VITA

VITA

Name: Douglas V. Porpora

Address: Department of Culture and Communication

Drexel University

Philadelphia, PA. 19104

(215) 248-3503 (home)

(215) 895-2404 (office)

Education:

Ph.D. Sociology, Temple University (June 1982)

B.S. Mathematics, Bucknell University (May 1974)

Positions Held:

9/99 – Present Head, Department of Culture and Communication

Drexel University

9/83 – Present Drexel University

Full Professor 98 - Present

Associate Professor 87 - 97

Assistant Professor 83 - 87

9/98 - 6/99 Drexel University

Academic Co-Director of Service Learning

9/77 - 10/82 Temple University

Instructor/Visiting Professor

1/81 - 10/83 IMS America, Ltd.

Senior Statistical Analyst

Project DAWN (Drug Abuse Warning Network)

Jointly sponsored by NIDA and DEA

6/74 - 9/75 Grumman Aerospace

Systems Analyst

Consultantships:

10/2000 Expert Witness on El Salvador

Law Offices Martha F. Lindner

1500 Walnut Street Suite 405

Philadlephia, PA 19102

1/97 - 6/2001 NETWORK, A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby

Washington, D.C.

8/96 - 8/97 International Red Cross

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

4/96 -10/96 Lower Merion School District

Lower Merion, Pennsylvania

10/95 - 12/95 The Other Side Magazine

10/03 - 12/03 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

10/94 - 12/94 Southeast Pennsylvania United Way

Chester, Pennsylvania

4/85 - 6/85 The United Nations

Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

Thailand

5/79 - 9/79 Pennsylvania Prison Society

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Awards:

Recipient of the 1995 Annual Diana L. Hackney Award from Student Government for guidance of and dedication to student body.

Honorable Mention for Outstanding Scholarly and Professional Titles of 2001, American Association of Publishers, for Landscapes of the Soul.

2001 List of Notable Books, Christian Science Monitor, for Landscapes of the Soul.

Grants:

6/97 - 9/97 Visiting Fellow, Humanities Research Center, Australian National University, Canberra.

7/14/93 – 8/12/93 Fullbright-Hays Summer Seminar in Central America, Fulbright-Hays Foundation.

9/93 – 6/94 National Campus Compact Grant for Participatory Research, $5,000.00.

Book Reviews:

Agents, Structures, and International Relations: Politics as Ontology by Colin Wight. 2007. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Journal of Critical Realism forthcoming.

Agency and Action Edited by John Hyman and Helen Steward. 2004. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Journal of Critical Realism forthcoming.

Respect: In a World of Inequality by Richard Sennett. 2003. New York: Norton. Contemporary Sociology forthcoming.

Review Essay: Quantum Reality and the Flight from Realism by Christopher Norris. 2000 London: Routledge. Alethia October 2001.

Review Essay: Critical Realism in Economics: Development and Debate edited by Steve Fleetwood. 1999. London: Routledge. Alethia October 2000 (no. 2): 30-34.

The Rise of Christianity by Rodney Stark. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Contemporary Sociology 6 (27): 772-773.

Why Not Capitalism Leo Panitch (ed.). London: Merlin Press, 1995, Contemporary Sociology, 1996; 25 (6): 771-772.

The Logics of Social Structure by Kyriakos Kontopoulos. Cambridge, 1992, Critical Sociology, 1995; 21 (3): 129-131.

Review Essay: Analytical Marxism by Tom Mayer (Sage, 1994); Egalitarian Perspectives by Jon Roemer (Cambridge, 1994); Alien Politics by Paul Thomas

(Routledge, 1994); Interrogating Inequality by Erik Ohlin Wright (Verso, 1994) in Contemporary Sociology, 1995; 24 (2): 166-168.

The Structure of Society by Julian Marias. University of Alabama Press, 1988. Contemporary Sociology, 1989; 17:713-714.

Editorials:

"US Policy on Nicaragua Should Address Economics," Christian Science Monitor, Wednesday, October 20, 1993, p. 19.

