{"id":439,"date":"2014-11-23T11:29:09","date_gmt":"2014-11-23T16:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carleton.ca\/socanth\/?post_type=cu_people&p=439"},"modified":"2025-06-10T09:23:46","modified_gmt":"2025-06-10T13:23:46","slug":"gerlach-neil","status":"publish","type":"cu_people","link":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/people\/gerlach-neil\/","title":{"rendered":"Neil Gerlach"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\n \n \n \n <\/h1>\n\n \n <\/header>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Areas of Teaching Interest<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

\u2022 Sociology of War
\n\u2022 Classical Social Theory
\n\u2022 Sociology of Work<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Areas of Research Interest<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Pandemic Culture<\/em>. This project is an analysis of how a \u2018pandemic imaginary\u2019 is constructed and circulated within popular and public culture. While pandemics as medical events may be extraordinary, the threat<\/em> of pandemic is not. Pandemic culture is a shared sense that each of us is indiscriminately vulnerable to the viral spread of pandemic, arising out of the conditions of global mobility of capital, goods, and people that put the human species<\/em> at risk for the first time in modern memory. The result is the development of an apocalyptic mood that is productive of specific vocabularies, emergent modes of subjectivity, forms of knowledge, new geographies, and new articulations of politics and ethics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Currently accepting graduate students interested in the sociology of war, the social effects of pandemic, and the sociology of the future.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publications<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Books<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2011 Gerlach, Neil, Sheryl Hamilton, Rebecca Sullivan, and Priscilla Walton (co-authors). Becoming Biosubjects: Bodies. Systems. Technologies<\/u>. University of Toronto Press, 216 pp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2004 Gerlach, Neil, The Genetic Imaginary: DNA in the Canadian Criminal Justice System<\/u>. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 247 pp.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Articles in Refereed Journals<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2019 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cVisualizing Ebola: Hazmat Imagery, The Press, and the Production of Biosecurity.\u201d Canadian Journal of Communication 44(2): 191-210.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2016 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cFrom Outbreak to Pandemic Narrative: Reading Newspaper Coverage of the 2014 Ebola Epidemic.\u201d Canadian Journal of Communication<\/u>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2014 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl Hamilton, \u201cTrafficking in the Zombie: The CDC Zombie Apocalypse Campaign, Diseaseability, and Pandemic Culture.\u201d Refractory: A Journal of Entertainment Media<\/u>, refractory.unimelb.edu.au\/2014\/06\/26\/volume-23\/<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2012 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cNarrating Armageddon: Antichrist Films and the Critique of Late Modernity.\u201d The Journal of Religion and Popular Culture<\/u> 24(2): 217-29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2011 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cThe Antichrist as Antimonomyth: The Omen<\/em> Films as Social Critique.” The Journal of Popular Culture<\/span> 44(5): 1027-46.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2010 Hamilton, Sheryl and Neil Gerlach, \u201c\u2019It Won\u2019t Always Be Wrong\u2019: Morality and Monsters in Legal Rational Authority.\u201d Law, Culture and the Humanities<\/u> 6(3): 394-419.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2005 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton, \u201cFrom Mad Scientist to Bad Scientist: Richard Seed as a Biogovernmental Event.\u201d Communication Theory<\/u> 15(1): 78-99.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2004 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton, \u201cPreserving Self in the City of the Imagination: Georg Simmel and Dark City<\/u>\u201d, Canadian Review of American Studies<\/u> 34(2): 115-34.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2003 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton, \u201cA History of Social Science Fiction\u201d, Science Fiction Studies<\/u> 30(2):161-73.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2002 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton, \u201cConsidering Complexity in Canadian Civil Society: A Case Study of Studio XX\u201d, Revista Mexicana de Estudios Canadienses<\/u> Autumn, No.4 (online journal).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2001 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton, \u201cCyber, Inc.: Business Restructuring Literature and\/as Cybertheory\u201d, Convergence: The Journal of Research Into New Media Technologies<\/u> 7(1): 40-60.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2001 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cFrom Disciplinary Gaze to Biological Gaze: Genetic Crime Thrillers and Biogovernance\u201d, Canadian Review of American Studies<\/u> 31(3): 95-117.