Dr. Majid Yar

Room :	CBB 1.008
Phone :	+44 (0) 1782 584065
Fax :	+44 (0)1782 584069
Email :	m.yar@crim.keele.ac.uk
Role :	Senior Lecturer

I studied at the University of York, UK, where I obtained a BA in sociology and an MA in the Sociology of Contemporary Culture. I went on to complete a PhD at Lancaster University, in the area of critical social theory. I was employed at Lancaster, first as a Research Associate, and then as Lecturer in Criminology. I subsequently lectured in criminology at the University of Kent at Canterbury. I have also taught in the areas of social theory, sociology, cultural studies and philosophy.

I joined Keele as a Senior Lecturer in Criminology in September 2006. I am currently Director of the Centre for Criminological Research (CCR) within the Research Institute for Law, Politics & Justice (RILPJ).

Teaching

I currently teach the following undergraduate modules:
Understanding Crime (with Ronnie Lippens)
Crimes of the Powerful
I also contribute to the Masters in Ethics, Policing and Criminal Justice, which is co-taught by staff from Criminology and the Centre for Professional Ethics (PEAK).List modules here

Research

My research interests and activities span disciplines, with published work in the areas of social and political theory, continental philosophy, cultural analysis, and philosophy of social science, in addition to my criminological work. My current research focuses on the following areas:

1. Crime and the Internet; private policing and information security.
2. Intellectual property crimes and the criminalisation of cultural flows, especially in the context of the 'information society'.
3. Criminological and social theory, especially the relevance of theories of moral recognition for understanding criminal harms. 
4. Crime and popular culture, especially Hollywood films.
   

My work in recent years has mainly centred upon crime and the Internet, culminating in a recently published book, entitled Cybercrime and Society (Sage, 2006). I have also recently completed work on a book co-authored with Martin O’Brien (University of Central Lancashire) entitled Criminology: The Key Concepts, which will be published by Routledge in May 2008. I am continuing work on a book with the provisional title of Intellectual Property Crime: Towards a Critical Criminology of the Information Society. This work combines radical political economy, critical criminology, and the Marxist sociology of law to examine the ways in which new kinds of property rights and property crimes are being created in tandem with the development of information capitalism.

I am currently Reviews Editor for Crime Media Culture: An International Journal (Sage). I also serve on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Cyber Criminology, and The Internet Journal of Criminology, and Res Publica: A Journal of Moral Legal and Social Philosophy
I am a member of the British Society of Criminology (http://www.britsoccrim.org/), and a member of the steering group of the Society's Theory Network. I'm also a member of the Society for Applied European Thought, an inter-disciplinary group of scholars interested in critical research and reflection on matters of political and social importance in a European context (http://www.edgehill.ac.uk/research/saet/).

See Research Institute page for publications and further details.