Anthony James Williams is an abolitionist sociologist. Their work examines race and the carceral continuum across prisons and public spaces with their first book project centering the racist practice of solitary confinement in California state prisons. They earned B.A. in Sociology from the University of California, Berkeley as well as their M.A., M.Phil, and Ph.D in Sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Statement: “I had no idea what to expect when I learned that I was accepted into the Visualizing Abolition Dissertation Workshop about a month prior to my dissertation defense. Gina, Herman, Rachel, Sage, and Visualizing Abolition staff provided a wonderful environment in which to commune and they truly do mean the “workshop” part of the title. We spent each day engaging in generative, generous, and in-depth analyses of each participant’s work that depended on having closely read it prior. We also got to break bread multiple times, getting to know each other outside of the chapters we discussed. The organizing faculty, staff, and my fellow participants treated each other as equals deserving of rigorous scholarly consideration. With participants coming from different fields, methods, and approaches, both our academic and personal conversations were dynamic. In short, I feel immense gratitude for the Visualizing Abolition Dissertation workshop as I incorporate the constructively incisive feedback into my book manuscript and think about my future work.”