Erin O’Connor

Erin O’Connor is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Politics and Human Rights.  She specializes in the fields of ethnography, culture, art, work, knowledge, and the environment. Her book manuscript, Firework: art, craft, and self among glassblowers, draws from four years of ethnographic research in a glassblowing studio to analyze the meaning of contemporary craft in industrial and knowledge economies. Specifically, it descriptively reveals how relations among body, materials, and others inform the emergence of self, community, and meaning while also investigating the socio-political meaning of craft over time. 

Dr. O’Connor’s next ethnography will investigate fishing and shellfishing practices in Jamaica Bay, Queens in the context of environmental and social-political change. She has also conducted an ethnographic analysis of creativity in interdisciplinary scientific research as a researcher at the Social Science Research Council and published in the journals Thesis Eleven, Qualitative Sociology Review, Qualitative Sociology and Ethnography, as well as in edited volumes such as Practicing Culture and Embodying Sociology: Retrospect, Progress and Prospects. In class, she uses her areas of expertise as lenses through which to investigate social inequality and human rights as regards race, ethnicity, sexuality, gender, and class among other issues. She also serves as Faculty Advisor for the Bedford Hills Club, which supports the MMC college program at the Bedford Hills Prison.

As a Recruiter for the Division of Humanities and Social Sciences, Dr. O’Connor represents both the Politics & Human Rights and International Studies majors as well as the following minors: Gender & Sexuality Studies, Social Work, Sociology, Political Science, International Studies, and Politics & Human Rights. Please contact her with any questions.

Dr. O’Connor enjoys the outdoors and creating.  She lives in Brooklyn with her family.