Kari Lerum

Associate Professor

Affiliate Faculty, Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies, UW Seattle

Kari Lerum

Associate Professor

Affiliate Faculty, Gender, Women, & Sexuality Studies, UW Seattle

Education

Ph.D. Sociology, University of Washington
M.A. Sociology, University of Washington
B.A. Sociology, minors in Global Studies & Religion, Pacific Lutheran University

Courses

  • BIS 181 Introduction to Sociology
  • BIS 219 Politics of Sexuality Education
  • BIS 223 Feminist Film Studies
  • BIS 303 Approaches to Feminist Inquiry
  • BIS 304 Institutions & Social Change
  • BIS 312 Approaches to Social Research
  • BIS 490 Death Rituals
  • BIS 490 Sex Work, Human Trafficking, & Social Justice

Teaching Interests

I love to teach because I love to learn, and I always learn when I teach. After pandemic restrictions dropped, I have prioritized in person teaching and learning. I believe that I usually teach best, and my students usually learn more, through in-person contact.

 

As a sociologist, I train students in critical cultural and social scientific analysis. I am also a deeply curious person and I teach beyond standard sociological frames. Over the course of my career I have created dozens of new interdisciplinary courses across gender and sexuality studies, cultural studies, feminist media studies, and death studies, in addition to more standard social science courses.

 

Regardless of the topic I’m teaching, my goal is to instill in my students the transformative potential of liberal arts education.

Research and Scholarship Interests

Areas of Expertise: Autoethnography; Culture & Institutions; Qualitative Research; Sexual Politics; Sex Work & Human Trafficking; Social Theories & Policies.

 

Overview: My research analyzes how ideas about sexuality and the body influence political policies, academic theories, cultural representations, and personal experiences. My research has been published across a variety of scholarly formats, including traditional social scientific data analysis and theory, critical autoethnography and creative non-fiction, and public scholarship.

 

Most of my work focuses on sex work: the practice of exchanging sexual services for money or other goods such as housing, food, or drugs. Research shows that most people who trade sex can be described as operating from a place of choice or circumstance; some people who trade sex are under coercion from others, a condition which places them in the legal category of human trafficking. My research and scholarship in this area critically theorizes the stories told about people who trade sex and advocates for interventions that center human rights and community-based research.

 

My training in cultural and institutional analysis is also a lens to intervene in broader theoretical and cultural discourses about issues pertaining to sexuality, power, grief, and stigma. In recent years I have extended my qualitative-focused methodologies to include autoethnography, which positions the self as a medium through which to analyze the social.

