Heather Cleary

Heather Cleary serves as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, Criminology, & Sociology at Le Moyne College, where her research critically examines intersections of race, gender, and emotion within social constructions of crime and deviance. She bridges micro and macro cultural frameworks to analyze identity formation and the 'felt' experience of state engagement, with particular attention to how marginalized communities navigate systems of power and control.

Her scholarly work centers on two primary projects: (1) race and gender dynamics in true crime consumption among white college-educated women (18-35 years), investigating how racialized and gendered subject positions shape 'dark leisure' practices like dark tourism, risk perception, and criminal justice attitudes; and (2) the tension between care and control in addiction interventions for overdose, a condition straddling medicalization and criminalization. Methodologically grounded in qualitative approaches—including ethnography, interviews, and participant action research—she also contributes to theoretical domains spanning cultural criminology, affect theory, collective trauma, death studies, critical race theory, whiteness studies, and feminist epistemologies. Her specialization areas systematically cover Race and Ethnicity, Crime and Deviance, Gender and Sexuality, Affect and Emotion, Culture and Media, and Qualitative Research Methods.

Dr. Cleary's publication trajectory reveals evolving engagement with structural inequality through cultural lenses, progressing from analyses of racialization in small-city drug markets (2021) to explorations of bereavement in aging populations (2021), then to critical examinations of whiteness in reproductive biopolitics (2019) and social media's role in racial protest (2018). Her most recent work (2024) applies symbolic domination theory to college party dynamics, while her 2022 pedagogical scholarship addresses decolonizing sociology curricula—demonstrating consistent integration of race, gender, and affect across criminological, sociological, and educational contexts.

Her exceptional contributions have garnered significant recognition:

• Keith Roberts Teaching Innovations Award from SAGE Publications (2023)
• Edwin S. and Ruth M. White Prize and Angela J. Rallis Memorial Award for interdisciplinary innovation from Boston University Center for Humanities (2022)
• Susan K. Jackson Award for community building from Boston University College of Arts and Sciences (2022)
• Outstanding Teaching Fellow Award from Boston University Sociology Department (2019)
• Clark University honors including Fiat Lux Society membership, Unsung Hero Award, and Cynthia Enloe Award for academic-activist excellence (2011)