Barbara Brents

Associate Professor of Sociology
B.A., M.A., Ph.D., University of Missouri.
Areas of interest: Political Sociology, Social Policy, Gender, Comparative Historical, Sex Industry/Sexuality.

Barb Brents is currently involved in research on the sex industry in Nevada and has co-founded the S.A.B.I.R. (Sex and Body Industry Research) Project with Prof. Kate Hausbeck. Their publications on the sex industry include, "Violence and Legalized Brothel Prostitution in Nevada," in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence 20(3):270-295, 2005, "State Sanctioned Sex: Negotiating Formal and Informal Regulations in Nevada Brothels," in Sociological Perspectives, 44(3):307-331, 2001 and "Inside Nevada's Brothel System," pp. 217-243 in Ron Weitzer, ed., Sex for Sale: Prostitution, Pornography, and the Sex Industry,(Routledge, 1999). The two are also co-authoring a book, The State of Sex: The Nevada Brothel Industry, with Routledge. Barb's main research interests are in culture, power, politics and inequality, and in the development of policy at all levels, in all its alternative forms. She has recently published several articles on the intersections of social movements, terrorism, and violence, including work with several students and former students on skinheads, racial and ethnic movements in Zanzibar, and with Prof. Robert Futrell on anti-nuclear protests. She has been involved in research on the development of social policy during the U.S. New Deal (in American Sociological Review and Critical Sociology), academia and the production of knowledge (in The American Sociologist and Social Science and Medicine), and autoethnographic writing as an alternative to traditional academic writing (in Journal of Contemporary Ethnography). She believes sociology's main job is to use research and teaching to fight social injustice. She teaches classes in sexuality, political sociology, and gender. She works with the Women's Studies program, Ethics and Policy studies program, the Honors Program. And she works to bring alternative ideas into politics locally. She served as president of the Nevada ACLU and as a National Board member, was the founding secretary of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada, a board member of Citizen Alert, and has been active in the Las Vegas' peace, labor, and environmental movements.

Joined faculty in 1987.