47 pages • 1 hour read
Renegade Dreams: Living Through Injury in Gangland Chicago
A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Summary and Study Guide
Overview
Renegade Dreams: Living Through Injury in Gangland Chicago (2014) by Laurence Ralph is an ethnographic study focusing on Eastwood, a West Side Chicago neighborhood. Ralph is a writer, researcher, and professor at Princeton University. Originally from Chicago, Ralph earned his MA and PhD in anthropology from the University of Chicago. Renegade Dreams is Ralph’s first book, published by the University of Chicago Press. The book was influential in the fields of anthropology and ethnography. It received the C. Wright Mills Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems (SSSP) in 2015. Subsequently, Ralph wrote two other books, The Torture Letters: Reckoning with Police Violence (2020) and Sito: An American Teenager and the City that Failed Him (2024). Ralph’s work engages with issues of systemic violence, racial discrimination, urban poverty, drug trafficking, and police aggression.
Although Renegade Dreams is an academic study, it includes elements of fiction. Ralph uses a subjective, intimate voice when portraying the stories of the residents of Eastwood. He often switches back and forth between a narrative, personal tone and an academic, analysis-focused perspective. Renegade Dreams addresses themes such as Unlock all 47 pages of this Study Guide Plus, gain access to 8,900+ more expert-written Study Guides. Including features:
