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