Jennifer Hirsch, Ph.D. Professor and Deputy Chair for Doctoral Studies, Department of Sociomedical Sciences, Mailman School of Public Health, and Co-Director, Columbia Population Research Center, and Shamus Khan coauthor of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus will be live on KUCI 88.9fm.
LISTEN to today's show featuring Jennifer S. Hirsch, Ph.D.and Shamus Khan.
Available now from WW Norton: Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus
SEXUAL CITIZENS
A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus
By Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan
“This book offers a rich collection of student experiences. . . . A readable and thought-provoking work on a topic of concern on college campuses [that] successfully reaches a general audience, specifically students, parents, and policymakers.”
—Library Journal, starred review
“Incisive. . . . This detailed, practical inquiry should be mandatory reading for college administrators and parents of college-age children.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Absolutely essential reading to prepare teens for what they’ll encounter in college on both the social and sexual fronts.”
—Booklist
“A serious study of the causes of campus sexual assaults along with proposals for tackling this very real problem. . . . [A] significant sociological study.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Sexual Citizens looks beyond the essential issue of explicit consent to an equally essential recognition of solutions based in formation of an equitable social fabric for which we are all responsible. These solutions could not only reduce the lifelong trauma of assault, but help build a sustainable foundation of sexual health and well-being for all.
Timely, authentic, and revolutionary.”
—J. Dennis Fortenberry, Donald Orr Professor of Adolescent Medicine, Indiana University School of Medicine
“A timely and sweeping reassessment of campus sexual assault. Hirsch and Khan bring rich data and trenchant insight to bear on one of today’s most urgent issues. This is an exemplary work, sensitive to intersecting inequalities, that represents the future of social science. Provocative and profoundly relevant, Sexual Citizens opens up the possibility of crafting policies that engage the complicated realities of students’ lives with honesty and empathy.”
—Alondra Nelson, president of the Social Science Research Council
“This extraordinary book situates campus sexual assault in context. It teaches us how any particular sexual encounter is shaped as much by the people involved as it is by the history and prior education of the participants, by economic inequality, by the physical and social geography in which they are living. All of us with a responsibility for creating the campus spaces that can generate—or harm—health need to read this book.”
—Sandro Galea, dean and Robert A. Knox Professor, School of Public Health, Boston University
“Written with humanity and sharp sociological insight, Hirsch and Khan’s ecological approach moves beyond the adversarial model that has embroiled debates on campus sexual assault. It opens up new ways for thinking about—and responding to—the pressing problem of sexual assault on college campuses. Sexual Citizens will be essential reading for parents, young people, medical professionals, and educators.”
—Jennifer Cole, professor and chair, Department of Comparative Human Development, University of Chicago
In recent years, college campuses have come to the forefront of national conversations about sexual assault: its causes, the stigma survivors endure when they report, the consequences (or lack thereof) perpetrators face if exposed. How can we make college campuses safer so that sexual assault isn’t such a prevalent danger? How can external social pressures even before college predispose kids to commit assault? How can parents start dialogues with their children to teach them what constitutes healthy sexual behavior? And how can we change high school sex education in ways that make assaults less likely, and people’s sexual lives more fulfilling?
In SEXUAL CITIZENS: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus [W.W. Norton & Company; January 14, 2020; $27.95 hardcover], Columbia professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan answer these questions. The book is rich with the testimonies of over 150 Columbia students who participated in the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT). Startling in their frankness and revelations, these experiences encompass explicit acts of violent rape and more subtle violations of consent that many people may not realize is assault, set in comparison to consensual sexual experiences that range from sweet and caring to startlingly impersonal and objectifying.
Hirsch and Khan’s goal, in sharing these stories, is not to make moral judgments or decide what the ideal legal ramifications of assault should be. Their approach is steeped in empathy, seeking to elucidate the social roots of sexual assault, approaching it as a public health problem, and to explain it by setting out a broader understanding of how sex is organized and what it means to young people in college. They put forth powerful new concepts to help explain the forces in young people’s sexual lives: sexual projects (the various motives college students have for pursuing sex), sexual citizenship (the possession of one’s sexual agency, and the respect for another’s), and sexual geographies (the landscapes, both physical and social, that shape the power dynamics and contexts of sex).
