Get to Know Ashley Rubin!
Institution: University of Hawaii at Mānoa (Department of Sociology)
Number of years as LSA member: 11
Number of LSA Meetings Attended: 8
LSA Governance Position(s) and Committees:
Co-Organizer of CRN 27: Punishment and Society (since 2015)
Member, Graduate Student & Early Career Workshop Committee (2019-2021)
Board of Trustee Member (2016-2019)
LSA Article Prize Committee (2019)
Chair, Graduate Student & Early Career Workshop Committee (joint between LSA and CLSA) (2018)
Chair, Punishment and Society CRN Digital Speaker Series (since 2018)
LSA Student Paper Prize Committee (2017)
Blog manager, Punishment and Society Blog (since 2015)
Areas of Research:
Punishment and Society
Prison History
Prisoner Adaptations and Resistance
Law and Society
Organizational Theory
Favorite Topics to Teach or Research:
Prisons; Also law and society, organizational theory for criminology students, and punishment and society.
Notable Awards:
LSA Article Prize
LSA Student Paper Prize
Unique Fact:
“I grew up on a small walnut and orange farm in Northern California and raised pigs until I was 12.”
Top Books/Articles Published:
Rubin, Ashley T. 2021. The Deviant Prison: Philadelphia’s Eastern State Penitentiary and the Origins of America’s Modern Penal System, 1829-1913. Cambridge University Press (Series: Historical Studies in Law and Society, Series Editor: Chris Tomlins)
Rubin, Ashley T. 2019. “Revisiting the Discovery of the Asylum: Early U.S. Prison History Since David Rothman.” Annual Review of Law and Social Science, Vol. 15, pp. 137-154.
Rubin, Ashley T. 2019. “Punishment’s Legal Templates: A Theory of Formal Penal Change.” Law & Society Review, Vol. 53, Issue 2, pp. 518-553.
Media Appearances:
Life of the Law “In-Studio: Locking People Up” July 2017
Life of the Law “Inside San Quentin – To Be Heard,” July 2017
TEDx talk “A brief history of prisons” (2019)
“Cruel and Unusual” (WNYC Studios, 2020)
“Unpacking the Origins of America’s Modern Prison System: A Conversation with Ashley T. Rubin” Q&A at Eastern State Penitentiary (2021)