Anya Degenshein

 

About                                                  

 

Anya Degenshein (Ph.D. 2019, Northwestern) is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Cultural Sciences at Marquette University and affiliated faculty for the Master's in Criminal Justice Data Analytics and the Race, Ethnicity, and Indigenous Studies (REIS) programs. A cultural sociologist by training, Dr. Degenshein uses discursive and narrative analysis to understand the scope and consequences of contemporary punishment, with a particular interest in the creation of social inequality. Her award-winning research has appeared in Theory and Society and Contexts.

 

Dr. Degenshein's current book project examines the narrative creation of crime in post-9/11 domestic terrorism stings. Previous empirical research projects include a 13-month ethnography of a Chicago pawnshop and a case study of a clash between state-level prosecutorial lobbyists and victims advocates. Her teaching interests include criminal law and procedure, social theory, and surveillance studies.

 

Dr. Degenshein's interdisciplinary, social scientific background includes master's degrees from both Northwestern University and the University of Chicago, as well as a year as a doctoral exchange student in the CERI lab at Sciences Po, Paris. She completed her bachelor's degree in Goverment and Sociology at Cornell University, and has previously worked as an English as a Foreign Language teacher in Santiago, Chile, and a court advocate in the Manhattan felony courts for an alternative to incarceration program. She lives in Chicago.