Speaker Series: Zhandarka Kurti and Jarrod Shanahan

Dr. Zhandarka Kurti is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Criminal Justice and Criminology at Loyola University Chicago. Dr. Kurti received her PhD degree in Sociology from the State University of New York at Binghamton. Her research and teaching areas include race and criminalization, mass supervision and contemporary politics of criminal justice reforms. She is the co-author of Skyscraper Jails: The Abolitionist Fight Against Jail Expansion in New York City (Haymarket 2025), and States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform and the Future of America’s Punishment System (Field Notes/Reaktion 2022).

Dr. Jarrod Shanahan is the author of Captives: How Rikers Island Took New York City Hostage (Verso, 2022) and Every Fire Needs a Little Bit of Help: A Decade of Rebellion, Reaction, and Morbid Symptoms (PM Press, 2025), and the co-author of States of Incarceration: Rebellion, Reform and America’s Punishment System (Field Notes/Reaktion, 2022), City Time: On Being Sentenced to Rikers Island (NYU Press, 2025) and Skyscraper Jails: The Abolitionist Fight Against Jail Expansion in New York City (Haymarket, 2025). He works as an Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at Governors State University.