)
Shamus R. Khan
Professor of Sociology and American Studies, Princeton University; Co-Author of Sexual Citizens
Shamus R. Khan
Professor of Sociology and American Studies, Princeton University; Co-Author of Sexual Citizens
Biography
Shamus Khan is the Willard Thorp professor of sociology and American Studies at Princeton University. He writes on culture, inequality, gender and elites. With Professor Jennifer Hirsch, he is co-author of Sexual Citizens: Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, which draws on Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation’s (SHIFT) ethnographic research to examine sexual assault and consensual sex among undergraduates in relation to the broader context of campus life.
Their work is so important that NPR named it one of NPR’s Best Books of 2020. “This is the book to read to help lead conversations about sex,” said Justine Kenin, editor of All Things Considered. “It reframes the dialogue and helps prepare young people for sexual relationships. Read it, share it. Empower the young folks in your life.”
He is also the author of over 100 articles, books and essays, including Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School (Princeton). He directed the working group on the political influence of economic elites at the Russell Sage Foundation, was the series editor of The Middle Range at Columbia University Press and served as the editor of the journal Public Culture. He writes regularly for the popular press, such as The New Yorker, The New York Times and The Washington Post, and has served as a columnist for TIME magazine. In 2016, he was awarded Columbia University’s highest teaching honor, the Presidential Teaching Award, and in 2018 he was awarded the Hans L. Zetterberg Prize from Upsala University for “the best sociologist under 40.”
Speech Topics
Sexual Citizens: Sex, Power & Assault on Campus
Why does campus sexual assault happen and what can we do about it? In this groundbreaking talk based on their bestselling book, Sexual Citizens, Professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan present an entirely new framework that emphasizes sexual assault’s social roots. Empathic, insightful and far-ranging, Hirsch and Khan transform our understanding of sexual assault and offer a roadmap for how to address it.
How Your Community Can Prevent Sexual Assault
“What is sex for?” Most young people today can’t answer that question, in large part because few adults have talked to them about it. Sexual Projects is the answer to what sex is for (for example, for pleasure, to connect with another, to have children, etc.). In this enlightening and highly informative talk, Professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan give parents, organizations and communities the tools to be able to talk openly about the kind of sexual projects they hope that young people will pursue.
Preparing Kids for College & Beyond: Lessons From the Columbia Sexual Assault Study
People are “Sexual citizens” when they know they have the right to say “yes” and the right to say “no” to sex. They also must recognize that everyone else has the same rights. Sexual citizenship isn’t something we are born with. It is developed through education and supported by communities. Drawing on research from the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT) at Columbia University and bestselling book, Professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan present an entirely new way to understand sexual assault and a framework that emphasizes sexual assault’s social roots. Empathic, insightful, and far-ranging, they’ll transform your understanding of sexual assault and offer a roadmap for how to address it.
Beyond Fear: A Hopeful Vision for a World With Less Sexual Violence
The spaces people move through are essential to understanding both sex and sexual assault. Equality is a sexual assault prevention strategy. In this talk, Professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan share how access to space and control over who can and cannot enter that space is a critical way power works and why power is critical for understanding assault.
Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul's School
As one of the most prestigious high schools in the nation, St. Paul's School in Concord, N.H., has long been the exclusive domain of America's wealthiest sons. But times have changed. Today, a new elite of boys and girls is being molded at St. Paul's, one that reflects the hope of openness but also the persistence of inequality. In this talk based on his book, Privilege, Professor Shamus Khan provides an inside look at an institution that has been the private realm of the elite for the past 150 years. He shows that St. Paul's students continue to learn what they always have―how to embody privilege. Yet, while students once leveraged the trappings of upper-class entitlement, family connections and high culture, current St. Paul's students learn to succeed in a more diverse environment. Through deft portrayals of the relationships among students, faculty and staff, Khan shows how members of the new elite face the opening of society while still preserving the advantages that allow them to rule.
Related Speakers
)
Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, Co-Author of Sexual Citizens
)
Director of Gender, Sexuality, and Women's Studies & Professor in the Department of Educational Foundations at Montclair State University
)
Professor at Montclair State University in the Department of Teaching and Learning & the Department of Gender, Sexuality & Women’s Studies
)