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2000 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton, \u201cTelling the Future, Managing the Present: Business Management Writing as SF\u201d, Science Fiction Studies<\/u> 27(3): 461-77.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1996 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cThe Business Restructuring Genre: Some Questions for Critical Organization Analyses\u201d, Organization: The Interdisciplinary Journal of Organization, Theory and Society<\/u> 3(3): 425-38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1989 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cA Selected and Annotated Bibliography of Legal Anthropology\u201d, The Western Canadian Anthropologist<\/u> 6(2): 22-55.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chapters in Edited Books<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2009 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cFrom Bodily Integrity to Genetic Surveillance: The Impacts of DNA Identification in Criminal Justice,\u201d in Sean Hier and Joshua Greenberg (eds.), Surveillance: Power, Problems, and Politics<\/u>.<\/em> University of British Columbia Press, pp. 135-50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2005 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cBiotechnology and Social Control: The Canadian DNA Data Bank\u201d, in Michael Mehta (ed.), Biotechnology Unglued<\/u>, Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, pp. 117-32.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2003 Gerlach, Neil and Sheryl N. Hamilton, \u201cVirtually Civil: Studio XX, Feminist Voices, and Digital Technology in Canadian Civil Society\u201d in S.D. Ferguson and L. Regan Shade (eds.), Civic Discourse and Cultural Politics in Canada<\/u>, Norwood, N.J.: Greenwood\/Elsevier, pp. 201-15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2003 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cCriminal Biology: Genetic Crime Thrillers and the Future of Social Control\u201d, in Domna Pastourmatzi (ed.), Biotechnological and Medical Themes in Science Fiction<\/u>, Thessaloniki: University Studio Press, pp. 371-94.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2003 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cCriminal Pre-Disposition: Futuristic Genetic Crime Thrillers and Biogovernance\u201d, in Mary Pharr (ed.), Fantastic Odysseys<\/u>, Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing, pp. 29-38.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2002 Gerlach, Neil, \u201cDefining the Canadian DNA Data Bank: A Sociological Perspective\u201d, in M. Pendakur and R. Harris (eds.), Citizenship and Participation in the Information Age<\/u>, Aurora, ON: Garamond Press, pp. 103-20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Journal Special Issues Edited<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2003 Gerlach, Neil, Sheryl N. Hamilton, and Rob Latham, (eds.), Special Issue on Social Science Fiction, Science Fiction Studies<\/u> 30(2).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recent Papers Presented to Learned Societies<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

2021 \u201cWorking in a Diseased World: News Media Representations of the Post COVID-19 Workplace.\u201d Canadian Communication Association Annual Meeting, June 2, 2021. University of Alberta (virtual conference).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2021 Roundtable: \u201cCOVID-19. This Changes Everything… or Does It?\u201d Canadian Communication Association Annual Meeting, June 2, 2021. University of Alberta (virtual conference).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2020 \u201cMyths of the Far Future: Technofuturist Writing as Science Fiction.\u201d International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, March 17-20, 2020. Orlando, Florida (cancelled due to COVID-19 outbreak).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2020 \u201cTroubling the Imagined Disease Space of the \u2018Connected World\u2019 in the Smithsonian\u2019s Outbreak Exhibit,\u201d with Sheryl Hamilton. Canadian Communication Association Annual Meeting, June 2-5, 2020. Western University, London, Ontario (cancelled due to COVID-19 outbreak).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2018 \u201cPandemics and Apocalyptic Time: Examining Temporality in Richard Preston\u2019s The Hot Zone,\u201d presented at the Popular Culture Association Annual Conference, Indianapolis, IN, March 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2017 \u201cRevisiting the Hot Zone: Richard Preston and the Beginning of Pandemic Culture,\u201d presented at the Canadian Communication Association, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Ryerson University, Toronto, June 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2017 \u201cPerforming Biosecurity: Ebola, Hazmat Suit Imagery, and the Press,\u201d presented at the Popular Culture Association National Conference, San Diego, April 12.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2016 \u201cMapping the Visual Culture of Pandemic: An Emergent Iconography,\u201d with Sheryl Hamilton, presented at the Canadian Communication Association, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Calgary, May 29.