Profile for Peter Marina

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Specialty area(s)

Urban Ethnography, Cultural Criminology, Transgressive Sociology, Travel and Tourism, Human Rights Policing, Sociology of the City, Hispanic Immigration, Sociology of Religion, Race and Ethnicity, among other topics.

Brief biography

Dr. Peter Marina, a New Orleans native, is a PhD graduate of the New School for Social Research in Manhattan, and author of Down and Out in New Orleans: Transgressive Living in the Informal Economy (Columbia University Press, 2017), among other books. As a sociologist and criminologist, Marina writes about new and emergent forms of transgression in our highly contradictory late-modern social world. His approach to sociology incorporates the striking dialectic of history and biography that allows him to penetrate and interact with a wide range of culturally diverse social groups around the world — from inner-city youths and street kids, to urban street performers and willful outsiders on the social fringes of the metropolis, to religiously inspired residents of the inner-city and urban occultists and Satanists, and most recently, to down and out urban dwellers — in a quest to make sense both empirically and theoretically of this rapidly changing, surprising but always fascinating world.

Current courses at UWL

Social Problems (120); Sociological Foundations (200); Sociology of City Life (319); Delinquency (321); Criminology (322); Qualitative Explorations (416, Capstone); Human Rights Policing (Extended Learning)

Education

Ph.D., Sociology: New School for Social Research, New York, New York
M.A., Sociology: University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana
B.A., Education: University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana

Teaching history

Deviance; Urban Sociology; Sociology of Conflict; Power, Ideology, and Social Movements; Qualitative Methods in Social Research; Problems in Urban Community; Ethnic and Minority Relations; Sociological Writing; Masculinities; Women's and Gender Studies; Sociology of the Family; Creative Writing; American History; World History; Independent Studies

Professional history

Visiting Research Scholar. University of New Orleans
(Research on Transgressive Sociology)

Visiting Summer Lecturer. University of New Orleans (Criminology - 4921)

Visiting Professor. University of Missouri – St. Louis

Lecturer. City University of New York (John Jay College of Criminal Justice)

Research and publishing

ACADEMIC BOOKS
Down & Out in New Orleans: Transgressive Living in the Informal Economy. Columbia University Press (September 5, 2017). http://www.wwno.org/post/tripod-xtras-peter-marina-podcast-edit

Chasing Religion in the Caribbean: Ethnographic Journeys from Antigua to Trinidad. Palgrave Macmillan (September 2, 2016).

Getting the Holy Ghost: Urban Ethnography in a Brooklyn Pentecostal Tongue-Speaking Church (Originally published March 2013; New paperback edition published – October 31, 2014: Lexington Books).

(Under Contract) New Hispanic Places: Immigration, Revitalization, and Urban Change in Post-Industrial New Jersey (with David Gladstone). Routledge Press.

(In Progress) America's Third Coast: Tourism and Social Life in the Mississippi Gulf South

Media

PETER MARINA INTERVIEW WITH WPR: UW-La Crosse Offering Class On 'Human Rights Policing' To Local Law Enforcement (September 8, 2020)

https://www.wpr.org/uw-la-crosse-offering-class-human-rights-policing-local-law-enforcement

PETER MARINA INTERVIEWED BY JOURDAN VIAN IN LA CROSSE TRIBUNE- UW-L program to dig deep into ‘human rights policing’
La Crosse Tribune, 31 August, 2020

PETER MARINA ON WWNO- In case you missed it live, here is an excerpt from Peter Marina’s talk about his book, “Down and Out in New Orleans.” (The full, unedited version of the talk is here.)

PETER MARINA ON NPR NEW ORLEANS- Dr. Marina’s interview begins at 13 minutes This week on The Reading Life: Peter Marina, author of “Down and Out in New Orleans: Transgressive Living in the Informal Economy”.

PETER MARINA IN NEW ORLEANS’ THE GAMBIT- Meet the sociologist who lived among New Orleans squatters and street performers The Gambit, January 5, 2018

EDUCATIONAL BOOKS
Social Problems: Field Research Workbook. (Kendall Hunt Publishing: ISBN 978-1-4652-9585-9).

SAMPLE ACADEMIC ARTICLES
“Buskers of New Orleans: Transgressive Sociology in the Urban Underbelly.” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (first published on August 2, 2016)."Becoming a God Hunter Towards Conversion in a Brooklyn Tongue-Speaking Church." Social Compass 2016, Vol. 63(1) 76–92.

Sample Articles Outside Academia

“The Lesser of Two Evils is Still Evil” La Crosse Tribune (March 22, 2020)

“How New Orleans Became the Paris of the Mississippi: A Cultural Magnet and Melting Pot, From the 1920s to Today” (The Literary Hub, 2017)

“Diversity Makes Us Better.” La Crosse Tribune and Chippewa Herald (February 12, 2017)
“Broken-windows Policing is Failed Policy.” La Crosse Tribune (November 4, 2015)
“County's Juvenile Arrest Rate Hurting our Kids.” La Crosse Tribune (April 26, 2015)
“Hispanic Community Strengthens Community.” La Crosse Tribune (October 8, 2014)

Book Series Editor

2016-2021. Series Editor: Ethnographies of Religion (A New Series from Lexington Books).

Kudos

interviewed

Peter Marina, Sociology was interviewed by NPR with Laine Kaplan-Levenson of New Orleans Museum of Art's literary 'Arts and Letters' series on Sept. 18, 2018. TriPod: New Orleans at 300 returns with a new TriPod Xtra segment. As part of the New Orleans Museum of Art’s literary ‘Arts and Letters’ series, Laine Kaplan-Levenson spoke with sociologist Peter Marina in front of a live audience about his book ‘Down and Out in New Orleans.’ The two discussed the various informal economies in New Orleans, and alternative lifestyles people choose as a way to live outside of mainstream society.

Submitted on: Sept. 19, 2018

 

interviewed

Peter Marina, Sociology was interviewed by New Orleans Public Radio - The Reading Life with Nathaniel Rich and Peter Marina on Jan. 7, 2018. Marina's portion of the show begins at 13:05, where he talks about his book "Down and Out in New Orleans: Transgressive Living in the Informal Economy."

Submitted on: Jan. 22, 2018

 

published

Peter Marina, Sociology, authored the article "Pentecostalism as Cultural Resistance: Music and Tongue-speaking as Collective Response in a Brooklyn Church" in "PentecoStudies" published on Dec. 13, 2017 by Equinox Publishing Limited.

Submitted on: Dec. 14, 2017

 

published

Peter Marina, Sociology, authored the book "Down and Out in New Orleans: Transgressive Living in the Informal Economy" published on Sept. 5, 2017 by Columbia University Press.

Submitted on: Sept. 6, 2017

 

presented

Peter Marina, Sociology, presented "his book and book series" at the Association for the Sociology of Religion on Aug. 31, 2017 in Montreal, Canada. Marina defended his book, "Chasing Religion in the Caribbean: Ethnographic Journeys from Antigua to Trinidad," in an author meets critic panel. Marina also chaired and presented on a panel featuring his book series with Lexington Books titled Ethnographies of Religion presenting the paper "Charismatic Ethnography in the Caribbean: Getting the Ethnographic It."

Submitted on: Aug. 31, 2017

 

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