  • Lerum, K. (2025, In Press). “Made again Femme” Special Forum on Femme Interiorities. Society & Space.
  • Lerum, K. (2025). “Layer it like Lasagne: Critical, Creative, & Courageous Autoethnography.” Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 1–16. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2025.2479202
  • Lerum, K. (2023). No One Cites Obituaries: Extricating from Sticky Grief. Journal of Autoethnography, 4 (2): 255–274. https://doi.org/10.1525/joae.2023.4.2.255
  • Lerum, K. (2021). Teaching death ritual during states of emergency: Centering death positivity, anti-racism, grief, & ritual. Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, 20(1), 40–62. https://doi.org/10.1080/15505170.2021.1964114
  • Lerum, K., & Brents, B. G. (2016). Sociological Perspectives on Sex Work and Human Trafficking. Sociological Perspectives, 59(1), 17–26. http://www.jstor.org/stable/26340165
  • Lerum, K., Dworkin, S.L. (2016). The Power of (But Not In?) Sexual Configurations Theory. Archives of Sexual Behavior 45 (3), 495–499. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10508-015-0669-z
  • Dworkin, S. L., Lerum, K., & Zakaras, J. M. (2016). Sexuality in the Global South: 50 Years of Published Research in the Journal of Sex Research-Inclusions, Omissions, and Future Possibilities. Journal of Sex Research, 53(9), 1059–1064. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224499.2015.1106433
  • Lerum, K., Dworkin, S.L. (2015). Sexual Agency is not a Problem of Neoliberalism: Feminism, Sexual Justice, & the Carceral Turn. Sex Roles 73 (7-8), 319–331. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11199-015-0525-6
  • Lerum, K. (2015). A FemmeNist ManiPedifesto. Cultural Studies ßà Critical Methodologies, 15, 156-162.
  • Lerum, K. (2014). Human Wrongs vs. Human Rights. Contexts, 13(1), 22–24. http://www.jstor.org/stable/24710825 (Forum on human trafficking).
  • Lerum, K., McCurtis, K., Saunders, P., & Wahab, S. (2012). Using Human Rights to Hold the US Accountable for its Anti-Sex Trafficking Agenda: The Universal Periodic Review and new directions for US policy. Anti-Trafficking Review, (1), 80-103. https://doi.org/10.14197/atr.201215
  • Wahab, S., Baker, L.M., Smith, J.M. & Lerum, K. (2011). Exotic Dance Research: A Review of the Literature from 1970 to 2008. Sexuality & Culture 15, 56–79 https://doi.org/10.1007/s12119-010-9084-8
  • Lerum, K., & Dworkin, S. L. (2009). “Bad Girls Rule”: An Interdisciplinary Feminist Commentary on the Report of the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls. The Journal of Sex Research, 46(4), 250–263. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490903079542
  • Lerum, K., & Dworkin, S. L. (2009). Toward an Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Youth, Sexualization, and Health. The Journal of Sex Research, 46(4), 271–273. http://www.jstor.org/stable/20620425 (Invited response to commentaries on “Bad Girls Rule.”)
  • Lerum, K. (2004). Sexuality, Power, and Camaraderie in Service Work. Gender and Society, 18(6), 756–776. http://www.jstor.org/stable/4149393
  • Lerum, K. (2001). Subjects of Desire: Academic Armor, Intimate Ethnography, and the Production of Critical Knowledge. Qualitative Inquiry, 7(4), 466-483. https://doi.org/10.1177/107780040100700405
  • Lerum, K. (1998). 12-Step Feminism Makes Sex Workers Sick: How the State and the Recovery Movement Turn Radical Women into ‘Useless Citizens.’ Sexuality & Culture, 2, 7-36. (Special issue on Sex Work and Sex Workers).
  • Lerum, K. (2024.) Sex Work and Criminalization. In A. Goldberg (Ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of LGBTQ+ Studies, 2nd ed. Sage.
  • Lerum, K. (2024). Trafficking in the Sex Trades. In A. Goldberg (Ed.), The Sage Encyclopedia of LGBTQ+ Studies, 2nd ed. Sage.
  • Lerum, K. (2024). Review of Camming: Money, Power, and Pleasure in the Sex Work Industry, by A. Jones. New York: New York University Press, New York. Sexualities. (published online 2023). https://doi.org/10.1177/13634607231208047
  • Lerum, K. (2012). What’s Love Got to Do with It?: Life Lessons from Multiracial Feminism. In C. Gonzalez, A. Harris, G. Gutierrez y Muhs, & Y. Flores-Niemann (Eds.), Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia (pp. 266-276). University of Utah Press.
  • Lerum, K. (2011). Review of Intimate Labors: Cultures, Technologies, and the Politics of Care, edited by E. Boris & R. Parrenas. International Review of Modern Sociology, 150-153.
  • Lerum, K. (2007). Review of Regulating Sex: The Politics of Intimacy & Identity, edited by E. Bernstein & L. Schaffner. Contemporary Sociology, 36(6), 559-561.
  • Lerum, K. (2021, Nov. 24). The White Lotus: Lessons on Black Lives Matter, Reparations, and Queer Liberation. Ms. Magazine.
  • Lerum, K. (2016, May 30). Should prostitution be decriminalized? The Conversation (Republished on Alternet, Disinformation, PBS Point Taken, The Raw Story, & UPI)
  • Lerum, K. (2015, Sept. 3). Scientists score one over celebrities in battle to decriminalize sex work. The Conversation.
  • Lerum, K. (2015, Oct. 12). Fury Road’s righteous sexual politics: Starring White feminism & good White men. Sexuality & Society.
  • Lerum, K. (2015, May 26). Cisgender FemmeNist Reflections on Trans* Justice: Moving from Adoration to Action. The Feminist Wire.
  • Lerum, K. (2011, March 22). Toward a human rights approach to sex work policy. Rh Reality Check. Republished on Alternet and Rewire.
  • Lerum, K. (2010, Dec. 2). Burlesque Is So Gay. And That’s A Good Thing. Ms Magazine