Books:

Transcendence: Critical Realism and God. With Margaret Archer and Andrew Collier. London: Routledge. 2004.

Landscapes of the Soul: The Loss of Moral Meaning in American Life.

New York: Oxford University Press. 2001.

How Holocausts Happen: The United States in Central America.

Philadelphia: Temple University. 1990.

The Concept of Social Structure. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. 1987.

Articles:

“Moral Muting in US Newspaper Op-Eds Debating the Attack on Iraq.” With Alexander Nikolaev. Under review with Discourse and Communication.

“Talking War: How Elite U.S. Newspaper Editorials and Opinion Pieces Debated the Attack on Iraq.” With Alexander Nikolaev. Forthcoming in special issue on Iraq of Sociological Focus.

“Recovering Causality: Critical Realist Methodology in Sociology.” Forthcoming in Andrea Maccarini and . . .

“On Elder-Vass: Refining a Refinement” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour. 2007, 37 (2): 195-200.

“Are SUV’s the Enemy?” With David Koch. Forthcoming in Ernest Hakanen and Anne-Marie Obajtek-Kirkwood (eds.) Signs of War. New York: Lexington Books, 2007.

"President Bush's Pre-War Rhetoric on Iraq: Paranoid Style in Action" With Alex Nikolaev. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies 2006, 3 (4): 245-262.

“Sociology’s Causal Confusion.” In Ruth Groff (ed.) Revitalizing Causality: Realism About Causality in Philosophy and Social Science. London: Routledge, 2006.

“Methodological Atheism, Methodological Agnosticism, and Religious Experience.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviuor. 2006, 36 (1): 57-75.

“Social Structure” and “Religion.” Entries in Mervyn Hartwig (ed.) Dictionary of Critical Realism. London: Routledge, 2006.

“Alienation and the Cosmos.” Lauren Langman and Devorah Kalekin Fishman (eds.) The Evolution of Alienation : Trauma, Promise and the Millennium. Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield, 2005

“The Spiritual Turn in Critical Realism" New Formations. 2005, 15 91): 147-161.

“Moral Emotions.” Forthcoming in Jack Barbalet and Margot Lyon (eds.) Emotion in Social Life and Social Theory. Boulder: Rowman and Littlefield.

“Bystanders." In Dinah Shelton (ed.) The Encylopedia of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity. Vol. I: 137-140. New York: Macmillan, 2005.

“Objectivity and Phallogocentrism.” In Margaret Archer and William Outhwaite (eds.) On Objectivity: A Festschrift for Andrew Collier. Routledge, 2004.

“Rationality, Religion, and Experience: A Response to the Newest Version of The Rational Choice Theory of Religion.” (With Colin Jerolmack) Sociological Theory. 2004, 22 (1): 140-160.

“Private Dreams and Collective Ideals.” In Arthur Shostak (ed.) Viable Utiopian Ideas. New York: M.E.Sharpe, 2003.

"Social Structure: The Future of a Concept." In David Knottnerus and Sing C. Chew (eds.) Structure, Culture, and History: Recent Issues in Social Theory. Rowman and Littlefield, 2003.

"Do Realists Run Regressions?" After Postmodernism? Critical Realism. Garry Potter and Jose Lopez (eds.) London: Continuum, 2001.

"The Sociology of Ultimate Concern" Alethia: The Newsletter of the International Association for Critical Realism. April 2000, 1 (3): 10-15.

"What Students Do After They Shut Their Statistics Book," with Thomas Hewett, 1999. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers. 31: 314-319.

"Action Research: The Highest Stage of Service Learning?" Pp. 121-134 in Sandra Enos, Gary Hesser, and Jim Ostrow (eds.) Cultivating the Sociological Imagination:

Concepts and models for Service-Learning.in Sociology. American Association for Higher Education in cooperation with the American Sociological Association 1999.

"The Caterpillar’s Question: Contesting Anti-Humanism’s Contestations," Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (Special Issue) 1997, 27 (2/3): 243-264.

