Colin Jerolmack
I am a professor of Sociology and Environmental Studies at New York University. I am also chair of the Dept. of Environmental Studies.
My new book, Up to Heaven and Down to Hell: Fracking, Freedom, and Community in an American Town (Princeton University Press, April 2021), is an intimate, ethnographic account of what happens when one of the most momentous decisions about the well-being of our communities and our planet—whether or not to extract shale gas and oil from the very land beneath our feet—is largely a private choice that millions of ordinary people make without the public’s consent. Based on time I spent living in a rural Pennsylvania community, the book documents the dramatic confrontation between personal sovereignty and the public good that unfolds from the fact that landowners have the right to lease the subsurface of their property for oil and gas development.
This "deeply reported" (Publisher's Weekly) community study reveals "the tradeoffs that follow from America's liberty-loving ways" (Sarah Smarsh [author of Heartland], the Atlantic). What's more, it serves as a lens through which to understand the cultural polarization that drives so much of contemporary American politics and stymies efforts to combat climate change.
Research Interests
Ethnography; urban communities; environmental sociology; animals and society; culture; health; social theory.
Education
- Ph.D. 2009, M.A. 2005 (Sociology), City University of New York
- B.S. 2000 (Psychology), Drexel University
Source: New York University Arts & Science
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