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Thomas Ehrlich Reifer, PhD

Associate Professor, Sociology
Affiliated Faculty, Ethnic Studies

Dr. Reifer serves on the Gender Studies Advisory Committee and is an Associate Fellow at the Transnational Institute, a worldwide fellowship of committed scholar-activists; formerly worked at Focus on the Global South in Asia and was Associate Director of the Institute for Research on World-Systems (IROWS) and the Program on Global Studies at UC Riverside. He is also currently a Research Associate at the Fernand Braudel Center for the Study of Economies, Historical Systems & Civilizations at Binghamton University - where he received his MA & PhD - and IROWS. His specialty is the study of large-scale, long-term social change and world-systems analysis.

Education

Dr. Reifer received his BA in Sociology from UC Santa Cruz and his MA & PhD in Sociology from Binghamton University.

Scholarly and Creative Work

Dr. Reifer has published in the Encyclopedia of Intelligence & Counterintelligence (2005), The Cambridge Dictionary of Sociology (2006), International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences (2nd edition, 2008); "From 9/11 to Hurricane Katrina:  War, the 21st Century & America's Future," in Destroy & Profit:  Wars, Disasters, & Corporations, 2006, Focus on the Global South http://www.focusweb.org/pdf/Reconstruction-Dossier.pdf "Unlocking the Black Box of Globalization," in Nelson Lichtenstein, ed., The Traveling Box:  Containers as the Global Icon of our Era, forthcoming.  Currently working on a series of books, including Blown Away:  US Militarism, Hurricane Katrina & the Challenges of the 21st Century; Earth, Wind & Fire; September 11th, Terrorism & the Globalization of Human Rights; Violence, Profits & Power and The Social Foundations of Global Conflict & Cooperation (coordinated project, forthcoming).Edited books include Globalization, Hegemony & Power:  Antisystemic Movements & the Global System and Global Crises & the Challenges of the 21st Century (forthcoming). 

Teaching Interests

Human evolution, emphasizing “prehistory,” Neolithic revolution, comparative settler colonialisms/imperialism, “American exceptionalism,” political development, militarism, state-corporate globalization, immigration, race-ethnic, class and gender formation and inequalities, in health care, criminology, education and warfare-welfare states, all studied in global, comparative world-historical perspective.  Comparative epidemiology, slavery and freedom, sociology of catastrophe/disasters, environmental racism, world-regions, labor and comparative social movements, world-systems analysis, comparative and global finance, hegemonies, the changing social foundations of the global system, sociological and political theory, cultural anthropology, politico-military sociology, technological change, international human rights, war crimes, crimes against humanity, torture, alternative regionalisms, media, propaganda, Tupac, hip hop, the public sphere, peace and social justice.