Biographical Sketch
Who Is Robert W. Williams?
I teach in the political science program at Bennett College (Greensboro, NC), where I am an Associate Professor. My graduate school courses centered on political theory, especially modern, contemporary, and critical theories. After receiving my Ph.D. in Political Science from Rutgers University (1993), I taught at Livingstone College in Salisbury, NC, for 11 years.
As regards my research foci, I typically have engaged in meta-theoretical analyses, addressing the assumptions and implications that underpin the social and political theories themselves. My scholarship includes work on environmental justice, the spatiality of politics (and the spatiality of the night), as well as the cyber-politics of the Internet.
My academic publications on night spaces are as follows:
• Williams, Robert W. 2008. "Night Spaces: Darkness, Deterritorialization, and Social Control." Space and Culture, 11:4 (November): 514-532. (Abstract / Issue TOC).
Note: The final accepted (pre-publication) version of my Space and Culture article can be accessed at my academia.edu page. That version differs in small and inconsequential ways from the published article, which cannot be posted by me due to publisher guidelines.
Note also: The 2008 article in Space and Culture has been included on its "most-read" list over the last few years. The journal calculates the list on a monthly basis from "full-text and pdf views" (as the journal's web page states). I have seen my article's ranking rise and fall—even disappear and later reappear—over time. In August 2011 my "Night Spaces" article was listed as the second most-read item: JPEG screen capture [click the backspace key to return to this page].
• Williams, Robert W. 2010. "Night Spaces". Pp. 566-568 in E. Ray Hutchison (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Urban Studies, Vol. 2 (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications) (Book's web page).
Note: The text of the Encyclopedia of Urban Studies entry is accessible here on the nightspaces website.
I have published other works on the spatiality of politics:
• Williams, Robert W. 1999. "Environmental Injustice in America and Its Politics of Scale." Political Geography, 18:1 (January): 49-74.
• Williams, Robert W. 1999. "The Contested Terrain of Environmental Justice Research: Community as a Unit of Analysis." Social Science Journal, 36:2; 313-328.
• Williams, Robert W. 2003. "Terrorism, Anti-terrorism and the Normative Boundaries of the US Polity: The Spatiality of Politics after 11 September 2001." Space and Polity, 7:3 (December): 273-292, which is available in page-proofs format at my academia.edu page.
• Williams, Robert W. 2010. "Politics, Rights, and Spatiality in W.E.B. Du Bois's 'Address to the Country' (1906)". Journal of African American Studies, 14:3 (September): 337-358.
My service to the academic profession also includes being a manuscript reviewer for various journals, such as The Professional Geographer;
In other research I have analyzed the philosophical dimensions of W.E.B.
My online vita presents more details of my scholarship, as well as my teaching experience and other college-related topics.
I also maintain a page at ACADEMIA.EDU—a social-media site where scholars can share information and research.
Please contact me via this for academic matters.
— Robert W. Williams, Ph.D.
| www.robertwilliams.org/ns/nsaboutrww.html | Rev. 2-22-15 |