Ryan Wishart, MA, PhD

Program Director, Sociology Program

Assistant Professor

Contact

RyanWishart@creighton.edu
College of Arts and Sciences
Cultural & Social Studies
Sociology
CRHL - Creighton Hall/Administration Building - 440A

Ryan Wishart, MA, PhD

Program Director, Sociology Program

Assistant Professor

Ryan Wishart grew up in east Tennessee and earned interdisciplinary bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Tennessee. Dr. Wishart joined Creighton’s department of Cultural and Social Studies in 2014 after completing his Ph.D. at the University of Oregon. He is also a faculty member in the Environmental Science and Sustainability Studies programs.  In addition to teaching introductory courses on sociology and social problems, he teaches courses on social and cultural theory, environmental sociology, and political sociology. His research has focused on the social and ecological problems associated with coal extraction in the rural Appalachian region, social movements, and elite political organization and mobilization.

Curriculum Vitae

Teaching Interests

  • Environmental Sociology

Research Focus

extractive economies, ecology, and development
social networks and environmental politics

Department

Cultural and Social Studies

Position

Assistant Professor

Books

  • Handbook on Inequality and the Environment
    Wishart Ryan, Coal and environmental inequality [Book Chapter] 2023
  • Foster John Bellamy, Marx and the earth 2016
  • Transforming Places : Lessons from Appalachia
    Pfleger Cassie Robinson, Mountain justice [Book Chapter] 2012

Publications

  • Environmental sociology
    Greenberg Pierce, Driving environmental inequality: the unequal harms and benefits of highways, p. 1 - 14 2024
  • Journal for the scientific study of religion
    Greenberg Pierce, Using Large‐Scale Location Data to Examine Racial Diversity and Segregation in Church Attendees’ Home Neighborhoods 2024
  • Energy Research and Social Science
    Wishart Ryan, Class capacities and climate politics
    48, p. 151 - 165 2019
  • Social Science Research
    Liévanos Raoul S., In the shadow of production
    71, p. 37 - 55 2018
  • Wishart Ryan, Mountains of Injustice: Social and Environmental Justice in Appalachia 2013

Presentations

  • Jameson, Cade, Ryan Wishart and Chris Hardnack. 2018. "Defensive Environmentalism and Radical Social Change." Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. 2018
  • "The Coal Coalition and Energy Policy Planning Network in 2009: Class Capacities and Climate Politics." Presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Seattle, Washington. 2016
  • with Paul Gellert. "Political and Legal Aspects of Ecologically Unequal Exchange: Comparing Histories of Access to Coalfields of Appalachia and Kalimantan." Presented at Ecologically Unequal Exchange: Environmental Injustice in Historical and Comparative Perspective. University of Tennessee, Knoxville. 2015
  • "Internal Peripheries and Modes of Extraction: Appalachia's Persistence as an Internal Periphery." Presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Chicago, Illinois. 2015
  • "The 'green economy' and 'coal country': federal and state level reproduction of a contested mode of extraction." Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. New York, New York. 2013
  • Invited Lecture -- "The Coal Coalition in the Age of Monopoly-Finance Capital." A Food for Thought Discussion Forum presented by the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics. Cosponsored by the Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program, Land Air Water, the Department of Sociology, and the Environmental Studies Program 2012
  • "Apres moi le deluge: King Coals Reign on Coal River Mountain." Presented at Dimensions of Political Ecology: a Conference on Nature and Society. Lexington, Kentucky. 2011
  • "Surface Coal Mining and Socioeconomic Outcomes in Rural Appalachia." Presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association. Atlanta, Georgia. 2010
  • "Transforming Places: Lessons in Movement-building from Appalachia." Invited panelist at the Annual Meeting of the Appalachian Studies Association. Dahlonega, Georgia. 2010
  • "Environmental Justice, Organized Labor, and the Treadmill of Accumulation in the Coalfields of Appalachia." Presented at the annual meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Boston, MA, July 2008

Other

  • Crumbling Fossil Foundations? Power Shifts in the Energy Policy Planning Network

  • Crumbling Fossil Foundations? Power Shifts in the Energy Policy Planning Network

Awards

  • Graduate School Research Award for Publication
    University of Oregon
  • Wayne Morse Center For Law and Politics Dissertation Fellow
    University of Oregon