Jeffrey S. Debies Carl Ph.D.

Jeffrey S. Debies-Carl, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Psychology and Sociology at the University of New Haven. His primary research program focuses on understanding the spaces in which everyday life occurs. Whether they are tangible, digital, or increasingly a bit of both, the places around us are partly the product of human behavior and partly an influence on those behaviors. His work has appeared in many scholarly journals and he is the author of If You Should Go at Midnight: Legends and Legend Tripping in America and Punk Rock and the Politics of Place: Building a Better Tomorrow.

His research currently focuses on the role of strange claims or stories and their relationship to spatial behavior. The belief, without evidence, in the existence of a Northwest Passage or earthly Garden of Eden provided ample motivation to the quests of countless explorers and adventurers even when their searches inevitably ended in tragedy and failure. To understand processes like this, his work focuses on how unusual claims engage debate, motivate travel, and otherwise shape the perceptions of their audiences. These stories can take a number of different forms and so can their consequences. Rumors can spark intense debates, urban legends can motivate travel to alleged sites of mystery, and conspiracy theories can promote a host of potentially problematic behaviors.