Books

The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today

University of Chicago Press, 2022

"This book provies a thought-provoking analysis of how the culture and organization of American univeristies contributes to the political polarization that rocks campuses. Deeply researched, this beautifully written book tracks the social and material resources that shape student politics." Laura Hamiliton

"What drives student politics at the American university? And why do so many student - on both sides of the political aisle - seem to shout past each other? Amy Binder and Jeff Kidder have produced a fresh set of answers. Whether you sit on the left of the right - or somewhere in between - you should read this smart book." Jonathan Zimmerman

"The Channels of Student Activism offers a superb analysis of college student politics and the forces that shape their activism, and is a must-read for anyone interested in social movements or contemporary college cultures." Social Forces 

Press coverage and multimedia

Parkour and the City: Risk, Masculinity, and Meaning in a Postmodern Sport

Rutgers University Press, 2017

"In this fascinating book, Kidder reveals the complex ways in which parkour participants engage with risk and perform hegemonic forms of sporting masculinity. Parkour and the City reveals many of the paradoxes of informal lifestyle sporting activities and the ways they resonate with postmodern culture." Belinda Wheaton

"Combining lucid prose and informed by critical scholarship, Kidder elucidates the meanings and cultures of a twenty-first century sport from the streets of the megacity to the hand-held social media device. Timely and sound, Parkour and the City has much to offer to the community.​" Paul Gilchrist

"This is a well-researched, well-written, and ultimately intriguing study that will position Kidder at the forefront of scholarship on this cultural form for some time to come." American Journal of Sociology

Multimedia

Urban Flow: Bike Messengers and the City

Cornell University Press, 2011

"The opening vignettes and Jeffrey L. Kidder's account of 'being there' as an insider convey from the outset the level of his involvement in and understanding of the world of the bike messengers. He captures the messengers' subcultural norms and values and lifestyle in great detail within the context of their world of work and the urban environment to show how they make sense of themselves both as individuals and as a community." Frank Worthington

"Urban Flow captures the unseen world of urban bike messengers... This exciting look at an understudied aspect of urban life explains the symbols and the skill sets of a highly developed, often misunderstood subculture. Ultimately Urban Flow is about the ability of bike messengers to play with, and flow through, city streets; all while doing a job most city dwellers love to hate." Gregory Snyder

"Urban Flow's principle contribution is a call to sociologists of culture to more thoroughly examine emotions, space, and the relationship between the two; emotions are emplaced, and physical structures significantly shape interaction. Through what Kidder calls the 'affective appropriation of space' messengers resist the conformist, rationalized world of the city, affording moments, however small, of creativity and liberation." Qualitative Sociology

Press coverage and multimedia

Articles

Campus politics

Normalizing Disreputable Exchanges in the Academy  (co-authored with Amy J. Binder and Zosia Cooper) Qualitative Sociology (2025)

Keeping Libertarianism Alive in the Academy  (first authors Zosia Cooper and Amy J. Binder) Socius (2024)

The Politics of Speech on Campus  (co-authored with Amy J. Binder) Sociological Forum (2021)

Trumpism on College Campuses  (co-authored with Amy J. Binder) Qualitative Sociology (2020)

Civil and Uncivil Places: The Moral Geography of College Republicans  American Journal of Cultural Sociology (2018)

College Republicans and Conservative Social Identity  Sociological Perspectives (2016)

Parkour

Parkour: Adventure, Risk, and Safety in the Urban Environment  Qualitative Sociology (2013)

Parkour, Masculinity, and the City Sociology of Sport Journal (2013)

Parkour, the Affective Appropriation of Urban Space, and the Real/Virtual Dialectic City & Community (2012)

Bike Messengers

Hollywood, Bike Messengers, and the New Economy Critical Sociology (2016)

Appropriating the City: Space, Theory, and Bike Messengers Theory & Society (2009)

Bike Messengers and the Really Real: Effervescence, Reflexivity, and Postmodern Identity Symbolic Interaction (2006)

"It's the Job I Love": Bike Messengers and Edgework Sociological Forum (2006)

Style and Action: A Decoding of Bike Messenger Symbols Journal of Contemporary Ethnography (2005) 

Other Projects

Reconsidering Edgework Theory: Practices, Experiences, and Structures International Review for the Sociology of Sport (2022)

What We Talk About When We Talk About Taxes (co-authored with Isaac William Martin) Symbolic Interaction (2012)

Towards a Theory of Emotive Performance: With Lessons from How Politicians Do Anger (co-authored with Kwai Hang Ng) Sociological Theory (2010)

Essays

Politics

The Channeling of the American Mind  (co-authored with Amy J. Binder) Heterodox: The Blog (2022)

Higher Education for American Democracy and the Channels of Student Activism (co-authored with Amy J. Binder) Change: The Magazine of Higher Learning (2022)

In the Trump Era, Campus Conservative Groups are Fighting One Another (co-authored with Amy J. Binder) Monkey Cage (2020)

Student Activism is Often Uncivil. We Can Change That  (co-authored with Amy J. Binder) The Chronicle of Higher Education (2019)

If You Think Campus Speech is All Angry Confrontation, You're Looking in the Wrong Places (co-authored with Amy J. Binder) Monkey Cage (2018)

Jeff Sessions Just Criticized University Safe Spaces, But Conservatives Want Their Own Safe Spaces Too Monkey Cage (2017)

America's Middle-Class Tax Morality The Guardian (2012)

Other

Edgework in the Workplace Work in Progress (2011)

Lessons from Bike Messengers  Berfrois (2011)

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