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Jeff Stilley

Jeff Stilley, Instructor

Name, Title
Jeff Stilley, Instructor

Department of Sociology
560 McBryde Hall
225 Stanger Street, Blacksburg, VA 24061
stilley@vt.edu

Dr. Jeff Stilley is an instructor in the Department of Sociology. 

He recently completed his dissertation, which traced the emergence of a labor movement organizational network that resulted in a general strike in Kansas City in 1918. The general strike came in solidarity with low wage white and Black women laundry workers. The analysis developed the concept of “solidarity infrastructure,” which works to move beyond a) overly structural explanations of inclusive class formation that focus on contradictions in the production process, and b) overly voluntaristic explanations of inclusive class formation that emphasize the strategy of politically radical organizers.

His research has been featured on the Heartland Labor Forum radio program (KKFI) and A People’s History of Kansas City podcast (KCUR).

  • Comparative-Historical Methods
  • Labor Movements
  • Social Movements
  • Political Sociology
  • Race, Class, Gender
  • Ph.D., Sociology (Women and Gender Studies minor), University of Missouri, Columbia, 2021
  • M.A., Sociology, University of Colorado, Denver, 2014
  • B.S., Secondary Education, Kansas State University, 2008
  • ASA Marxist Sociology section Lifetime Achievement Award committee, 2022
  • ASA Labor and Labor Movement section Distinguished Scholarly Article Award committee, 2021

Stilley, Jeff. Forthcoming 2022. “Kansas City General Strike: Wartime Solidarity in the American Midwest.” For a Better World: The Winnipeg General Strike and the Workers’ Revolt, eds. J. Naylor, R. Hinther, and J. Mochoruk. University of Manitoba Press.

Undergraduate Level Courses

  • Introduction to Sociology
  • Culture & Mass Media
  • Self & Society
  • Collective Behavior & Social Movements
  • Criminology
  • Globalization
  • Research Methods

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