I am a political sociologist working at the intersections of Marxist and political theory, social movements, and critical criminology. My work explores the dialectical relationship between state power and struggles for social justice in the US. I focus on how the prerogative power of the state (in war-making and criminal law) and broader cultural notions of state and citizenship shape subject positions and conditions of possibility for individuals and movements. Within and beyond this, I am fascinated by questions of meaning and subjectivity, vision, hope, and transformation. I have a PhD in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley and teach at Bridgewater State University in Massachusetts. 

Publications:

2018. “Beyond Tear Gas and Torched Dumpsters: Rethinking Violence at Occupy Oakland.” 

Humanity & Society 42(2): 221-244. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0160597617716962

2017. “Kindling for the Spark: Eros and Emergent Consciousness in Occupy Oakland.” With Mike King, pp.171-189 in Spontaneous Combustion: The Eros Effect and Global Revolution, edited by Jason Del Gandio and AK Thompson. Albany: SUNY Press.   http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6462-spontaneous-combustion.aspx

2016. “From Complicit Citizens to Potential Prey: State Imaginaries and Subjectivities in US War Resistance.” Critical Sociology 42(7-8): 1163-1177. http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0896920515582091

2013. “Waging a War of Position on Neoliberal Terrain: Critical Reflections on the Counter-Recruitment Movement.” Interface: A Journal for and about Social Movements 5(2): 377-398. http://www.interfacejournal.net/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Interface-5-2-Brissette.pdf

2013. “Prefiguring the Realm of Freedom at Occupy Oakland.” Rethinking Marxism 25(2): 218-227. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08935696.2013.769357