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Anthony James Williams

Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, College of the Holy Cross
Chapter Member: Boston SSN
Areas of Expertise:

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About Anthony

Williams' research focuses on race/ethnicity and the carceral continuum across prisons and public spaces. Overarching themes in Williams' writings include discipline, punishment, discretion, and resistance in relation to marginalized groups. Williams serves as Steering Committee Member for the No More Tears violence-prevention program at San Quentin State Prison.

Contributions | No Jargon Podcast | In the News | Publications

Contributions

Why Black Women Organizers Need to Care for Themselves and Each Other — and How They Can Do It

Basic Facts Brief,

In the News

Anthony James Williams quoted on the overtaking of hashtags originally intended to share Black Lives Matter resources, "On Instagram, Black Squares Overtook Activist Hashtags" Wired, June 2, 2020.
"Only Fags Bottom: Recreating Toxic Masculinities in Queer Communities," Anthony James Williams, Masculinities 101, August 31, 2018.
"Who Teaches Academics to Theorize?," Anthony James Williams, Inside Higher Ed, June 15, 2018.
Anthony James Williams quoted on launching the #BlackWomenDidThat hashtag, which honors both the historic and everyday efforts of black women that are often overlooked, if not erased, by Jaleesa M. Jones, "#BlackWomenDidThat Remembers the Black Women Who Have Helped Crack the Glass Ceiling" USA Today, July 29, 2016.
"Divestment from Private Prisons and Fossil Fuels Can Work," Anthony James Williams (with Ron Dellums and Silver Hannon), The Hill, April 21, 2016.
"Why I Started Tweeting and Helped Popularise #MasculinitySoFragile," Anthony James Williams, Independent, September 27, 2015.
Anthony James Williams quoted on the backlash they received after starting the #MasculinitySoFragile hashtag on Twitter, by Dexter Thomas, "Why is #MasculinitySoFragile?" Los Angeles Times, September 23, 2015.

Publications

"Us Versus Them: How California State Prisons Justify Solitary Confinement," University of California, Los Angeles, June 1, 2023.

Details the dangerous consequences of the discretionary power that California state prison staff wield over incarcerated people through the use and threat of solitary confinement.

"The Need for Interdisciplinary Approaches to Criminal (in)Justice" Symbolic Interaction 44 (2021): 861-864.

Book review of "Security and Risk Technologies in Criminal Justice" (2019) that argues for the need to include interdisciplinary approaches to the study of criminal (in)justice.

"Wayward in Sociology?" Contexts 19, no. 4 (2020): 82-83.

Book essay of Saidiya Hartman's "Wayward Lives, Beautiful Experiments" that problematizes how sociologists discuss Blackness and deviance.

"South African Healthcare: Utopian Dream or Failed Reality?" Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship Journal (2015).

Argues, based on the Peoples' Health Charter,  that the National Health Insurance alone is not enough to fix health disparities in South Africa if the commodifications of healthcare and the alienation of rural and unpaid healthcare workers is not first addressed.

"The Road to Private Prison Divestment" Boom: A Journal of California 6, no. 2 (2016).

Discusses the Afrikan Black Coalition and their efforts to divest from private prisons.