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Kresge Faculty Fellows

Kresge College Fellows are dedicated artists, teachers, and scholars drawn from every field of study at the University.
Deborah Gould
  • Title
    • Professor and Chair
  • Division Social Sciences Division
  • Department
    • Sociology Department
  • Affiliations History of Consciousness Department, Feminist Studies Department, Politics Department
  • Phone
    831-459-5720 (office)
  • Email
  • Website
  • Office Location
    • Rachel Carson College Academic Building, 206
  • Office Hours Winter 2024: by appointment
  • Mail Stop Rachel Carson College Faculty Services
  • Mailing Address
    • 1156 High Street
    • Santa Cruz CA 95064
  • Faculty Areas of Expertise Social Movements, Social Theory, Political Theory, Affect Studies, Activism, Sexuality, Queer Studies
  • Courses SOCY 10 Issues/Problems in American Society; SOCY 105A Classical Social Theory; SOCY 157 Sexualities and Society; SOCY 164T Marx and Marxist Theory; SOCY 172 Sociology of Social Movements; SOCY 187 Feminist Theory; SOCY 196S Capitalism and Its Critics; SOCY 201 Classical Social Theory; SOCY 202 Contemporary Social Theory; SOCY 290 Special Topics: Affect, Emotions, and the Social World

Research Interests

Political emotion and affect, social movements and contentious politics, classical and contemporary social theory, sexualities, lesbian/gay/queer studies, feminist and queer theory

Biography, Education and Training

2000 - Ph.D., Political Science, University of Chicago
1989 - M.A., Political Science, University of Chicago
1986 - B.A., in Government, Wesleyan University with High Honors

Deborah Gould is an associate professor of Sociology at UC Santa Cruz (and affiliated faculty in Feminist Studies, History of Consciousness, and Politics). She received her PhD from the University of Chicago in Political Science in 2000 and was a post-doctoral Harper-Schmidt Fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Liberal Arts at the University of Chicago, 2000 – 2004. Her first book, Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP’s Fight Against AIDS (University of Chicago Press, 2009) won the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Best Book Award from the American Sociological Association’s Political Sociology Section (2010), the Ruth Benedict Book Prize from the American Anthropological Association (2010), and was a finalist for the Lambda Literary Award in LGBT Studies (2010). She is currently working on a second book, also about political emotion, The Not-Yet of Politics. She was involved in ACT UP/Chicago for many years, and later in Queer to the Left, and was a founding member of the research/art/activism collaborative group, Feel Tank Chicago, most famous for its International Parades of the Politically Depressed.

Honors, Awards and Grants

Awards/Honors

  • 2018-19. Fellow, EVC Academy, UCSC.
  • 2018. Guest Researcher, Goteborgs Universitet, Department of Sociology and Work Science, Gothenburg, Sweden.
  • 2017. Golden Apple Distinguished Teaching Award, Social Science Division, UCSC.
  • 2013. Visiting Researcher, Center for the History of Emotions at the Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung (Max Planck Institute for Human Development).
  • 2012. UCSC Academic Senate Committee on Teaching, Excellence in Teaching Award.
  • 2010. Winner of the Ruth Benedict Book Prize, American Anthropological Association's Association for Queer Anthropology, for Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight Against AIDS
  • 2010. Winner of the Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Best Book Award, Political Sociology Section of the American Sociological Association, for Moving Politics: Emotion and ACT UP's Fight Against AIDS.

Grants

  • 2013-14. Institute for Humanities Research, UC Santa Cruz, Research Cluster Award, Affect Working Group (Co-Principal Investigator), $4,938.
  • 2012-13. University of California Humanities Research Institute Conference Award for "Occupation Affect: On Political Emotion" (Co-Principal Investigator), $7,000.
  • 2012-13. Institute for Humanities Research, UC Santa Cruz, Research Cluster Award, Affect Working Group (Co-Principal Investigator), $5,000.

