U of T News recently profiled Professor Jooyoung Lee's course on gun violence in the United States. Professor Lee is teaching this fourth-year seminar on the St. George campus this summer. This course draws considerably on Professor Lee's own research into the wide-ranging impacts of gun violence in the U.S.
The following is an excerpt of the U of T News piece.
Gun violence in the U.S.: U of T expert helps undergrads understand school shootings, serial killings and gangs
One year ago today, the United States witnessed the deadliest mass shooting in its history when 49 people were killed and 58 others wounded inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.
But like the Sandy Hook kindergarten massacre of 2012, the Pulse shooting failed to bring an end to the widespread availability of guns across the U.S.
Jooyoung Lee, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Toronto is teaching a fourth-year undergraduate course this summer on gun violence in the U.S.
“There’s a bit of insularity when we think of cases of gun violence,” Lee explains. “I wanted to show that everybody is affected in some way by gun culture – all communities, even if some are especially more vulnerable yet get the least attention from the public.”
Lee is one of the first two Bissell-Heyd Fellows at U of T's Munk School’s Centre for the Study of the United States, who are provided with resources to conduct further research in American studies, while giving them a platform to showcase their work with students and the general public. Just a few weeks ago, Lee organized a workshop on gun violence and its impact on urban Black communities in the U.S.
Lee’s interest in gun violence goes back to his time as a graduate student. Back then, he was writing his dissertation, which would become his first book, Blowin’ Up: Rap Dreams in South Central, an ethnographic study of young African American men from South Los Angeles who were trying to make it in the music industry.