Tara Milbrandt, PhD

Area of Study / Keywords

Sociological Theory Social Transformations Visual Sociology Digital Media Sharing Public Culture and Collective Spaces Loneliness Studies Program: Law Crime and Justice Studies Program: Sustainability Studies Program: Elementary Education

About

Degrees: 

Ph.D. York University (Sociology)

MA York University (Sociology) 

BA Augustana University College (Sociology)

Certificate in Building Capacity for Reconciliation, Augustana Faculty, Camrose, AB (September 2016-April 2017)

International Visual Sociology Association, Board Member (June 2018-July 2022) (https://visualsociology.org/?page_id=1211)

Reviews Editor for Elicitations in Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies (2011-2021)

Research

Research Areas:

Sociological Theory 

Social Transformations

Visual Practices, Digital Media, and Contemporary Public Culture

Urban Culture, Shared Spaces, and Everyday Life

Theorizing Loneliness as a Social Issue

Current Project:

"A Multi-Dimensional Social Inquiry into 'the Loneliness Problem'" (2022-23)

Funded through SSHRC's 'Emerging Asocial Society' Knowledge Synthesis Grant program, and developed in collaboration with Dr. Ondine Park (UBC Okanagan)

Recent Publications:

Milbrandt, T. and O. Park. 2023. "A Multi-Dimensional Social Inquiry into the 'Loneliness Problem': Urbanization, Technological Mediation, and Neo-Liberal Individualism". Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). Available at: https://era.library.ualberta.ca/items/b0d8b9d8-123c-49fb-8947-cfbc93acc9dc

Harper, D. and T. Milbrandt. 2023. "Remembering Those Who Die Homeless on the Streets of Edmonton: Visual Symbols Case Study" (text by D. Harper, photographs and commentary by T. Milbrandt). In Visual Sociology, 2nd Edition, D. Harper, 245-257. London & New York: Routledge.

Mibrandt, T. 2020. “‘Make Them Famous’: Digital Vigilantism and Virtuous Denunciation after Charlottesville”. In Vigilant Audiences: Understanding Scrutiny, Denunciations, and Shaming in Digital Media Use, edited by Daniel Trottier, Rashid Gabdulhakov and Qian Huang, 215-258, Cambridge: Open Book Publishers (https://books.openbookpublishers.com/10.11647/obp.0200.pdf)

Milbrandt, T. 2020 “Season of Dreaded Joys: Adaptation, Enchantment, and Solidarity in a ‘Winter’ City." In Seasonal Sociology, edited by Tonya Davidson and Ondine Park, 119-138. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (https://utorontopress.com/blog/2021/02/08/excerpt-winter-seasonal-sociology/)

Davidson, T., Milbrandt, T., & O. Park. 2020. “Introduction to Seasonal Sociology.” In Seasonal Sociology Edited by Tonya Davidson and Ondine Park, 1-16. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (https://utorontopress.com/9781487594084/seasonal-sociology/)

Milbrandt, T. 2017. “Caught on Camera, Posted Online: Mediated Moralities, Visual Politics and the Case of Urban ‘Drought-Shaming’”, in Visual Studies, 32(1): 3-23. DOI: 10.1080/1472586X.2016.1246952 

Harper, D. and T. Milbrandt. 2016. “Seen and Imagined: A Northwestern Crossroads City”, Imaginations: Journal of Cross-Cultural Image Studies 7(1): 160-175. DOI: 10.17742/ IMAGE.NBW.7-1.13

Datta, R. P. and T. Milbrandt. 2014. “The Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Discursive Monument, Symbolic Feast”, Introduction to Special Issue on Durkheim's Elementary Forms of Religious Life: Contemporary Engagements, in The Canadian Journal of Sociology, 39(4): 473-522 

Milbrandt, T. 2013. “Signs of the City: Space, Place, and the Urban Street Poster”, in Captured by the City: Perspectives in Urban Culture Studies. Edited by B. Momchedjikova, 49-70. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Press 

Milbrandt, T. 2012. "Visual Irruptions, Mediated Suffering, and the Robert Dziekanski Tragedy: An Inquiry into the Efficacy of the Image", in Ethics and Images of Pain. Edited by A. Gronstad and H. Gustafsson, 74-92. New York: Routledge 

Milbrandt, T. and F. Pearce. 2011. “Émile Durkheim.” In The Wiley-Blackwell Companion to Major Social Theorists, Volume I Classical Social Theorists. Edited by G. Ritzer and J. Stepnisky, 236-282. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell 

Teaching

Teaching Areas:

Sociological Theory 

Visual Sociology 

Mass Communication and Contemporary Society

Social Theory of Community

Introductory Sociology

Specific courses I teach regularly at Augustana: 

IDS 101: Who's Watching You? Surveillance in Everyday Life 

AUSOC101: Introduction to Sociology: Principles and Practices

AUSOC 103: Introduction to Sociology: Institutions and Insights 

AUSOC 232 Theoretical Developments in Sociology I

AUSOC 233: Theoretical Developments in Sociology II

AUSOC 262: Mass Communication and Contemporary Society 

AUSOC 263: Social Theory of Community 

AUSOC 372: Visual Sociology 

AUSOC 439: Seminar in Contemporary Sociological Theory 

AUCRI 430 - Selected Topics in Law, Crime, and Justice

Advanced study of a particular dimension of law, crime, and justice studies. Topics may vary from year to year, depending on instructor and student interest. Prerequisite: AUCRI 160 or AUIDS 160 (2020).

AUSOC 101 - Introducing Sociology: Principles and Practice

Introduction to sociology focusing on understanding the relation between the individual and society using concepts like social control, class, role, self, reference group, ideology, and world view. Through the use of some popular films, specific attention is paid to understanding the way we (as particular individuals) are, in taken-for-granted ways, shaped by our membership in large and small groupings. The implications of this shaping for our ideas of freedom, individuality, and morality are debated and examined.

AUSOC 232 - Theoretic Developments in Sociology I

Survey of the origin and the development of classical sociological theory, with particular emphasis on Marx, Durkheim, and Weber. Prerequisite: One of AUSOC 101, 103, 105.

AUSOC 372 - Visual Sociology

An inquiry into visual representation in and of society; this includes the social dimensions that encompass the making, interpretation, and use of visual images, especially photographs, in collective life and within contemporary sociological research. Prerequisites: AUSOC 101, 3 units at a senior level in Sociology and 3rd year standing or consent of the instructor.

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