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Sun Min
Director of Media Relations
Alyssa Vine
Associate Director of Media Relations
ELIZABETH BERNSTEIN
Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and Sociology
Elizabeth Bernstein, Assistant Professor of Women's Studies and Sociology, joined the faculty of Barnard in January, 2002. Her teaching includes such courses as Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies; Sociology of Gender; and Sociology of Sexuality.
Professor Bernstein's research and teaching focus on sociology of gender and sexuality; sociology of law; and contemporary social theory. Her current research explores the convergence of feminist, neoliberal, and evangelical Christian interests in the shaping of contemporary U.S. policies around the traffic in women.
Her research and scholarship have been recognized by awards from the National Science Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, AAUW, the Mellon Foundation, and the American Sociological Association.
Professor Bernstein has given presentations at many venues, including the Association of the Bar of the City of New York, New York University Law School, and the Open Society Institute.
She is on the editorial boards for Sociology Compass and The Scholar and the Feminist.
Selected Publications
Religion, Politics, and Gender Equality in the United States, with J. Jakobsen (Geneva: United Nations Research Institute for Social Development, 2008, Forthcoming)
Guest editor, special issue on "Sexual Commerce and the Global Flow of Bodies, Desires, and Social Policies," Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2008, Forthcoming
"The New Purity Crusades," Sexuality Research and Social Policy, 2008, Forthcoming
"Sexual Commerce and Sociological Inquiry," Sociology Compass, 2008, Forthcoming
Temporarily Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the Commerce of Sex (University of Chicago Press, 2007)
"Buying and Selling the 'Girlfriend Experience': The Social and Subjective Contours of Market Intimacy," in Love and Globalization: Tranformations of Intimacy in the Contemporary World, ed. M. Padilla and R. Parker (Vanderbilt University Press, 2007)
"Sex Work for the Middle Classes," Sexualities 10 (2007)
"The Sexual Politics of the 'New Abolitionism': Imagery and Activism in Contemporary Anti-trafficking Campaigns," differences: Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies 18 (2007)
"Regulating Sex — An Introduction," in Regulating Sex: the Politics of Intimacy and Identity, ed. E. Bernstein and L. Schaffner (Routledge, 2005)
"Desire, Demand, and the Commerce of Sex," in Regulating Sex: the Politics of Intimacy and Identity, ed. E. Bernstein and L. Schaffner (Routledge, 2005)
212.854.3039
EDUCATION:
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley
RELATED LINKS:
SPECIALIZATIONS:
Sexuality and the state
Sexual commerce
Sociology of the body, sex, and gender
Feminist ethnography