"Are There Levels of Social Structure?" Humboldt Journal of Social Relations (Special Issue) 1996 22 (2): 15-29.

"I Always Was a Religious Kid," in Arthur Shostak (ed.) Private Sociology. General Hall Press, 1996.

"Heroes, Religion, and Transcendental Metanarratives," Sociological Forum, 1996, 11 (2): 209-230.

"The Theoretical Status of Marxism," Wisconsin Sociologist, 1993 30: (13) 97-105.

"Participatory Research: Three Models and an Analysis" (with Elizabeth McClean Petras) American Sociologist (Special Issue), 1993, 107-125.

"Cultural Rules and Material Relations," Sociological Theory, 1993, 11 (2): 212-229.

"Rejoinder to Narayanan and Kimura," (with Mah Hui Lim and Usanee Prommas) Development and Change, 1992: 149-154.

"Four Concepts of Social Structure." Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 1989, 19: 195-212. Reprinted in Critical Realism: Essential Readings (1998), edited by Margaret Archer, Roy Bhaskar, Andrew Collier, Tony Lawson, and Alan Norrie. London: Routledge.

"A Response to Jonathan Turner's Behavioral Theory of Social Structure," Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour,1989, 19:127-130.

"The Role of Women in the International Division of Labor: The Case of Thailand" (with Mah Hui Lim and Usanee Prommas). Development and Change. 1989, 20: 269-294.

"Capitalism and Democracy in Malaysia" (with Mah Hui Lim). Southeast Asian Journal of Social Science 1988; 16: 92 - 106.

"Patterns of Stock Ownership and Interlocking Directorates Among Malaysia's Top Corporations" (with Mah Hui Lim) Insurgent Sociologist 1987, 14: 77-102.

"The Political Economy of Migration in Thailand," (with Mah Hui Lim) Journal of Contemporary Asia, 1987, 17:76-89.

"Physicians Prescription of Tranquilizers and Tranquilizer Abuse," International Journal of the Addictions, 1986, 21:559-577.

"A Response to Jeffrey Alexander's Theoretical Logic in Sociology Concerning the Alleged Unidimensionality of Marxian Theory." Sociological Quarterly, 1986, 27:75-90.

"The Role of Agency in History: The Althusser-Thompson-Anderson Debate," Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 6, Scott McNall (ed.), JAI Press, 1985.

"Rejoinder" (to separate comments by Peter Blau, Jeffrey Isaac, Bruce Mayhew, Norbert Wiley and Jonathan Turner), Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (Special Issue),1983, 13:309-320.

"On the Prospects for a Nomothetic Theory of Social Structure." Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (Special Issue),1983, 13:243-264.

"On the Post-Wittgensteinian Critique of the Concept of Action in Sociology." Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, 1983, 13 (2):129-146.

"Nonreductive Materialism and the Materialisms of Marx and Heidegger." Human Studies, 1982, 5:13-30.

"Tasty Baking Company: The Company that Stayed" (with Lynne Kotranski) in Community and Capital in Conflict: Plant Closings and Job Loss. Philadelphia:

Temple University Press, 1982.

"Operant Conditioning and Teleology." Philosophy of Science, 1980, 47 (4):568-582.

Reports:

Welfare Reform: How Do We Define Success. 2001 Report from the Welfare Reform Watch Project of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.

Poverty amid Plenty: The Unfinished Business of Welfare Reform. 1999 Report from the Welfare Reform Watch Project of NETWORK: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby.

Paper Presentations:

Invited Participant to Conference on the Human Person. Funded by Templeton Foundation. April 2007, Sea Island, Georgia.

“The Usenet Debate on Iraq.” Paper presented with Imaani El-Burki and Alexander Nikolaev at Media, War and Conflict Conference, April 2007, Milwaukee.

“Some Did Dare Call It Torture.” Paper presented with Julia Hageman and Alexander Nikolaev at Media, War and Conflict Conference, April 2007, Milwaukee.