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2016 \u201cFrom Science Fiction to Social Fact: Generic Flow in the Cultural Iconography of Pandemic,\u201d with Sheryl Hamilton, presented at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, March 19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2016 \u201cFrom Aid to Biosecurity: The Shifting Nature of Press Coverage of the 2014 Ebola Outbreak.\u201d Presented at the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies, University of Waterloo, January 15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2015 \u201cFraming Ebola: The Changing Discourses of Ebola in North American Press Coverage.\u201d Presented at the Canadian Communication Association, Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, University of Ottawa, June 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2015 \u201cFrom Outbreak to Pandemic: World War Z and the New Understanding of Disease,\u201d with Sheryl Hamilton, presented at the International Conference for the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, Florida, March 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2013 \u201cZombie Anxiety: \u2018Social Flesh\u2019 and the End of the Legal-Rational Subject.\u201d Conference of the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and the Humanities 2013, London, UK, March 22.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2012 Gerlach Neil and Sheryl Hamilton. \u201cAmbient Anxiety: Mapping Pandemic Narratives in Popular Culture,\u201d with Sheryl Hamilton, presented at Crossroads 2012, Paris, July 3.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2011 \u201cJustifying an American State of Exception: Biothrillers and the Ideology of the War on Terror,\u201d presented at The Aesthetics of Renewal: Canadian Association of American Studies Conference<\/em>, Ottawa, November 5.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2011 \u201cGoverning the Zombie: Risk and Law in Apocalyptic Culture,\u201d presented at Dis\/Locating Law: Conference of the Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture and Humanities<\/em>, Ottawa, October 21.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2011 \u201cFrom Outbreak to Pandemic: Shifting Anxieties in the Resident Evil<\/em> Films,\u201d with Sheryl Hamilton, presented at the Academic Conference on Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy, Toronto, September 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2011 \u201cFrom Humanism to Nihilism: Theorizing Pandemic Apocalypse through the Resident Evil Quadrology,\u201c with Sheryl Hamilton, presented at the International Conference on the Fantastic in the Arts, Orlando, March 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2010 \u201cImagining Apocalypse: Managing Pandemics in Policy and Popular Culture,\u201d presented at the U.S. Cultural Studies Association Conference, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, March 20.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2009 \u201cControlling Bioagency: SARS and the Discourse of Biosecurity,\u201d presented at the Canadian Association of Cultural Studies Conference, McGill University, Montreal, October 24.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2009 \u201cBiothrillers and the Law: Anticipating the Legal Implications of Bioterrorism,\u201d presented at the Canadian Initiative in Law, Culture, and the Humanities Conference, Carleton University, Ottawa, Oct. 18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Courses Taught<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

SOCI 2000 Foundations of Sociological Inquiry
\nSOCI 2160 War and Society
\nSOCI 3030 Studies in Work, Industry and Occupations
\nSOCI 5206 Sociology of Occupations and Professions
\nSOCI 5806 War and Society in the Global North<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22238,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"cu_people_first_name":"Neil","cu_people_last_name":"Gerlach","cu_people_initials":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"cu_people_type":[39],"cu_people_expertise":[],"class_list":["post-439","cu_people","type-cu_people","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_people_type-sociology-faculty"],"acf":{"cu_people_job_title":"Associate Professor","cu_people_degree":"PhD Sociology (Carleton University), MA Anthropology (University of Saskatchewan), LL.B (University of Saskatchewan), B.Ed (University of Regina)","cu_building":false,"cu_people_office_num":"","cu_people_pronoun":"none","cu_people_designation":"","cu_people_email":"neil.gerlach@carleton.ca","cu_people_phone":"","cu_people_phone_ext":"1331","cu_people_linkedin":"","cu_people_bluesky":"","cu_people_twitter":"","cu_people_instagram":"","cu_people_facebook":"","cu_people_website":"","cu_people_orcid":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/cu_people"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25631,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people\/439\/revisions\/25631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"cu_people_type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_type?post=439"},{"taxonomy":"cu_people_expertise","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/carleton.ca\/socanth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cu_people_expertise?post=439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}