identities and Collective Involvements in Comparative Perspective,” Jerusalem, June 18-20, 2004.
“Restorative Justice in Vermont.” Annual Meeting of the Law & Society Association, Miami, Florida, May 2000.
“Beyond Agenda Setting: the framing effects of ‘Nannygate’ on a death penalty debate.” Annual Meeting of the American Society of Criminology, Washington, D.C., November, 1998.
“Modern Social Movements: The Case of Pro-Life.” Media Research and Action Project Symposium, Boston College, March, 1998.
“Lawmaker Discourse on Penal Policy.” Lincoln College, Oxford University, U.K. January, 1998.
“Lawmaker Discourse on Penal Policy.” Boston University Department of American Studies, Boston University, October 1997.
“Cracking the Edifice: News Coverage of the Cocaine Sentencing Dispute.” Annual Meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems." New York, August, 1996.
“African American Conspiracy Theories and Radical Criminology.” Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Association, Glasgow, July, 1996.
“Othermothers and Old Heads: Race Based Differences in the Meaning of Crime Watch” with Margaret Nelson. Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association, Washington D.C., August, 1995.
“The Political Culture of Crime.” Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston, 1993.
PROFESSIONAL REPORTS
Saxe, Leonard, Theodore Sasson and Shahar Hecht. “Israel at War: The Impact of Peer-oriented Israel Programs on Responses of American Young Adults.” Steinhardt Social Research Institute, Brandeis University, November 2006.
Saxe, Leonard, Theodore Sasson and Shahar Hecht. “Taglit-birthright israel: Impact on Jewish Identity, Peoplehood and Connection to Israel.” Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies, Brandeis University. June 2006.
Program Evaluation and Report: The Arava Institute for Environmental Studies’ Arab-Jewish Co-existence Project. Submitted to the United States Agency for International Development. June, 2004.
ACADEMIC EMPLOYMENT
Visiting Instructor à Associate Professor, Department of Sociology, Middlebury College, 1993-present. Regular courses include Society and the Individual (classical social theory), Political Sociology, Deviance and Social Control, Sociology of Punishment, Social Problems. Other courses taught: Contemporary Social Theory, Urban Sociology, Mass Media, Collective Violence, State and Society in Israel. On Associate Status, 2005-8.
Senior Scholar, The Cohen Center for Modern Jewish Studies & Visiting Associate Research Professor, Sociology Department, Brandeis University. 2005- Present.
Visiting Professor, Arava Institute for Environmental Studies (Israel), 2003-4. Courses taught: Peace Education and Leadership Seminar (co-instructor); Sociology of the Israeli Environmental Movement.
Teaching Fellow, Boston College, Department of Sociology, 1992-1993. Course taught: Crime in America.
Visiting Instructor of Sociology & Criminology, University of Southern Maine, Department of Sociology/Criminology, 1991-1992. Courses taught include Crime Control in the U.S., Introduction to Sociology, Introduction to Criminology, Sociological Inquiry.
Lecturer in Sociology, Northeastern University, Department of Sociology/Anthropology, 1990-1991. Courses include Class, Power and Social Change, Introduction to Sociology, Crime and the Police.
Lecturer in Sociology, Northeastern University, University College, 1990. Course taught: Law and Society.
Program Associate/Research Fellow, Institute for Peace and International Security, Cambridge, MA, 1987-1989.
MAJOR GRANTS & CONTRACTS
Taglit-birthright israel (Co-PI with Leonard Saxe). Evaluation Research. 2006-8.
American Jewish Committee, “American Jewish Perspectives on Israel.” 2005-7.
Fellow, Israel Studies Seminar, Brandeis University, June & July, 2005.
Middlebury College Faculty Professional Development Program, 2003-5.
National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar Fellowship, 2002.
Ada Howe Kent Faculty Research Grant, Middlebury College, 1997-8
Graduate Research Fellowship, National Institute of Justice, (93-IJ-CX-0005) 1993-1994
Dissertation Improvement Grant, National Science Foundation, (SES 9200692) 1992-1993
Dissertation Fellowship, Boston College, 1992-1993
Graduate Fellowship, Boston College, 1988-1991
SELECTED PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Participant, Advanced Institute (Hebrew University) Seminar, “Jewish Belonging in Contemporary Israel and the United States,” Spring Semester, 2004.
Department Chair, Middlebury College Sociology Anthropology Department, 2000-3.
Participant, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar, “Punishment, Politics and Culture,” Amherst College, 2002.
Editorial Board, Crime, Media & Culture: an International Journal, Sage Press.
Service on Middlebury College Curriculum Committee, Human Subjects Review Committee, Education Committee, Media Studies Committee.
Visiting Fellow, Center for Criminal Justice Policy Research, College of Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, 1997-8.
Davis Fellow, Winter Term and Summer, 1997. Designed instructional applications for Internet technology.
Special Session Organizer, “Social Problems in the Public Eye.” Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. New York City, 1996.
Regular Manuscript referee for Social Problems, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, Sociological Inquiry, American Sociological Review, and Law and Society Review.
Manuscript consulting for Sage Press (Pine Forge), Aldine de Gruyter, Worth Publishing and Microcase Corporation, and several other publishing houses.
Member of the American Sociological Association; Association for Jewish Studies; Association for Israel Studies; Society for the Scientific Study of Jewry; American Society of Criminology; and the Society for the Study of Social Problems.