"Talking War: US War Editorials Debating the Iraq War." Paper presented at the June 2006 Meetings of the International Communication Association in Dresden, Germany.

"Op-Eds and Race" Paper presented with Imaani El-Burki at the March 2006 Meetings of the Eastern Sociological Association in Boston.

"Are SUV's the Enemy?" Poster Presentation with David Koch at the March 2006 Meetings of the Eastern Sociological Association in Boston.

"Self-Talk and Self Reflection." Paper presented at the 2005 World Congress of the International Institute of Sociology, Stockholm.

"Moral Muting in Newspaper OP-Ed Pieces Debating A Preemptive Attack on Iraq," with Alexander Nikolaev. Paper presented at 2005 Meetings of Eastern Sociological Society, in Washington, D.C.

"How America Deliberates War: Ethical Reasoning in U.S. Editorials on Whether to Attack Iraq,” with Alexander Nikolaev and Dina Awerbuch. Paper pesented at 2005 Annual Meeting of American Sociological Association, in Philadelphia.

"Respondent" to Enzo Giorgino "Sociology of Care" August 2004 Meeting of the National Association of Applied Sociology. San Francisco.

Panelist on narrative approaches to sociology. March 2003 meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society in Philadelphia.

“Liberation Theology and Critical Realism: A Response to Hugh Lacey.” Paper presented at the August 2003 meetings of the International Association for Critical Realism in Amsterdam.

“Author meets the Critics: Douglas Porpora.” Session on my 2001 book, in which I was a respondent. March meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston 2002.

“Toward Truce in the Science Wars: is Donna Hathaway a Critical Realist?” Paper presented at the August 2002 meetings of the International Association for Critical Realism.

“Authors meet their Readers: Margaret Archer.” Invited to organize and chair session. International Sociological Association. July 2002, Brisbane, Australia.

“Reason, Religion, and Experience: A Response to Stark’s Rational Choice Theory of Religion.” With Colin Jerolmack. Presented at the March 2001 Meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Philadelphia.

“Critical Realism, Marxism, and Religion: Gotta Problem with That?” Paper presented at the 2001 meetings of the International Association of Critical Realism, Bradford, England.

“Critical Realism and Social Theory” May 2001 Meetings of the American Ethnographical Society. Mcgill University, Montreal, Quebec.

“Alienation from the Cosmos.” Presented at August 2000 Meeting of the Alienation Working Group of the International Sociological Association. Washington, DC.

Invited talk on Critical Realism and Ethics at the August 2000 meetings of the International Association for Critical Realism. Lancaster, England.

Invited talk on "Critical Realism and Ethics" Center for Critical Realism. University of London. November 18, 1999.

Session organizer: "Agency and Social Structure" for Theory Section of the 1999 Midwest Sociological Association Meetings.

"The Nuns’ Tale: How the New Welfare Legislation is Affecting the Client Population at Catholic Charities" with Alex Welcome and Magali Sarfatti-Larson.

Presented at March 1999 annual meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston.

"What Students Do after They Shut Their Statistics Book" Presented at the 1998 Annual Meeting of the Society for Computers in Psychology (SCiP), Dallas, TX.

"Do Realists Run Regressions?" Invited paper, delivered at Second Annual Conference of the International Association of Critical Realism (IACR), University of Essex, Essex, England, August 1998.

"Discourse Trouble: Phallogocentric Reflections on the Debate Between Seyla Benhabib, Judith Butler, Nancy Fraser, and Drucilla Cornell" presented August

1997 to Humanities Research Center, Australian National University and to Department of Sociology, University of Hawaii.

"Moral Emotions" presented at June 1997 Conference on Emotion in Social Life and Social Theory at the Australian National University, Canberra.

"The Caterpillar’s Question," presented at the Twentieth Anniverary Conference of the Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, Oxford University, December 1996, to the Department of International Relations at the University of Wales (Aberystwyth), December 1996, and to the Bath College of Higher Education, Bath, England, December 1996.

