“Dangerous Knowledge”: Entrepreneurialism in academia, a book launch and discussion
Come along to celebrate the book launch of ‘ The Routledge International Handbook of Sensory Criminology’ through conversation with its contributors for discussions on prison reform, de-colonising justice, the sensory violence of war, and how we can bridge academic thought to entrepreneurship.
Speaker Bios:
Jason Warr is an Associate Professor in Criminology, University of Nottingham with research interests in penology, sociology of power, narrative and sensory criminology, and the philosophy of science. His most recent book is concerned with forensic psychologists employed within the prisons of England and Wales: Forensic Psychologists: Prisons, Power, and Vulnerability.
Barbara Becnel: Scholar, social justice activist, and author Barbara Becnel has more than 20 years of working for prison reform in the state of California, while writing nine award-winning non-fiction books on street gang culture, as well as over one-hundred journal, magazine, and newspaper articles. From leading an international media campaign aimed at preventing the judicial execution of reformed Crips gang co-founder and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Stanley Williams, to organising an ‘Occupy San Quentin’ rally attended by hundreds in front of the state prison that houses California’s death chamber, she has often shown inspiring leadership and tenacity. Recently, she was appointed to an Expert Steering Group for tackling racial harassment in Scottish education. She also participated in a Steering Group focusing on the development of anti-racist curriculum for Scotland’s universities and colleges. Building on her MSc in Social Justice and Community Action (With Distinction) awarded by the University of Edinburgh, Barbara returned there to earn a PhD in social justice and criminology. Her thesis explored how death row became a symbol of heroism for America’s street-gang generation. Integral to this was her collaboration with three former-though-imprisoned South Central Los Angeles gang members who were co-researchers on the project.
Steve Champion was a death row prisoner at San Quentin State Prison for 39 years, and is still a prisoner. But he is currently serving a Life-Without-the-Possibility-of-Parole sentence at a different California correctional facility. To date, he has been incarcerated for more than 40 years. A Crips street gang member emeritus, he grew up in South Central Los Angeles. He is self-taught and conversant in African history, philosophy, political science, and comparative religion. As an author he has received honorary mention in the short fiction category in the 1995 PEN Prison Writing Contest and in 2004 won first place in a PEN nonfiction competition for his essay, His Spirit Lives On: George E. Marshall. He is co-author of Afterlife, a death row anthology published in 2003, and he has poetry featured in the book Voices From The Inside. He is also co-author of several inspirational pamphlets, including Walking It Like You Talk It, The Ninth Ground, and Everything Of Value You Must Carry Without Hands. In 2007 he co-authored The Sacred Eye of the Falcon and in 2010 published a memoir titled Dead to Deliverance. In 2019, he co-authored The Architect: How to Transform Yourself and Your World.
Amy Gibbons is a criminology PhD student and part-time graduate teaching assistant in the School of Sociology and Social Policy at The University of Nottingham. Her thesis uses a procedural environmental justice lens, focusing on the agricultural sector by capturing the regulatory overhaul as we leave the Common Agricultural Agreement and introduce the Agricultural Transition Plan. Her qualitative findings from interviewing a range of farmers and land managers captures their relationship with nature and the harms as a result of agricultural practices, but also their experiences in terms of recognition, participation, and capabilities.
Kanupriya Sharma is a postdoctoral research fellow at the School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham. She recently completed her PhD in Criminology at the Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge with the prestigious Gates Cambridge Scholarship. Her research sits at the intersections of imprisonment, caste, gender, kinship, and state power, with a particular focus on how socio-cultural norms, moral frameworks, and structural inequalities shape criminalisation, punishment, and the lived experiences of incarcerated women in South Asia. She is especially committed to decolonial methodologies and culturally responsive ethnographic practices. Kanupriya is the founder of the Cambridge Decolonising Criminology Network, an intellectual initiative that challenges Eurocentric frameworks in criminology, amplifies marginalised voices, and promotes decolonial, Indigenous, and subaltern approaches to criminological theory and research.
Hannah R. Wilkinson is an Assistant Professor in Criminology at the University of Nottingham, within the School of Sociology and Social Policy. Her research interests lie in the areas of war, state violence and social harm. She uses creative visual and narrative methodologies to explore ex-military experiences of 21st century war and transitioning to post-conflict life. She has published research about the harms of criminalisation and criminal records for ex-military personnel, along with the lasting embodied harms of war and militarisation for ex-soldiers. Her research-led teaching focuses on philosophies of war and state violence, along with theories of atrocity and resistance. She has worked with third-sector organisations and charities to support ex-military people who have been imprisoned, and share research in accessible ways with local communities and practitioners. Her research, teaching, and wider activism are anchored to social justice and anti-fascism. Professional memberships include the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, where she recently became a coordinator of the Crimes of the Powerful working group; the European Society of Criminology; the British Society of Criminology; the International State Crime Initiative, and the University of Nottingham Centre for the Study of Post-Conflict Societies.
Kate Herrity: Kate’s work has focused on using a sensory lens to explore confinement and social control, as in Sensory Penalities, co-edited with Bethany Schmidt and Jason Warr. She has a particular interest in the social significance of sound – as well as music - in prison, the focus of the monograph of her PhD Sound, Order and Survival in Prison: The Rhythms and Routines of HMP Midtown and the forthcoming Sound and Detention: Towards Critical Listening, Sonic Citizenship and Social Justice co-edited with Lucy Cathcart Frödén and Aine Mangaoang. She likes to work at the meeting places and boundaries between criminology and other fields and disciplines.
WHEN: Tuesday, 17th March 2026
5.30PM – 6.30 PM: Fireside discussion in the Keynes Lecture Theatre
6.30PM - 7.00PM: Networking and drinks in the King’s Bar
WHERE: Keynes Lecture Theatre, King’s College, Cambridge
TICKETS: Registration will open closer to the time.