Professor of American Studies

Education: PhD, University of Kentucky
Professional Website
Curriculum Vitae

Research Interest

Law, Violence, Policing, Environmental Justice

My work, whether in the archives, on the street, or in the classroom, focuses on the state's police powers, law and its relation to violence, and environmental politics. I am a co-founder of the research and mutual aid collective AbolishAPD (abolishapd.org).

Books

• Police: A Field Guide. Verso Books (2018).
• Properties of Violence: Law and Land Grant Struggle in Northern New Mexico. University of Georgia Press (2013).

Scholarly Articles

• Apocalypse, the Radical Left and the Post-political Condition. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 24: 1, 6-8 [Introduction co-written with Mazen Labban and Matt Huber for a symposium on environmental politics co-organized with Labban and Huber] 2013.
• Degrowth, American Style: No Impact Man and Bourgeois Primitivism. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 23:1, 105-118. 2012.
• "Retribution will be their reward": New Mexico's Las Gorras Blancas and and the Fight for the Las Vegas Land Grant Commons. Radical History Review. [Special issue on Enclosures, edited by Amy Chazkel and David Serlin] 2010.
• The certified Maine North Woods, where money grows from trees. Geoforum 41 (1), 66-73. [Special issue on Transparency & Social Action in Certified & Ethical Commodity Networks, edited by Tad Mutersbaugh and Sarah Lyon]. 2009.
• Making Destiny Manifest: United States Territorial Expansion and the Dispossession of Two Mexican Property Claims, 1824--1899. Journal of Historical Geography 35 (1), 87-103. 2008.
• "Rousers of the Rabble" in the New Mexico Land Grant War: Alianza Federal de Mercedes and the Violence of the State. Antipode 40 (4), 561-583. 2008.
• Taking Timber, Earth and Water: The Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and the Struggle for New Mexico's Land Grants. Natural Resources Journal 48 (4), 949-962. [Special issue on Land Grants and the Law: The Disputed Legal Histories of New Mexico's Land Grants] 2008.
• Land Speculation in New Mexico During the Territorial Period. Natural Resources Journal 48 (4), 927-947. 2008.
• The sustained yield forest management act and the roots of environmental conflict in northern New Mexico. Geoforum 38 (5), 1040-1051. 2005.
• From Agropastoralism to Sustained Yield Forestry: Industrial Restructuring, Rural Change, and the Land-grant Commons in Northern New Mexico. Capitalism Nature Socialism 16 (1), 25-44. [Special issue on The Commodification of Nature, edited by Nik Heynen and Paul Robbins] 2004.
• On the Etiology of Rangeland Degradation in Northern New Mexico: A Critique of Establishment Explanations. The Southwestern Geographer 8, 35-63. 2004.

Book Chapters

• 2012. Alianza Federal de Mercedes: “Rousers of the Rabble” in the New Mexico Land Grant War. In Sunshine and Shadows in New Mexico’s Past: Since 1912, Volume 3, edited by Richard Melzer. Albuquerque: New Mexico Historical Society
• 2007. A “Continuous and Ample Supply”: Sustained Yield Timber Production in Northern New Mexico. In Neoliberal Environments: False Promises and Unnatural Consequences, edited by Nik Heynen, James McCarthy, Scott Prudham, and Paul Robbins. New York: Routledge.

Teaching

• AMST 182 Introduction to Environment, Science and Technology
• AMST 320 Nature, Science and Anxiety in the Zombie Films of George Romero
• AMST 320 Nature and Technopolitics
• AMST 500 Marxism and Nature
• AMST 520 Environmental Justice