Selected Publications

Books

Chapters in Books

  • 2021. “Koalitionsfähig werden: Das perverse Aufeinandertreffen von Queer to the Left und den Jesus People USA.” In Susanne Witzgall and Marietta Kesting, eds., Politik der Emotionen/Macht der Affekte, pp. 49-64, Zurich: diaphanes.                          Published in English simultaneously:

    2021. “Becoming Coalitional: The Perverse Encounter of Queer to the Left and the Jesus People USA.” In Susanne Witzgall and Marietta Kesting, eds., Politics of Emotion/Power of Affect, pp. 48-62, Zurich: diaphanes.

  • 2015. “When Your Data Make You Cry,” in Methods of Exploring Emotions. Routledge.
  • 2012. “Education in the Streets: ACT UP, Emotion, and New Modes of Being,” in Sexualities in Education: A Reader. Peter Lang Publisher.
  • 2012. “Political Despair,” in Politics and the Emotions: The Affective Turn in Contemporary Political Studies. Continuum.
  • 2011. “Desiring Politics: Wanting More in the Age of Obama,” in Politics and Emotions: The Obama Phenomenon. VS Verlag.

Journal Articles and Interviews

Selected Presentations

Invited Lectures

  • 2018. "Passion and Danger in the Age of Trump," Seminar in Affect Studies, Columbia University.
  • 2018. "On (Not) Knowing What Is To Be Done (in 17 affective registers)," Committee on Social Theory, University of Kentucky.
  • 2017. "Emotional Terrains of the Social," Keynote Lecture in the Interdisciplinary Lecture Series, "Politics of Emotion/Power of Affect," at the cx centre for interdisciplinary studies at the Academy of Fine Arts, Munich, Germany.
  • 2017. "Becoming Coalitional: The Perverse Encounter of Queer to the Left and the Jesus People USA," Distinguished Alumni Lecture, Center for the Study of Gender and Sexuality, University of Chicago.
  • 2017. "Becoming Coalitional: The Perverse Encounter of Queer to the Left and the Jesus People USA," Anne L. Harper Annual Lecture, Institute for Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Georgia State University.
  • 2015. “Becoming Coalitional: Motion, Emotion, and the Political,” Keynote Address for “The Politics of Emotion” Symposium of the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University in Tempe, AZ.
  • 2013. “Becoming Coalitional: The Strange and Miraculous Alliance between Queer to the Left and the Jesus People, USA,” Center for the History of Emotions, Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung, Berlin.
  • 2013. “On Moving Politics: Emotion, ACT UP, and Beyond,” Reworking Affect: Queer-Feminist Engagements, ICI Kulturlabor Berlin (Institute for Cultural Inquiry).
  • 2013.  “On Moving Politics: Emotion, ACT UP, and Beyond,” Sally Miller Gearhart Lecture in Lesbian Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, University of Oregon, Eugene.
  • 2012. “Desiring Politics: Wanting More in the Age of Obama” Keynote Address for the 4th Midterm Conference of the European Sociological Association's Sociology of Emotions Research Network at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin.

Papers Presented at Conferences and Professional Meetings

  • 2020. "Passion and Danger in the Age of Trump," Feeling Democracy: A Conference on Politics and Emotions, Rutgers University.
  • 2015. “On Political Emotion,” Section on Sociology of Emotions, Chair’s Hour: Emotions Across the Discipline, presented at the American Sociological Association Annual Conference in Chicago, Illinois.
  • 2014. “Becoming Coalitional: The Strange and Miraculous Alliance between Queer to the Left and the Jesus People, USA” presented at the Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Conference in San Francisco, CA.
  • 2012. “Working with Your Enemy: The Strange and Miraculous Coalition between Queer to the Left and the Jesus People, USA” presented at the Social Science History Association Annual Conference in Vancouver, Canada.
  • 2012. "When Your Data Make You Cry: Emotions in Research" presented at the International Sociological Association Forum of Sociology in Buenos Aires, Argentina.