"Athletic Competitiveness and Gender," (with Laura Kieba O’Leary), March 1996 Meetings of the Eastern Sociological Society, Boston.

"African American Community Dwelling Elderly: The Results of a Participatory Research Project" (with David Kutzik and Motoko Mizuno), November 1995

Meetings of The Gerontological Society of America, Los Angeles.

"African American Community Dwelling Elderly: Formal and Informal Supports, Service Access, and Health Needs" (with David Kutzik and Motoko Mizuno),

April 1994 Meetings of The Eastern Sociological Society.

"Who Are Our Heroes", 1994 meetings of Midwest Association for Public Opinion Research in Chicago, Illinois, 1995 meetings of the Popular Culture Association in Philadelphia, PA., 1995 meetings of the American Sociological Association in Washington, D.C.

"Learning Styles and Philosophical Reflectiveness," (with Theresa Gretto) 64^th Annual Meeting of The Eastern Sociological Society, March, 1994 in Baltimore, MD.

Organizer, Roundtables on Participatory Research, Sociological Practice Section, 1993. American Sociological Association Meetings, Miami, FL.

Discussant, "New Approaches to the Caribbean and Central America" Mid Atlantic Latin American Studies Association, Pennsylvania State University. April, 1993.

"Cultural Rules and Material Relations," presented at Second Annual Theory, Culture and Society Conference, Springside, PA, 1992. "Role Responsibility and Reciprocity: Participatory Research with Grass Roots or Community Organizations," 1992, American Sociological Association Meetings, Pittsburgh, PA.

"The Engaged University: How North American Universities are Following the Example of the University of Central America in San Salvador," presented at

August 1991 Meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Cincinnati.

"Computers and the Quest for Security," Eastern Sociological Society Meetings, 1989, Baltimore. Presider and Organizer of session.

"Simulating Social Change in a Third World Country," presentation at 1987 MacAdemia Conference, Boston.

"The Role of Agency in History: A Defense of E.P. Thompson," presented at the 1984 meetings of the American Sociological Association, San Antonio.

"Physicians' Prescriptions for Tranquilizers and Tranquilizer Abuse" presented at the March 1982 meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society.

"On the Post-Wittgensteinian Critique of the Concept of Action in Sociology," presented at the March 1982 meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society.

"The Materialisms of Marx and Heidegger" presented at the Fourth Annual Conference on the State of Marxist Theory, November 1979.

"Marxist Theory and Catastrophe Theory: Toward a Mathematical Treatment of Social Change" (with James Griffis) presented at the April 1978 meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society, Philadelphia.

Publishers and Journals Served as Referee:

American Sociological Review

Sociology of Religion

Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour (Associate Editor)

Journal of Critical Realism (Consulting Editor)

Current Perspectives in Sociological Theory

Teaching Sociology

Sociological Theory

Sociological Perspectives

Critical Sociology

Qualitative Sociology

Oxford University Press

Cambridge University Press

Edinburough University Press

Philosophy of Social Science

Sage

Routledge

Teaching and Research Interests:

Social Theory (particularly relating to issues in philosophy of science and to social structure and human action)

Stratification / Social Change

Regional Studies: Central America, Southeast Asia

Sociology of Culture and Sociology of Emotions

Courses Taught:

Introduction to Sociology

Topics in Political Sociology: Central America (team-taught)

Wealth and Power in America

Classical Sociological Theory

Contemporary Sociological Theory (graduate and undergraduate levels)

Senior Seminar in sociology

Introduction to Women's Studies (team-taught)

Research Methods

Computer-Assisted Data Analysis (graduate and undergraduate levels)

Worldviews: Science, Religion, and Magic

Preparation course for student participation in Model OAS

Statistical Methods (graduate and undergraduate levels)

Social Deviance

Sociology of the New Testament

Developing Nations

Professional Organizations:

American Sociological Association

Eastern Sociological Society

Society of Christian Philosophers

International Association of Critical Realism (American representative on steering Committee)

References: Available upon request.