Minority Mentor Lecture Series to present Pitt's Waverly Duck

9:17 a.m., Feb. 26, 2015--Waverly Duck, an urban sociologist at the University of Pittsburgh, will present the annual Minority Mentor Lecture Series talk sponsored by the University of Delaware’s Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice from 12:30-2 p.m., Friday, March 13, in 130 Sharp Laboratory.

Duck will speak on the topic “An Ethnographic Portrait of Drug Dealing and Policing in a Small Black Town.”

Events Stories

June 5: Blue Hen 5K

University of Delaware graduates planning to attend Alumni Weekend are encouraged to register for the annual Blue Hen 5K walk and run, which will be held Sunday morning, June 5.

June 6-9: Food and culture series

The 20th annual June Lecture Series at the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UD in Wilmington will be held June 6-9. Titled 'June a la Carte,' this year's program focuses on great political documents, feminism, world politics and a Newark cuisine sampler.

• June 6-9: Food and culture series
• Through June 30: 'Saving White Clay Creek'
• July 22: WWE Heatwave Tour
• Through Sept. 16: Women of color in academia

Duck’s primary research examines the social order of neighborhoods and institutional settings and his academic areas of interest are urban sociology, inequality (race, class, gender, health and age), qualitative methods, culture, ethnomethodology and ethnography. 

His research on masculinity, health, crime and violence, and inequality has appeared in the journals Ethnography, Critical Sociology, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Crime, Law and Social Change and African American Studies. 

Duck’s forthcoming book, No Way Out: Precarious Living in the Shadow of Poverty and Drug Dealing (University of Chicago Press) challenges the common misconception of urban ghettos as chaotic places where drug dealing, street crime and random violence make daily life dangerous for everyone. 

No Way Out explores how neighborhood residents make sense of their lives within severe constraints as they choose among very unrewarding prospects. 

His second manuscript, Ethnographies, which is under contract with Paradigm Press, examines the history of ethnography in sociological research. 

For more information, contact TaLisa J. Carter at tjcarter@udel.edu.