Benjamin R. Weiss

I am an assistant professor of sociology at Occidental College, where I specialize in gender, sex, and sexualities; crime, law, and deviance; and organizations. My research asks how people come together to define and address social problems.

My current book project, The Rape Racket: The Financial Logic of Civil Sexual Violence Litigation (under advance contract with the University of California Press), reveals how the civil legal system’s financial logic – the belief that money is the appropriate remedy to harm – complicates sexual violence victims' ability to file, win, and benefit from lawsuits. This work builds on my earlier fieldwork in a rape crisis center, where I examined how stakeholders, including activists, nonprofit professionals, healthcare providers, and police, navigate complex and sometimes contradictory ideas about gender-based violence in order to support victims.

I am developing a new project on the diffusion of queer balls – a prefigurative social movement event originating in the racial and economic context of 1960s New York City – as a response to social marginalization across Europe.

My research appears in Criminology, Law & Society Review, Social Problems, and Theory and Society, among other venues. I received my Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Southern California.

CURRICULUM VITAE