Hirsch and Khan have a remarkable eye for nuance—at every point in their exploration of campus culture they identify the ways race, class, age, and sexuality can intersect with gender to influence who is most at risk and who is most likely to commit offenses. In the chapter “The Toxic Campus Brew,” for example, Hirsch and Khan focus on the role alcohol plays in hookup culture, observing the way drinking laws often force students to enter spaces controlled by older men if they want alcohol—especially wealthy men from historically white fraternities.
Grounded in the intimate, often painful accounts of the human beings at its center, SEXUAL CITIZENS is a bold, comprehensive analysis of a social ecosystem where sexual assault is a regular feature. Eradicating this endemic problem in college life must begin with empowering teachers, policy makers, parents, and students. This text will be an essential impetus and resource for such progress.
About the Authors
Jennifer S. Hirsch is a professor of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and codirects SHIFT. Shamus Khan is a professor and chair of sociology at Columbia University, and coheads the ethnographic team of SHIFT.
Title: SEXUAL CITIZENS: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus
Authors: Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan
Publication Date: January 14, 2020
ABOUT JENNIFER HIRSCH, PH.D.
Jennifer S. Hirsch, a medical anthropologist and Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, co-directs the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT), a research project on sexual assault and sexual health among Columbia undergraduates. With Shamus Khan, she is coauthor of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, which draws on SHIFT’s ethnographic research to examine sexual assault and consensual sex among undergraduates in relation to the broader context of campus life.
A 2012 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2015 Public Voices Fellow, and a 2018-19 Visiting Research Scholar with Princeton’s Center for Health and Well-Being, Hirsch’s published work includes both scholarly and popular writing on health and social inequality. She is author of A Courtship After Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families, the award-winning coauthoredThe Secret: Love, Marriage and HIV, two edited volumes on the anthropology of love, more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, and many op-eds in venues such as Time and The Hill. Hirsch also chairs Jews for Racial & Economic Justice’s board of directors. Hirsch earned her A.B. from Princeton University in History, with a certificate in Women’s Studies, and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Population Dynamics and Anthropology.
ABOUT SHAMUS RAHMAN KHAN
Shamus Rahman Khan is an American sociologist. He is a professor at Columbia University, where he serves as the chair of the sociology department. He writes on elites, inequality, and American culture. His work has appeared in numerous national and international media outlets
ABOUT THE BOOK
In SEXUAL CITIZENS: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, Columbia professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan lay out an expansive, empirically-grounded vision for campus sexual assault prevention. The book is rich with the testimonies of over 150 Columbia students who participated in the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT). Startling in their frankness and revelations, these experiences encompass explicit acts of violent rape and more subtle violations of consent that many people may not realize is assault, juxtaposed against consensual sexual experiences that range from sweet and caring to startlingly impersonal and objectifying. Hirsch and Khan’s goal, in sharing these stories, is not to make moral judgments or decide what the ideal legal ramifications of assault should be.
Grounded in empathy and compassion for the many struggles that young people face, they approach sexual assault as a public health problem and explain it by setting out a broader understanding of how sex is organized and what it means to young people in college. They put forth powerful new concepts to help explain the forces in young people’s sexual lives: sexual projects (the various motives college students have for pursuing sex), sexual citizenship (the possession of one’s sexual agency, and the respect for another’s), and sexual geographies (the landscapes, both physical and social, that shape the power dynamics and contexts of sex).
Hirsch and Khan have a remarkable eye for nuance—at every point in their exploration of campus culture they identify the ways race, class, age, and sexuality can intersect with gender to influence who is most at risk and who is most likely to commit offenses. Grounded in the intimate, often painful accounts of the human beings at its center, SEXUAL CITIZENS is a bold and comprehensive analysis of a social ecosystem where sexual assault is a regular feature, concluding with a bracing set of recommendations for what families, teachers, policy makers, and leaders in higher education can do to prevent it.
