Samuel Binkley

Samuel Binkley is Professor of Sociology at Emerson College's Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts & Interdisciplinary Studies. His academic work focuses on the sociology of subjectivity, therapeutic culture, and power relations in contemporary society, drawing on Foucault's theories of biopower and governmentality.

• Address: RM908, 120 Boylston Street, Boston, MA 02116
• Email: samuel_binkley@emerson.edu
• Telephone: 617-824-8745

Professor Binkley's research examines how subjectivity is socially produced through lifestyle literature, popular psychology, and therapeutic discourses. His work spans multiple theoretical frameworks including critical race theory, cultural studies, and analyses of neoliberalism's impact on emotional life. He has particular expertise in the historical development of therapeutic culture and its relationship to power structures.

His recent publications reveal a strong focus on the intersection of race and therapeutic discourse, with significant attention to how whiteness operates within contemporary anti-racist frameworks. The evolution of his work shows a progression from studies of 1970s lifestyle movements to critical examinations of therapeutic approaches to race in the post-George Floyd era. His methodological approach combines historical analysis with theoretical critique, often using metaphor analysis to uncover underlying assumptions in therapeutic discourse.

• Against White Interiority: A Racial Critique of Therapeutic Reason (Palgrave, 2023)
• Happiness as Enterprise: An Essay on Neoliberal Life (SUNY)
• Getting Loose: Lifestyle Consumption in the 1970s (Duke)
• A Foucault for the 21st Century (Cambridge Scholars) - co-editor

Professor Binkley actively presents his research at international conferences including the Psychology and the Other conference and has upcoming engagements at Birkbeck, Swansea University, and Adam Mickiewicz University. His work appears in journals such as Body & Society, History of Human Sciences, Time and Society, Foucault Studies, Cultural Studies, Rethinking Marxism, Subjectivity and the Journal for Cultural Research.