Johanna E. Foster, Ph.D., is professor of sociology and the Helen Bennett McMurray endowed chair of social ethics in the Department of Political Science and Sociology. She holds a Ph.D. in sociology from Rutgers University (2000), and an M.A. in applied sociology/social policy from The American University (1994), where she also earned a B.A. in interdisciplinary studies/women’s studies (1992). Foster studies structural inequalities from an intersectional feminist political economy lens and has examined disaster capitalism in higher education; gender salary disparities in academia; ethical issues in media coverage of sexual and gender-based violence in conflict zones; and feminist abolitionist approaches to mass incarceration. Her research (with Sherizaan Minwalla) on media ethics and the coverage of Yazidi women survivors of the 2014 ISIS genocidal attacks received international media attention, as well as recognition from UN agencies. Over the years, Foster’s work has been published in Gender & Society; Feminist Media Studies; Women’s Studies International Forum; Equal Opportunities International; Sociological Forum; Research in Political Sociology and elsewhere. For nearly 20 years, Foster combined her teaching and research efforts in social inequalities with work to restore higher education in prison communities in the United States, co-founding The College Bound Consortium for incarcerated women in New Jersey (now NJ-STEP at Rutgers-Newark and RISE at Raritan Valley Community College), and College Connections, the college program for incarcerated women at Taconic Correctional Facility in New York State (now with Hudson Link for Higher Education). She also co-founded the Monmouth University Academic Exchange Program (with Eleanor Novek, Ph.D.) where Monmouth University students and college students living in New Jersey state prisons studied together in combined classes inside the facilities.

Foster is a past-president of the Monmouth University AAUP-AFT bargaining chapter (FAMCO) in West Long Branch, New Jersey, where she also served as chief negotiator. When not teaching and researching in sociology, or supporting the academic labor movement, Foster maintains an active art practice, recently earning an M.F.A. in painting and drawing from New Jersey City University (2026).

Education

Ph.D., Rutgers University

M.A., American University

M.F.A., New Jersey City University (expected 2026)

Current Research Interests

Macro-inequalities from an intersectional feminist political economy lens; disaster capitalism in higher education; ideology; political consciousness, and social movements; liberal cultural apparatuses and the reification of AI; and critical analyses of mass incarceration with an emphasis on women and prisons.

Books

Marina Vujnovic & Johanna E. Foster (2022). Higher Education and Disaster Capitalism in the Age of COVID-19. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.

Select Scholarly Articles

with Jen McGovern. “The Persistence of Separate and Unequal: Debunking Myths of the Market in Bargaining for Faculty Gender Salary Equity,” Journal of Collective Bargaining in the Academy: Vol. 15, Article 2. (2024).: https://doi.org/10.58188/1941-8043.1916

with Sophie Foster-Palmer. (2023). Theorizing Racialized Disaster Patriarchal Capitalism in the Context of COVID-19: A Framework for Feminist Policy Change, Journal of Social Issues, Special Issue, Magnifying Inequity: Women’s Lives During the COVID-19 Global Pandemic, M. Fulcher and L. Dinella (Eds). (2024).

“Educating for organizing in U.S. sociology: A missing component of scholar-activist pedagogy.” Sociological Forum. (2020). DOI: 10.1111/socf.12652

with Sherizaan Minwalla and Sarah McGrail. “Rape, Genocide and Careless Disregard: Media Ethics and the Problematic Reporting of Yazidi Survivors of ISIS Sexual Violence,” Feminist Media Studies. (2020) DOI: 10.1080/14680777.2020.1731699

with Sherizaan Minwalla. “Voices of Yazidi Women: Perceptions of Journalistic Practices on the Reporting of ISIS Sexual Violence” Women’s Studies International Forum 67: 53-64. (2018).

“In Keeping With Family Tradition: American Second Wave Feminists and the Social Construction of Political Identity.” Qualitative Sociology Review 14(1): 6-28. (2018).

“Women of a Certain Age: Second Wave Feminists Reflect Back on 50 Years of Struggle in the United States,” Women’s Studies International Forum. 50, 68-79. (2015).

“Where is the Public Sociology in Public Social Movement History Sites? The Case of the Civil Rights Movement.” The Michigan Sociological Review, 28, 35-55. (2010).

“Conversations in Black and White: The Limitations of Binary Thinking About Race in America.” in Julius Adekunle and Hettie Williams, Eds., Color Struck: Essays on Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective, University Press of America. (2006).

“Defining Racism to Achieve goals: The Multiracial and Black Reparations Movements” in David Brusma, Ed. Mixed Messages: Multiracialism in the “Colorblind Era”, Lynn Rienner Press. (2006)

with Rebecca Sanford. “Does Gender Shape Women’s Access to College Programs in the U.S. State Prisons?” in Equal Opportunities International, Special Issue on Democratizing Access to Education for Marginalization Populations. Vol 25, pp. 577-598.  (2006)

“Invitation to Dialogue: Clarifying the Position on Feminist Gender Theory in Relation to Sexual Difference Theory”, in Gender and Society, Vol. 13, Number 4, pp. 431-456 (1999).