Gray Cavender, Justice Provocateur

This edited volume explores the work and legacy of Dr Gray Cavender, an academic whose work made foundational contributions in the areas of crime and punishment, corporate/government wrongdoing and regulation, gender studies, and media constructions of crime and justice. Dr Cavender’s academic research, teaching, and service spanned more than 50 years as a professor at Arizona State University (ASU) and in earlier positions working in probation and parole and directing criminal justice planning for the state of Tennessee. He was a central actor in the planning and creation of the nation’s first Ph.D. program in Justice Studies, serving as the program's inaugural director. Throughout his life, he sought to do justice, whether conducting scholarly research, teaching a class to hundreds of undergraduates, mentoring graduate students, interacting with colleagues, or working in the community. He also wrote poetry and, later in his career, short stories and novels, always with justice themes. In his life and work Dr Cavender modelled critical and courageous thinking, and the chapters in this volume will provide a small glimpse into how his legacy lives on in the works of the students he taught and mentored. This book features chapters by Dr. Cavender’s former students who now have their own successful scholarly careers. Each chapter discusses an aspect of Dr. Cavender’s scholarship that the author has found influential in their career development and scholarship, with some updating or expanding on his concepts and methods to draw connections between past works and current justice issues. Shorter chapters are included that discuss Dr. Cavender's teaching, mentoring and professional advising as well as his fictional works and their relation to the justice themes in his academic research.