Dr Sean Creaven

Biography	I studied for my doctorate in Sociology at Warwick (1995-99). Previously, I completed my first degree in Sociology at Plymouth (1988-91), before going on to study for my Masters in Philosophy and Social Theory at Warwick (1994-95). I began my teaching career as a tutor of sociology at Polytechnic South West in Plymouth (1991-94), then took up the post of temporary lecturer in sociology at Leeds Metropolitan University (2000-1), before moving on to the University of Edinburgh (2001-2), where I assumed leadership of second-year undergraduate studies in Sociology. I have taught at UWE since 2003. I am currently module leader for the Level 3 optional social theory module Contemporary Critiques of Modern Society and for the Level 1 core Criminology module Introduction to Criminological Theory. I am also presently Programme Leader in Sociology and Year 3 Leader in Sociology at UWE. I was formerly a programme leader in Criminology at UWE. I am a social theorist by training and by research. My initial and ongoing research interests include: Critical Realism (as philosophy of social science); Marxism and the dialectical tradition of social theory; and criminological theory (especially of the interface of theoretical paradigms in the sociology of deviance and crime control). Since 2020, my research has taken a new turn, however. This is as I have sought to apply the resources of critical theory to analyzing the social and cultural drivers of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the chronic failings of state policymaking in managing the crisis in the interests of public health. Here I have sought to develop a sociology of pandemics in the corporate age that apprehends these as products of modern social systems and as aspects of the global ecological crisis – i.e., epidemiological rift as a specific form of metabolic-biospheric rift. This has generated my most recent book publications: The Pandemic in Britain, Modernity and the Pandemic, and Contagion Capitalism. My research in social theory has a specific agenda. This is to utilize Critical Realist philosophy as under-labourer for a critical Marxian sociology of social systems and of explanatory critiques of the major theoretical paradigms of modern and postmodern sociology. I have sought to develop a realist or morphogenetic reconstruction of Marxism, emergentist Marxism, that transcends the traditional antinomies of social theory (subjectivism versus objectivism, micro versus macro, voluntarism versus determinism, nature versus nurture, etc.) and which supports a naturalistic rather than spiritualistic or theistic ethics of “right action”. This project has spawned three major books: Marxism and Realism (2000), Emergentist Marxism (2007), and Against the Spiritual Turn (2010), with another (Realism and Social Theory: Structure and Agency Revisited) forthcoming. My criminological work is situated in the sociology of crime and deviance. This is concerned with rehabilitating the possibility of a neo-Marxist sociology of crime and social control in late-modern conditions. This draws upon my realist morphogenetic Marxism to rejuvenate the “new criminology” of the 1970s that sought to develop a fully social theory of rule breaking. The aim of this research is to re-establish the contemporary relevance and efficacy of the “new criminology” in a field dominated by administrative criminology, “what works” correctionism, and the irrealist “realisms” of Left and Right. Such is developed in my Critical Realism and the Sociology of Deviance: Towards a “new” Radical Criminology (forthcoming)

Biography

I studied for my doctorate in Sociology at Warwick (1995-99). Previously, I completed my first degree in Sociology at Plymouth (1988-91), before going on to study for my Masters in Philosophy and Social Theory at Warwick (1994-95).

I began my teaching career as a tutor of sociology at Polytechnic South West in Plymouth (1991-94), then took up the post of temporary lecturer in sociology at Leeds Metropolitan University (2000-1), before moving on to the University of Edinburgh (2001-2), where I assumed leadership of second-year undergraduate studies in Sociology.

I have taught at UWE since 2003. I am currently module leader for the Level 3 optional social theory module Contemporary Critiques of Modern Society and for the Level 1 core Criminology module Introduction to Criminological Theory. I am also presently Programme Leader in Sociology and Year 3 Leader in Sociology at UWE. I was formerly a programme leader in Criminology at UWE.

I am a social theorist by training and by research. My initial and ongoing research interests include: Critical Realism (as philosophy of social science); Marxism and the dialectical tradition of social theory; and criminological theory (especially of the interface of theoretical paradigms in the sociology of deviance and crime control).

Since 2020, my research has taken a new turn, however. This is as I have sought to apply the resources of critical theory to analyzing the social and cultural drivers of the COVID-19 pandemic and of the chronic failings of state policymaking in managing the crisis in the interests of public health. Here I have sought to develop a sociology of pandemics in the corporate age that apprehends these as products of modern social systems and as aspects of the global ecological crisis – i.e., epidemiological rift as a specific form of metabolic-biospheric rift. This has generated my most recent book publications: The Pandemic in Britain, Modernity and the Pandemic, and Contagion Capitalism.

My research in social theory has a specific agenda. This is to utilize Critical Realist philosophy as under-labourer for a critical Marxian sociology of social systems and of explanatory critiques of the major theoretical paradigms of modern and postmodern sociology.

I have sought to develop a realist or morphogenetic reconstruction of Marxism, emergentist Marxism, that transcends the traditional antinomies of social theory (subjectivism versus objectivism, micro versus macro, voluntarism versus determinism, nature versus nurture, etc.) and which supports a naturalistic rather than spiritualistic or theistic ethics of “right action”. This project has spawned three major books: Marxism and Realism (2000), Emergentist Marxism (2007), and Against the Spiritual Turn (2010), with another (Realism and Social Theory: Structure and Agency Revisited) forthcoming.

My criminological work is situated in the sociology of crime and deviance. This is concerned with rehabilitating the possibility of a neo-Marxist sociology of crime and social control in late-modern conditions. This draws upon my realist morphogenetic Marxism to rejuvenate the “new criminology” of the 1970s that sought to develop a fully social theory of rule breaking. The aim of this research is to re-establish the contemporary relevance and efficacy of the “new criminology” in a field dominated by administrative criminology, “what works” correctionism, and the irrealist “realisms” of Left and Right. Such is developed in my Critical Realism and the Sociology of Deviance: Towards a “new” Radical Criminology (forthcoming)