About the Furfey Lectures*
The Furfey Lecture has been given at the ASR Annual Meeting since 1981, continuing an earlier series begun in 1974 at The Catholic University of America. It is named in honor of Paul Hanley Furfey, the seventh president of the Association. As both professor and priest, Dr. Furfey demanded of himself and others not only rigor in sociological method but also a sense of sociology’s role in serving the needs of people. In his book The Scope and Method of Sociology (1953) he introduced the term “metasociology,” or that area of sociology delving into the assumptions and value judgments underlying theories and methods.
The series’ earliest lectures were given by Robert Bellah (1974), Benton Johnson (1975), Gordon Zahn (1976), Talcott Parsons (1977), Robert Drinan (1978), Suzanne Keller (1979), David Moberg (1980), Marie Augusta Neal (1981), and James Beckford (1982).
* Edited from a longer description in the Spring, 1982 issue of Sociological Analysis, the ASR’s journal.
Videos of Past Presidential and Furfey Lectures
Each year, the outgoing ASR President delivers a Presidential address at the ASR Annual Meeting. Each year, that president invites a distinguished scholar to present a Furfey Lecture — a lecture series that began in 1981 and is described HERE.
We are fortunate to have videos of the some of the most recent lectures posted on the ASR YouTube Channel. So far, we have posted:
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The 2025 Presidential Address by Tricia C. Bruce: “From Pews to Popes: Fragility, Continuity, and Resilience in the Sociology of Religion”
The 2023 Presidential Address by Gerardo Martí: “Racial Justice and Racialized Religion: Are Progressive White Christians Getting It Right?”
The 2023 Furfey Lecture by Penny Edgell: “After Restructuring: Understanding the American Religious Landscape of the Twenty-First Century”
The 2022 Presidential Address by James Spickard: “Sensitizing Blinders: Theorizing about Theory in a Post-Colonial Era”
The 2021 Presidential Address by James Cavendish: “Religion as a Resource in an Increasingly Polarized Society”
The 2021 Furfey Lecture by Kelsy Burke: “Piety, Perversion, and Politics: The False Dichotomy of Sex and Religion in America”
