Stephen Brown

Biography

Dr. Brown came to WCU in 2008 as Professor and Department Head, continuing in that role through 2018. He is a Professor Emeritus and former Department Chair at East Tennessee State University. His Ph.D. in Criminology is from the University of Maryland. He has published in a variety of journals and has a criminological theory text, <i>Criminology: Explaining Crime and Its Context, </i>currently in its 10th edition. Dr. Brown is currently working on a book entitled <i>Crime, Deviance, and Norms: The Relativity of Social Control. </i>

Education

• MS, Eastern Kentucky University, Criminal Justice
• BA, Eastern Kentucky University
• Ph D, University of Maryland-College Park, Criminology

Teaching Interests

Current teaching assignments for Dr. Brown are teaching criminological theory (CJ 355: Theories of Crime). to both residential and online practitioner students. He very much enjoys teaching the breadth of material covered in CJ 150: Introduction to Criminology & Criminal Justice. He is also excited about the department's new course, CJ 356: Crime: Relativity and Labeling, that he and Dr. Sefiha co-developed and will be teaching.

Research Interests

Beyond a broad interest in criminological theory, Dr. Brown is especially focused upon reframing the notion of deviance and social control in a much broader context and with full appreciation of the relativity of deviance across time and space. While continuing to appreciate the significance of common crime and of "nuts, sluts, and preverts" (Liazos), he is focused on the outer parameters of deviance and developing an inclusive definition. Positive, ascribed, and achieved deviance all take a place in his current work in this vein. This perspective is partially reflected in the <i>Routledge Handbook on Deviance</i> (2018) co-edited with Dr. Sefiha.