Center for Social Theory

We support the research and teaching of faculty and graduate students in the College of Arts & Sciences and across the university who are working in the broad area of social and cultural theory.

Our Faculty

The Center for Social Theory grew out of the Committee on Social Theory that was created in 2012 to provide graduate students with the opportunity to pursue and obtain an interdisciplinary graduate social theory certificate at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The center continues and institutionalizes the Committee’s activities as they included the organization of conferences, lectures by both outside speakers and Committee members, as well as by graduating students fulfilling the capstone requirement of the graduate social theory certificate. The Center for Social Theory provides a context for faculty and students to complement, counterbalance, or compensate for the limitations associated with individual disciplines — with active exchange related to inter-, cross-, multi- or trans-disciplinary perspectives. The center is fostering and supporting research across the social sciences and humanities, between particular social sciences, or between the humanities, social sciences, and natural/applied sciences.

Director

Harry F. Dahms

Professor of Sociology and Director of Center of Social Theory

Harry F. Dahms is a Professor of Sociology; director of the Center for Social Theory at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville; editor of Current Perspectives in Social Theory; and director of the International Social Theory Consortium. He currently is working on two book manuscripts, “Modern Society as Artifice” (Routledge) and “Beyond Regression.”

Full Faculty Profile