Hirsch and Khan have a remarkable eye for nuance—at every point in their exploration of campus culture they identify the ways race, class, age, and sexuality can intersect with gender to influence who is most at risk and who is most likely to commit offenses. In the chapter “The Toxic Campus Brew,” for example, Hirsch and Khan focus on the role alcohol plays in hookup culture, observing the way drinking laws often force students to enter spaces controlled by older men if they want alcohol—especially wealthy men from historically white fraternities.
Grounded in the intimate, often painful accounts of the human beings at its center, SEXUAL CITIZENS is a bold, comprehensive analysis of a social ecosystem where sexual assault is a regular feature. Eradicating this endemic problem in college life must begin with empowering teachers, policy makers, parents, and students. This text will be an essential impetus and resource for such progress.
About the Authors
Jennifer S. Hirsch is a professor of sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, and codirects SHIFT. Shamus Khan is a professor and chair of sociology at Columbia University, and coheads the ethnographic team of SHIFT.
Title: SEXUAL CITIZENS: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus
Authors: Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan
Publication Date: January 14, 2020
ABOUT JENNIFER HIRSCH, PH.D.
Jennifer S. Hirsch, a medical anthropologist and Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University, co-directs the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT), a research project on sexual assault and sexual health among Columbia undergraduates. With Shamus Khan, she is coauthor of Sexual Citizens: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, which draws on SHIFT’s ethnographic research to examine sexual assault and consensual sex among undergraduates in relation to the broader context of campus life.
A 2012 Guggenheim Fellow, a 2015 Public Voices Fellow, and a 2018-19 Visiting Research Scholar with Princeton’s Center for Health and Well-Being, Hirsch’s published work includes both scholarly and popular writing on health and social inequality. She is author of A Courtship After Marriage: Sexuality and Love in Mexican Transnational Families, the award-winning coauthoredThe Secret: Love, Marriage and HIV, two edited volumes on the anthropology of love, more than 60 peer-reviewed articles, and many op-eds in venues such as Time and The Hill. Hirsch also chairs Jews for Racial & Economic Justice’s board of directors. Hirsch earned her A.B. from Princeton University in History, with a certificate in Women’s Studies, and her Ph.D. from Johns Hopkins University in Population Dynamics and Anthropology.
ABOUT SHAMUS RAHMAN KHAN
Shamus Rahman Khan is an American sociologist. He is a professor at Columbia University, where he serves as the chair of the sociology department. He writes on elites, inequality, and American culture. His work has appeared in numerous national and international media outlets
ABOUT THE BOOK
In SEXUAL CITIZENS: A Landmark Study of Sex, Power, and Assault on Campus, Columbia professors Jennifer S. Hirsch and Shamus Khan lay out an expansive, empirically-grounded vision for campus sexual assault prevention. The book is rich with the testimonies of over 150 Columbia students who participated in the Sexual Health Initiative to Foster Transformation (SHIFT). Startling in their frankness and revelations, these experiences encompass explicit acts of violent rape and more subtle violations of consent that many people may not realize is assault, juxtaposed against consensual sexual experiences that range from sweet and caring to startlingly impersonal and objectifying. Hirsch and Khan’s goal, in sharing these stories, is not to make moral judgments or decide what the ideal legal ramifications of assault should be.
Grounded in empathy and compassion for the many struggles that young people face, they approach sexual assault as a public health problem and explain it by setting out a broader understanding of how sex is organized and what it means to young people in college. They put forth powerful new concepts to help explain the forces in young people’s sexual lives: sexual projects (the various motives college students have for pursuing sex), sexual citizenship (the possession of one’s sexual agency, and the respect for another’s), and sexual geographies (the landscapes, both physical and social, that shape the power dynamics and contexts of sex).
Hirsch and Khan have a remarkable eye for nuance—at every point in their exploration of campus culture they identify the ways race, class, age, and sexuality can intersect with gender to influence who is most at risk and who is most likely to commit offenses. Grounded in the intimate, often painful accounts of the human beings at its center, SEXUAL CITIZENS is a bold and comprehensive analysis of a social ecosystem where sexual assault is a regular feature, concluding with a bracing set of recommendations for what families, teachers, policy makers, and leaders in higher education can do to prevent it.
