Black Lives Matter

Michelle Brown, associate professor and director of undergraduate studies, visited the Centre for Criminology and Sociolegal Studies at the University of Toronto twice this past year.

In the summer of 2015, Brown presented “The Project of Criminology in the Era of Black Lives Matter,” which focuses on the growth of local and national community-based movements, such as Black Lives Matter, and an ongoing examination of the role of images and social media in movement formation, practices, and tactics. Her presentation was paired with carceral geographer and filmmaker Brett Story’s presentation of her dissertation and award-winning film The Prison in Twelve Landscapes.

Brown returned to Toronto in the spring of 2016 and participated in the Centre’s Penal Boundaries Workshop. This two-day event assembles a small, invitation-only group of international scholars on punishment who aim to push the boundaries on how we think about punishment, in particular, its excesses, limits, and role in the production of inequality.