Christopher Muller

Associate Professor

496 Social Sciences Building

Research Interests

Inequality, Incarceration, Historical Sociology, Social Theory

On sabbatical, 2022-2023

I study the political economy of incarceration in the United States from Reconstruction to the present. I am particularly interested in how agricultural labor markets, migration, and struggles over land and labor have affected incarceration and racial and class inequality in incarceration. I have also written on the causes and effects of environmental inequality and inequality in death from infectious disease.

Representative Publications

Christopher Muller and Alexander F. Roehrkasse. 2022. "Racial and Class Inequality in U.S. Incarceration in the Early Twenty-First Century." Social Forces 101:803-828.
James J. Feigenbaum, Lauren Hoehn-Velasco, Christopher Muller, and Elizabeth Wrigley-Field. 2022. "1918 Every Year: Racial Inequality in Infectious Mortality, 1906-1942." American Economic Association Papers and Proceedings 112:199-204.
Christopher Muller and Daniel Schrage. 2021. "The Political Economy of Incarceration in the Cotton South, 1910-1925." American Journal of Sociology 127:828-866.
Christopher Muller. 2021. "Exclusion and Exploitation: The Incarceration of Black Americans from Slavery to the Present." Science 374:282-286.
James J. Feigenbaum, Christopher Muller, and Elizabeth Wrigley-Field. 2019. "Regional and Racial Inequality in Infectious Disease Mortality in U.S. Cities, 1900-1948." Demography 56:1371-1388.
Peter K. Enns, Youngmin Yi, Megan Comfort, Alyssa W. Goldman, Hedwig Lee, Christopher Muller, Sara Wakefield, Emily A. Wang, and Christopher Wildeman. 2019. "What Percentage of Americans Have Ever Had a Family Member Incarcerated?: Evidence from the Family History of Incarceration Survey (FamHIS)." Socius 5:1-45.
Christopher Muller. 2018. "Freedom and Convict Leasing in the Postbellum South." American Journal of Sociology 124:367-405.
Christopher Muller, Robert J. Sampson, and Alix S. Winter. 2018. "Environmental Inequality: The Social Causes and Consequences of Lead Exposure." Annual Review of Sociology 44:263-282.
Deirdre Bloome, James J. Feigenbaum, and Christopher Muller. 2017. "Tenancy, Marriage, and the Boll Weevil Infestation, 1892-1930." Demography 54:1029-1049.
Jonathan L. Zelner, Christopher Muller, and James J. Feigenbaum. 2017. "Racial Inequality in the Annual Risk of Tuberculosis Infection in the United States, 1910-1933." Epidemiology & Infection 145:1797-1804.
Christopher Muller and Christopher Wildeman. 2016. "Geographic Variation in the Cumulative Risk of Imprisonment and Parental Imprisonment in the United States." Demography 53:1499-1509.
Deirdre Bloome and Christopher Muller. 2015. "Tenancy and African American Marriage in the Postbellum South." Demography 52:1409-1430.
Christopher Muller and Daniel Schrage. 2014. "Mass Imprisonment and Trust in the Law." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 651:139-158.
Bruce Western and Christopher Muller. 2013. "Mass Incarceration, Macrosociology, and the Poor." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 647:166-189.
Christopher Muller. 2012. "Northward Migration and the Rise of Racial Disparity in American Incarceration, 1880-1950." American Journal of Sociology 118:281-326.
Christopher Wildeman and Christopher Muller. 2012. "Mass Imprisonment and Inequality in Health and Family Life." Annual Review of Law and Social Science 8:11-30.

Shorter pieces

Christopher Muller. 2017. "Tools for Historical Sociologists." Trajectories: Newsletter of the ASA Comparative and Historical Sociology Section 28: 32-35.
Christopher Muller. 2015. "Politics and Science in the Work of W. E. B. Du Bois." European Journal of Sociology 56:407-412.
Christopher Wildeman, Anna R. Haskins, and Christopher Muller. 2013. "Implications of Mass Imprisonment for Inequality Among American Children," pp. 177-191 in The Punitive Turn: New Approaches to Race and Incarceration, edited by Deborah E. McDowell, Claudrena N. Harold, and Juan Battle. Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press.
Christopher Muller and Christopher Wildeman. 2012. "Punishment and Inequality," pp. 169-185 in The SAGE Handbook of Punishment and Society, edited by Jonathan Simon and Richard Sparks. London: Sage.