lethal punishment: dehumanization, moral outcasts, and extreme control
sociology speaker series proudly presents our third winter 2016 talk, with dr. joseph michalski.
title: lethal punishment: dehumanization, moral outcasts, and extreme control
synopsis: punishment exists universally as a form of social control, spanning a continuum from the physically inconsequential to lethality. the talk will present an argument that most extreme forms of punishment reflect one of two cultural statuses: that of the "dehumanized other", or that of the "moral outcast."
neither of these designations arises randomly in the social universe. both the process of dehumanization and the creation of moral outcasts reflect the confluence of key structural conditions and dynamic processes that characterize human social interactions cross-culturally and across history.
date: friday, march 18
time: 10 - 11:30 am
location: at 1006 (tbay) / oa 1025 ( orillia)
dr. michalski earned his phd in sociology from the university of virginia in 1993, where his two main intellectual mentors were the theoretical sociologists murray milner (whose theoretical work deals with social status systems, such as the indian caste system) and donald black (who has developed the paradigm of "pure sociology").
he has been a member of the department of sociology at king's university college at western since 2003. his main substantive interests encompass all forms of violence, with a particular interest in domestic conflicts, social control, punishment or penal systems, and the sociology of knowledge and science. his greatest theoretical ambition involves integrating the multiple paradigms of sociological thought into a metasystem of knowledge production rooted in an evolutionary narrative of energy, matter, life, mind, and culture. he understands quite well the high probability of abject failure in pursuing such lofty intellectual ambitions.