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Department of Sociology and Anthropology
University of Mississippi

Kirsten Dellinger

Biography | Research | Publications | CV

Kirsten Dellinger

Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion, College of Liberal Arts and Professor of Sociology
Ph.D, University of Texas
Gender, Sexuality, Work, Qualitative Methods
Ventress Hall  |  662-915-7178
kdelling@olemiss.edu

Office Hours
By appointment

Courses
Soc 325 Sociology of Gender (cross-listed as GSt 325)
Soc 625 Current Debates in Gender

 

Biography

If you catch me saying “You guys” instead of the much more gender-inclusive “Y’all” it is because I was born in Raleigh, North Carolina, but then grew up in Malvern, PA a suburb of Philadelphia. I came back to the South to earn my BA in psychology at Rollins College in Winter Park, Florida and subsequently my Master’s and PhD degrees in Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin. It is there that I began to specialize in questions of gender and sexual inequality in organizations. My MA thesis was an in-depth interview study that explored women’s experiences with make-up and my dissertation examined how gender, sexuality, and workplace culture shaped workers’ opportunities in two very different companies in the magazine industry: a men’s pornographic magazine and a feminist magazine. I joined the Sociology and Anthropology Department at the University of Mississippi in 1998 and was granted tenure and promotion in 2004. My teaching and research interests include gender, sexuality, work, and qualitative methods. I enjoy teaching a variety of graduate and undergraduate courses including the Current Debates in Gender (625), Social Research Methods-team taught (502); Professional Development I (621); Sociology of Gender (Soc 325), Occupations and Professions (Soc 323), and Introductory Sociology (Soc 101). I am actively involved in campus and national organizations that promote gender equality including the Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies, the Chancellor’s Commission on the Status of Women, and Sociologists for Women in Society. I also currently serve on the editorial boards of the journals Gender & Society and Social Problems and I am on the Council of the Sex and Gender section of the American Sociological Association.

Research

My current research projects have two distinct areas of focus: catfish and Katrina. In the photo above, I am helping harvest (or seine) an experimental catfish pond. This is part of an on-going ethnographic and in-depth interview study of the work dynamics in the catfish industry. The second project involves in-depth interviews with social science researchers who conducted research on the Mississippi Gulf Coast following Katrina. I am interested in understanding their subjective experience of doing research in a disaster area.

Selected Publications

Edited Volume

2010. Christine L. Williams & Kirsten Dellinger. Gender and Sexuality in the Workplace: Research in the Sociology of Work. Emerald Group Publishing. doi:10.1108/S0277-2833(2010)0000020018

Peer Reviewed Journal Articles

2016. Kathryn McKee, Kirsten Dellinger, Annette Trefzer, and Jeffrey T. Jackson. “The Catfish Industry and Spatial Justice in the Mississippi Delta: Steve Yarbrough’s The Oxygen Man.” Journal of American Studies 50 (4): 853-871. doi.org:10.1017/S0021875815002649

2015. “The H2 Visa Process in the Catfish Industry.” Generos: Multidisciplinary Journal of Gender Studies 4 (3): 806-831. doi:10.17583/generos.2015.1662

2014. Annette Trefzer, Jeffrey Jackson, Kathryn McKee, and Kirsten Dellinger. Introduction to “The Global South and/in the Global North: Interdisciplinary Investigations.” Special issue of The Global South 8 (2): 1-15. doi:10.2979/globalsouth.8.2.1

2009. Christine Williams, Patti Giuffre, and Kirsten Dellinger. “The Gay Friendly Closet.” Sexual Research and Social Policy 6 (1): 29-45. doi:10.1525/srsp.2009.6.1.29

2008. Patti Giuffre, Kirsten Dellinger, and Christine L. Williams. “No Retribution for Being Gay?: Inequality in Gay-Friendly Workplaces.” Sociological Spectrum 28: 1-24. doi:10.1080/02732170801898380

2008. Stefan E. Schulenberg, Kirsten Dellinger, Ann Marie K. Kinnell, David A.Swanson, Mark V. Van Boening, and Richard, G. Forgette. “Psychologists and Hurricane Katrina: Natural Disaster Response Through Training, Education, and Research.” Training and Education in Professional Psychology 2 (2): 83-88. doi:10.1037/1931-3918.2.2.83

2007. Ann Marie Kinnell & Kirsten Dellinger. “Challenges of Collecting Survey Data on the Mississippi Gulf Coast After Hurricane Katrina: An In-depth Interview Study of Survey Team Members.” Journal of the Mississippi Academy of Sciences 52 (4): 223-227.

2004. “Masculinities in ‘Safe’ and ‘Embattled’ Organizations: Accounting for Pornographic and Feminist Magazines.” Gender & Society 18 (5): 545-565. doi:10.1177/0891243204267401

2002. “Wearing Gender and Sexuality ‘on Your Sleeve’: Dress Norms and the Importance of Occupational and Organizational Culture at Work.” Gender Issues 20 (1): 3-25. doi:10.1007/s12147-002-0005-5

2002. Kirsten Dellinger and Christine L. Williams. “The Locker Room and the Dorm Room: Workplace Norms and the Boundaries of Sexual Harassment in Magazine Editing.” Social Problems 49 (2): 242-257. doi:10.1525/sp.2002.49.2.242

1998. Christine L. Williams, Patti Giuffre and Kirsten Dellinger. “Sexuality in the Workplace: Organizational Control, Sexual Harassment, and the Pursuit of Pleasure.” Annual Review of Sociology 25: 73-93. doi:10.1146/annurev.soc.25.1.73

1997. Kirsten Dellinger and Christine L. Williams. “Make-Up at Work: Negotiating Appearance Rules in the Workplace.” Gender & Society 11 (2): 151-177. doi:10.1177/089124397011002002

Chapters in Edited Volumes

2017. Kirsten Dellinger, Jeffrey T. Jackson, Kathryn McKee, and Annette Trefzer. “Interlocality and Interdisciplinarity: Learning from Existing Models of the Global South.” In Michele Grigsby & Jodi Skipper (eds.), Navigating Souths: Transdisciplinary Explorations of a U.S. Region. University of Georgia Press.

2016. Jeffrey T. Jackson,  Kirsten Dellinger, Kathryn McKee, and Annette Trefzer. “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Global South and Global North.” In Gregory Hooks (ed.), Sociology of Development Handbook. University of California Press.

2007. Jeffrey T. Jackson and Kirsten Dellinger. “Volunteer Voices: Making Sense of Our Trip to the Mississippi Gulf Coast After Katrina.” In Danielle Hidalgo and Kristen Barber, eds., Narrating the Storm: Sociological Stories of Hurricane Katrina, 104-127. Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

2004. Christine Williams, Patti Giuffre, and Kirsten Dellinger. “Gender in the U.S.” In Fiona Devine and Mary C. Waters, eds., Social Inequalities in Comparative Perspective. Blackwell Publishers. doi:10.1002/9780470753576