Articles

Shammas, V. L. (forthcoming) “Punishment and technocracy: Penal populism, elitism, and the ‘buffered ideal’ in the sociology of punishment.” [draft]

Shammas, V. L. (2024) “The global hinterland of social democracy: On the limitations of Norwegian welfare capitalism.” Nordic Welfare Research/Nordisk välfärdsforskning.

Shammas, V. L. (2023) “Parallax theology: Reframing compensation theodicy.” Religions 14(8), 1003; DOI:10.3390/rel14081003 .

Shammas, V. L. and Sandset, T. (2020) “Reproduction and the welfare state: Notes on Norwegian biopolitics.” Nordic Journal of Social Research. DOI:10.7577/njsr.3244.

Shammas, V. L. (2019) “Penal elitism: Anatomy of a professorial category.” Critical Criminology. DOI:10.1007/s10612-019-09463-7.

Shammas, V. L. (2019) “The perils of parole hearings: California lifers, performative disadvantage and the ideology of insight.” Political and Legal Anthropology Review 42(1): 142-160. 

Shammas, V. L. (2019) “The parrhesia of neo-fascism.” International Journal of Žižek Studies 13(3): 1-14.

Shammas, V. L. (2019) “Surplus populations and the state: A criminological view.” International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy 8(1): 131-146.

Shammas, V. L. (2019) “Staging sovereignty: Punitivity, xenophobia, and the frail society.” Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Criminology 11:39-52.

Shammas, V. L. and Holen, T. B. (2019) “One giant leap for capitalistkind: Private enterprise in outer space.” Palgrave Communications.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “The state as God: On Bourdieu’s political theology.” Journal of Extreme Anthropology 2(2): 61-77.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “The dissolution of social democracy: How law and order came to Norway.” Federal Sentencing Reporter 31(1): 85-89.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “Burying Mont Pèlerin: Milton Friedman and neoliberal vanguardism.” Constellations 25(1): 117-132.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “Bourdieu’s five lessons for criminology.” Law and Critique 29(2): 201-219.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “The pains of sovereignty: On the joyous passion of the self-punishing subject.” Journal of Extreme Anthropology 2(2): 111-117.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “The Arab body.” Rhizomes, no. 34. DOI:10.20415/rhiz/034.e09.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “Superfluity and insecurity: Disciplining surplus populations in the Global North.” Capital & Class 42(3): 411-418.

Shammas, V. L. (2017) “Prisons of labor: Social democracy and a triple transformation of the politics of punishment in Norway, 1900-2014.” In: Ugelvik, T. and Smith, P. S. (eds.) Scandinavian Penal History, Culture and Prison Practice: Embraced By the Welfare State? London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 57-80.

Shammas, V. L. (2016) “Who's afraid of penal populism? Technocracy and ‘the people’ in the sociology of punishment.” Contemporary Justice Review 19(3): 325-346.

Shammas, V. L. (2016) “The rise of a more punitive state: On the attenuation of Norwegian penal exceptionalism in an era of welfare state transformation.” Critical Criminology 24(1): 57-74.

Shammas, V. L. and Sandberg, S. (2016) “Habitus, capital, and conflict: Bringing Bourdieusian field theory to criminology.” Criminology and Criminal Justice 16(2): 195-213.

Shammas, V. L. (2015) “A prison without walls: Alternative incarceration in the late age of social democracy.” Prison Service Journal (January): 3-9.

Shammas, V. L. (2015) “Denying the danger of difference: Notes on the pacification of inmate social relations in an era of ethnoracial diversity.” Prison Service Journal (May): 5-10.

Shammas, V. L., Sandberg, S., and Pedersen, W. (2014) “Trajectories to mid- and higher-level drug crimes: Penal misrepresentations of drug dealers in Norway.” British Journal of Criminology 54(4): 592-612.

Shammas, V. L. (2014) “The pains of freedom: Assessing the ambiguity of Scandinavian penal exceptionalism on Norway’s Prison Island.” Punishment & Society 16(1): 104-123.

Essays and Reviews

Shammas, V. L. (2024) “Theory Brief #11: Post-Politics and Technocracy: Taking "People Power" Seriously Again.” The Theory Brief [Substack].

Shammas, V. L. (2023) “Sociodicy.” Critical Legal Thinking (criticallegalthinking.com). [link]

Shammas, V. L. (2021) “Book review: Magnus Hörnqvist: The Pleasure of Punishment.” Punishment & Society.

Political and Legal Anthropology Review: “Victor L. Shammas on Parole Hearings: PoLAR Author Interview.” (June 2019)

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “Rethinking Axel Honneth’s The Idea of Socialism.” Continental Thought & Theory.

Shammas, V. L. and Holen, T. B. (2018) “Leaving the twenty-first century: A conversation with McKenzie Wark.” Continental Thought & Theory.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “The illusion of non-capitalist spaces.” Public Seminar, 14 September 2018.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “Critical remarks on Jan-Werner Müller’s What is Populism?” Continental Thought & Theory 2(2): 159-163.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “Bourdieu's divine state.” Critical Legal Thinking, 31 July.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “Notes on Guy Standing’s The Corruption of Capitalism.” Continental Thought & Theory 2(1): 372-385.

Shammas, V. L. (2018) “The slow erosion of Scandinavian social democracy.” Comparative Penology (COMPEN) Blog, Institute of Criminology, Cambridge University. 

Shammas, V. L. (2017) “Book review: Jamie Peck and Nik Theodore: Fast Policy: Experimental Statecraft at the Thresholds of Neoliberalism.” Political Studies Review 15(3): 475-476.

Shammas, V. L. (2017) “Book review: David Garland: The Welfare State: A Very Short Introduction.” Theoretical Criminology 21(2): 255-258.

Shammas, V. L. (2017) “Pains of imprisonment.” In: Kerley, K. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Corrections. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Shammas, V. L. (2017) “The Society of Captives (Gresham Sykes).” In: Kerley, K. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Corrections. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Shammas, V. L. (2017) “The Jail (John Irwin).” In: Kerley, K. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Corrections. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.

Shammas, V. L. (2016) “Book review: Dominique Moran: Carceral Geography: Spaces and Practices of Incarceration.” Punishment & Society 19(5): 653-655.

Shammas, V. L. (2016) “Book review: Robert Sussman: The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea.” International Sociology 31(2): 199-203.

Shammas, V.L. (2015) “Book review: Franklin Zimring: The City that Became Safe: New York’s Lessons for Urban Crime and Its Control.” Acta Sociologica 58(1): 95-96.

Shammas, V. L. (2014) “Book review: Erica Weiss: Conscientious Objectors in Israel: Citizenship, Sacrifice, Trials of Fealty.” Social Anthropology 22(4): 518-519.