Dean Curran
Positions
Associate Professor
Contact information
Background
Educational Background
B.A. Economics, Queen's University, 2002
MSC Philosophy of the Social Sciences, London School of Economics, 2004
PhD Sociology, Queen's University, 2013
Biography
My current research explores some of the interconnections between contemporary risk and inequality. By trying to develop frameworks that can understand the diverse impacts of environmental, financial and digital risk my research seeks to analyze the various ways in which changes in contemporary risk are affecting existing power relations.
I also have more general research and teaching interests, including classical and contemporary social theory; the sociology of risk (including the work on Mary Douglas and Luhmann), environmental sociology, economic sociology, social theory and the law, and the sociology of the digital and of finance and have published and presented work on each of these different areas.
Research
Participation in university strategic initiatives
Courses
| Course number | Course title | Semester |
|---|---|---|
| SOCI 333 | Contemporary Sociological Theory | Winter 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 |
| SOCI 331 LEC 03 03 | Classical Sociological Theory | Fall 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2016, 2014 |
| SOCI 731 | Doctoral Seminar in Sociology | Fall 2015, 2018, 2020 |
| SOCI 401 | The Digitalization of Society | Winter 2020 |
| SOCI 401.55 | Environmental Risk: Sociological and Political Approaches | Winter 2019 |
| SOCI 401.53 | Social Theory and the Law | Winter 2018 |
| SOCI 401.50 | Sociology of Capitalism | Winter 2017 |
| SOCI 401.46 | The Sociology of Risk | Winter 2015, 2016 |
| SOCI 631 | Graduate Seminar in Sociological Theory | Fall 2015, 2018, 2020 |
Awards
- Smart Cities in Global Comparative Perspective: Worlding and Provincializing Relationships, SSHRC Partnership Development Grant, 2020-2022.. 2020
- The Risks of Interconnectedness: System-wide Risk in Finance and the Digital, SSHRC Insight Grant, 2018–22, Principal Investigator. 2018
- Who are the Risk-Takers?, SSHRC Insight Development Grant, 2015-17, Principal Investigator (collaborators: A. Bauer and T. Bauer). 2015
- Postdoctoral Fellowship, , SSHRC, (Holder) 2013-15. 2013
Publications
- Surveillance Capitalism and Systemic Digital Risk: The Imperative to Collect and Connect, and the Risks of Interconnectedness. Dean Curran. Big Data & Society. (2023)
- Polanyi’s discovery of society and the digital phase of the industrial revolution. Dean Curran. European Journal of Social Theory. (2023)
- Handbook on Risk and Inequality. Dean Curran (edited). Elgar. (2022)
- COVID-19, World Risk Society, and the Transformation of the State. Dean Curran. P. Brown and J. Zinn (eds.) Covid-19 and the Sociology of Risk and Uncertainty. Palgrave. 247-265. (2022)
- Prospects and Social Impact of Big Data–Driven Urban Governance in China: Provincializing Smart City Research’ . Alan Smart and Dean Curran. Weiping Wu and Qin Gao (eds.) China Urbanizing: Impacts and Transitions. University of Pennsylvania Press. 205-227. (2022)
- Risk Mismatches and Inequalities: Oil and Gas and Elite Risk-Classes in the U.S. and Canada. Dean Curran. Sociologica. (15(2): 57-74. (2021)
- Data-Driven Governance, Smart Urbanism and Risk-Class Inequalities: Security and Social Credit in China. Dean Curran and Alan Smart. Urban Studies. 58(3): 487-506. (2021)
- Low-Carbon Transition as Vehicle of New Inequalities? Risk-Class, The Chinese Middle Class and the Moral Economy of Misrecognition. Dean Curran and David Tyfield. Theory, Culture, and Society . 37(2). (2020)
- Connecting Risk. Economy and Society. 49(2): 239-264. (2020)
- Organized Irresponsibility, Corporations, and the Contradictions of Collective Agency and Individual Culpability. Dean F Curran. Routledge. 322–334. (2018)
- Risk, Innovation, and Democracy in the Digital Economy. Dean Curran. European Journal of Social Theory. 21(2): 207-226. (2018)
- Environmental Justice meets Risk-Class: The Relational Distribution of Environmental Bads. Dean Curran. Antipode. 50(2): 298–318. (2018)
- From Performativity to Representation as Intervention: Rethinking the 2008 Financial Crisis and the Recent History of Social Science. Dean Curran. Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour . 28(4): 492–510. (2018)
- Beck’s Creative Challenge to Class Analysis: From the Rejection of Class to the Discovery of Risk-Class. Dean Curran. Journal of Risk Research . 21(1): 29–40. (2018)
- Risk Arbitrage and the Organized Irresponsibility Principle. Dean Curran. Critical Criminology. 26(4): 595–610. (2018)
- The Treadmill of Production and the Positional Economy of Consumption. Canadian Review of Sociology. 54(1): 28–47. (2017)
- Climate Change, Resilience, and the Generation of Risk- Classes. Dean Curran. Edward Elgar. 67–83. (2017)
- Risk, Power, and Inequality in the 21st Century. Dean Curran. Palgrave Macmillan. (2016)
- Ulrich Beck Symposium: Social Exclusion. Dean Curran. Work, Employment, and Society. 30(5): 894–96. (2016)
- Risk Illusion and Organized Irresponsibility in Contemporary Finance: Rethinking Class and Risk Society. Dean Curran. Economy and Society . 44(3): 392–417. (2015)
- The Challenge of the Financial Crisis for Contemporary Sociology. Dean Curran. Sociology. 48(5): 1048–54. (2014)
- Risk Society and the Distribution of Bads: Theorizing Class in the Risk Society. Dean Curran. British Journal of Sociology . 64(1): 44–62. (2013)
- What is a Critical Theory of the Risk Society? A Reply to Beck. Dean Curran. British Journal of Sociology. 64(1): 75–80. (2013)
- McWorld. Dean Curran. Wiley-Blackwell Encyclopedia of Globalization. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.. (2012)
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