Earl Smith

Earl Smith, PhD, is Emeritus Distinguished Professor of American Ethnic Studies and Sociology at Wake Forest University, and is currently teaching classes in Sociology, African and African American Studies, and Women & Gender Studies at the Univerity of Delaware.  Dr. Smith earned his Ph.D. at the University of Connecticut. His teaching and research focus on the sociology of sport, social stratification, and the intersection of race and the criminal justice system.  He is the author of 12 books, including his most recent book, Way Down in the Hole: Race, Intimacy and the Reproduction of Racial Ideologies in Solitary Confinement (2021). The book is based on three summers of ethnographic research in a large state penitentiary system. Methodologically, we conducted over 100 face-to-face interviews with inmates and correctional officers. His other books include Policing Black Bodies: How Black Lives are Surveilled and How to Work for Change (2022) and Gender, Power and Violence: Responding to Sexual and Intimate Partner Violence in Society Today and Race, Sport and the American Dream (2014).