James D. “Jim” Davidson, Jr., 79, passed away on May 22, 2022.  Dr. Davidson was President of the Association for the Sociology of Religion from 2006 to 2007.  He was a national authority in the sociology of religion and a popular keynote speaker at gatherings of bishops, religious educators, and other church leaders. He was also an avid golfer, achieving four holes in one on the golf course.

Jim earned his bachelor’s degree in 1964 at Fairfield University and his master’s in 1966 and doctorate in 1969 from the University of Notre Dame. He joined the sociology faculty at Purdue University in 1968 and taught there until he retired in 2009.  Jim and his colleague Roger Finke were central in building […]

Google “Roland Robertson” and you will immediately encounter the terms “globalization” (and “glocalization”).  Strict priority might be disputed, but if any single name is rightly associated with these concepts, it is his.

On the other hand, read his Wikipedia entry and you come away with the impression that the globalization work is all he ever did.  This is of course not so, and today I wish to speak to the import of some his earlier work (from the 1960’s and 1970’s), setting it in the context of its times as well as its impact on the ASR, in which he was heavily involved for much of his career and of which he was President in 1987-88.

Roland was born just outside Norwich […]

Gary Bouma was Australia’s pre-eminent sociologist of religion and a major contributor to sociology worldwide. A professor at Monash University, he held the UNESCO Chair in Intercultural and Interreligious Relations – Asia Pacific from 2005–21 and directed or participated in scores of national and international research projects on such topics as religious pluralism, religious tolerance, and religions’ role supporting multi-cultural societies. He authored or edited over 30 books and 360 articles, including the path-breaking Australian Soul (2006). He was the Chair of the Board of Directors for the 2009 Parliament of World Religions and also an ordained Anglican priest. To all these roles, he brought a deep commitment to social justice […]

It is with deep sadness that I am writing to let you know that previous ASR President James A. Beckford passed away peacefully at the age of 79 on May 10^th, 2022, in the company of his wife Julie and their three children.

Jim was a Fellow of the British Academy and a long-standing member and supporter of the Sociology of Religion’s professional societies.  His teaching and research took place at both sides of the Atlantic: the universities of Reading and Durham in the UK, Berkeley in California, Loyola in Chicago, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris, and the École Pratique des Hautes Études in Paris. He came to University of Warwick in […]

N.J. Demerath III (‘Jay’), former president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion (2005), former Paul Furfey Lecturer at the ASR meetings (1993), and recipient of the ASR Lifetime Achievement Award (2019), passed away February 5, 2021 in Leeds, Massachusetts.

Jay was born in 1936 to an academic family. His father was Nicholas J. Demerath, Jr., a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina and later Washington University in St. Louis (the academic tradition carried on, as one of Jay’s sons is an anthropologist and another is a sociologist).

Jay received a B.A., magna cum laude, from Harvard University in 1958, and then an M.A. (1962) and Ph.D. (1964) in Sociology from the University of California at Berkeley. There […]

The Department of Religious Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, announces with deep sadness the sudden passing of our colleague Wade Clark Roof on August 24, 2019, in his sleep.  Professor Roof, who was J.F. Rowny Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Religion and Society from 2013, joined the department in 1989 as J.F. Rowny Professor of Religion and Society, at that time already a compelling figure in the sociology of religion.  Previously, he had been Professor in the Department of Sociology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  Raised in rural South Carolina, he graduated magna cum laude from Wofford College in Spartanburg, went on to Yale Divinity School, where he received a master of divinity degree in […]

Carroll’s thoughtful and conceptually-oriented writings reveal a continuing interest in a participatory sociology, the Jesuits, the participatory endeavors of youth, the compass of sociology as a discipline, religion, and the well-being of the elderly. Members of the Association for the Sociology of Religion remember him as the editor of the journal, Sociological Analysis (1973-1980), in many respects defining the character of the journal which typifies it to this day, under the name Sociology of Religion. He served as president of the Association in 1980.

Carroll J. Bourg (1928-2015) – A Tribute by Anthony J. Blasi

In remembering Robert N. Bellah, I hope to evoke both the man and his intellectual work. So I offer here three ideas from Bob Bellah’s work that have made a difference in lives and intellectual trajectories, my own and others’, interspersed with two memories of my interactions with the man… [click link to continue]

A Short Essay in Memory of Robert N. Bellah (1927-2013) by Richard L. Wood

Bill Garrett, ASR President in 1984-85 and editor of the journal Sociological Analysis from 1980 to 1982, died on Tuesday afternoon, August 27, 2013, at the age of 73 after battling a serious illness for the past few years.  For most of his career, Bill taught at St. Michael’s College in Winooski, VT.  A memorial service was held in Burlington, VT, on Saturday, August 31.  His obituary, which appeared in the Burlington Free Press, states that Bill “greatly enjoyed teaching, presenting papers at conferences in the United States and abroad, as well as conducting two week courses in Paris, France.”  Click here to view the full obituary from the Burlington Free Press.