Jack Katz

This book is a timely re-introduction to the work and life of one of criminology’s most respected theorists, Jack Katz, exploring the current relevance of this important author and highlighting his work to a broad audience. 

The scholarship of Jack Katz, as evidenced in his seminal Seductions of Crime and otherwise, has over the past three decades offered an alternative philosophical perspective to the study of crime and criminal behavior that is not defined by quantitative method or approach. Katz has radically altered the focus and range of contemporary criminology in a way that few if any other scholars have done and his work been foundational in the development of cultural criminology, itself now a high-profile alternative criminological perspective.  

Through a diverse range of chapters from recognized authors in the field – including a major new interview with Jack Katz himself, in which he describes the development of his ideas, work, and growth as a researcher – contributions take up aspects of his work from a variety of perspectives and discuss and expand its contemporary relevance to the discipline of criminology. 

This book will appeal to postgraduate students and scholars in the areas of criminology, cultural criminology, critical criminology, phenomenology, and sociology.