Faculty - Akhila L. Ananth, Ph.D.

Akhila L. Ananth is an Associate Professor in the School of Criminal Justice & Criminalistics at California State University, Los Angeles. Her research examines constructions of race and gender in the design of juvenile courts and detention facilities. It has been published in edited collections and peer-reviewed journals, including Gender, Place, and Culture and Studies in Law, Politics, and Society. She was the American Communities Program Faculty Fellow in 2017-2018. In addition to this research, she collaborates with various community organizations serving communities of color in Los Angeles.

At Cal State LA, my students come to the classroom ready to ask the hard questions: How do we create a more just world, acknowledging the past mistakes we’ve made as societies? What will our communities look like when we’ve eliminated the causes and correlates of crime and all people feel supported to live productive, healthy lives? We draw from our experiences living and working in Los Angeles to think creatively about racial justice and social change. Every day I come to work, I learn from my students as much as they learn from me. 

Curriculum Vita

Selected Publications Available Online:

• Ananth, A.L. (2014). The Gracious Spaces of Children’s Law: Innocence and Culpability in the Construction of a Children’s Court. Studies in Law, Politics, and Society (63).
• Ananth, A. L. (2019). Sustainable Spaces, Sustained Mass Incarceration: Environmental Protection as Racial Violence in the Design of Juvenile Incarceration. Kalfou, 6(2), 155-176. DOI: https://search.proquest.com/docview/2426494115/fulltext/5C9C42269FA54518PQ/1?accountid=10352
• Ananth, A. L., & Leiva, P. (2019). Policing the People's University: The Precarity of Sanctuary in the California State University System. Social Justice, 46(4), 107-119. DOI: http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/158_06_COMM_Ananth.pdf
• Ananth, A. L. (2017). The home the law built: white domesticity and the designs of juvenile dependency law in Los Angeles, California. Gender, Place & Culture, 24(2), 189-200. DOI: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/0966369X.2016.1277188
• Ananth, A. L., Willard, M., & Herz, D. C. (2019). A Service-Learning Partnership Between Cal State LA and the Los Angeles County Probation Department: Making the Case for Civic Professionalism. Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement, 23(2), 117-130. DOI: https://ojs01.galib.uga.edu/jheoe/article/view/1455

Education

Ph.D. – Criminology, Law and Society (Graduate Feminist Emphasis), University of California, Irvine
MA – Social Ecology, University of California, Irvine
BA – Individualized Study, New York University