SOCIAL MOVEMENTS & SOCIAL CHANGE DISTINGUISHED LECTURE SERIES

With funds provided by the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Endowment, Larry Isaac and the Department of Sociology have initiated the “Social Movement & Social Change Distinguished Lecture Series” to bring to Vanderbilt annually a distinguished scholar working in these fields.  Scholars are selected for their contributions to the fields of social movements and/or social change and are expected to showcase sociological imagination, novelty and significant insights through their past and ongoing research.  The visiting Lecturer delivers a university-wide lecture and meets informally with sociology faculty and graduate students.

Past and present Distinguished Social Movement & Social Change Lecturers include:

2019
Edwin Amenta
University of California-Irvine
“Social Movements in the News!”

2015
David Snow
Distinguished Professor of Sociology, University of California—Irvine
“Bringing the Study of Religion and Social Movements Together: Toward an Analytically Productive Intersection”

2014
Aldon Morris
Leon Forrest Professor of Sociology and African American Studies, Northwestern University
“Fate of a Scientific Movement: W.E.B. Dubois and the Birth of American Sociology”

2013
Doug McAdam
Ray Lyman Wilbur Professor of Sociology, Stanford University
“The Relationship between Neighborhood Religious and Civic Life in Chicago, 1970-2005”

2012
Frances Fox Piven
Distinguished Professor of Sociology & Political Science, City University of New York-Graduate Center
“Class War in 21st Century America: Can Occupy Wall Street Beat Back the Corporate Assault?”

2011
Mayer N. Zald
Professor (Emeritus) of Sociology, Management, and Social Work, University of Michigan
“From Appalachia to Rome: Towards a Comparative Framework for the Study of Profiles of Collective Action Potential”