Information
Membership Number: FCA3603
Membership Type: Fellowship
Division: Social Sciences
Corresponding Email: ******calhoun@asu.edu
Homepage(s): https://calhoun.faculty.asu.edu/
Present and Previous Positions
University Professor of Social Sciences, Arizona State University, 2018–present.
Centennial Professor of Sociology, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2016–present.
President, Berggruen Institute, 2016–2018; Senior Advisor, Berggruen Institute, 2018–present.
Stanley Kelley, Jr. Visiting Professor for Distinguished Teaching, Princeton University, 2022–2023
Director and President, London School of Economics and Political Science, 2012–2016.
President, Social Science Research Council, 1999–2012.
Global Distinguished Professor, 2012–2014 and 2016–2017; University Professor, 2004–2012; Professor of Sociology and History, 1996–2012; Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication, 2007–2012; Chair, Department of Sociology, 1996–1999; Founding Director, Institute for Public Knowledge, New York University, 2007–2012.
Professor of Sociology, Columbia University, 2006–2007.
Professor of Sociology and History, 1989–1996; Dean of the Graduate School, 1994–1996; Director, University Center for International Studies, 1993–1996, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Fields of Scholarship and Research Interests
Comparative and Historical Sociology; Social Theory; Political Economy; Nationalism and Globalization; Democracy and the Public Sphere; Higher Education and Knowledge Institutions
Professor Craig Calhoun is a distinguished sociologist and social theorist whose work has ranged across historical sociology, political economy, social theory, and the study of democracy, social movements, nationalism, and globalization. His scholarship has brought together large theoretical questions and historically grounded inquiry, with research extending across England, France, the United States, China, Ghana, and the Horn of Africa. Over the course of his career, he has been especially concerned with solidarity, collective action, public life, and the institutional conditions under which democratic societies can endure and renew themselves. Trained across anthropology, sociology, politics, and history, Professor Calhoun has long worked in an intentionally interdisciplinary mode.
His writings connect culture, communication, religion, education, capitalism, technology, and globalization with broader reflections on critical theory, the public sphere, and the future of knowledge institutions. In more recent years, he has also addressed the crises of democracy, the changing nature of work, the ethical and social implications of technological transformation, and the search for more just and sustainable futures. What gives his work unusual breadth is that it stands at the meeting point of scholarship and institution-building. Alongside his academic writing, he has helped shape major intellectual and public institutions in international higher education and the social sciences, making him not only a major scholar of contemporary society but also an important steward of academic and public knowledge in practice.
Honors, Awards and Other Membership
Fellow of the British Academy, 2015.
Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (UK), 2014.
Member of the American Philosophical Society, 2012.
Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, 2008.
ISC Foundation Fellow, International Science Council, 2022.
Einstein Fellow, Humboldt University and the City of Berlin, 2010.
Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, 2012.
Honorary Doctorate, La Trobe University, 2005.
Honorary Doctorate, Erasmus University Rotterdam, 2013.
Sigillum Magnum, University of Bologna, 2019.
Distinguished Contribution to Scholarship Award, ASA Section on Political Sociology, 1995.
Distinguished Book Award, ASA Section on the History of Sociology, 2007.
Teacher of the Year, New York University Department of Sociology, 2005.
Professor of the Year, Columbia University Department of Sociology, 2006.
Selected Publications
https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=9aK_IuEAAAAJ&hl=en
Calhoun, Craig. The Question of Class Struggle: Social Foundations of Popular Radicalism during the Industrial Revolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
Calhoun, Craig. Neither Gods nor Emperors: Students and the Struggle for Democracy in China. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994.
Calhoun, Craig, ed. Habermas and the Public Sphere. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.
Calhoun, Craig. Critical Social Theory: Culture, History, and the Challenge of Difference. Oxford: Blackwell, 1995.
Calhoun, Craig. Nations Matter: Citizenship, Solidarity and the Cosmopolitan Dream. London and New York: Routledge, 2007.
Calhoun, Craig, ed. Sociology in America: A History. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Calhoun, Craig. The Roots of Radicalism: Tradition, the Public Sphere, and Early Nineteenth-Century Social Movements. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012.
Calhoun, Craig, Dilip Parameshwar Gaonkar, and Charles Taylor. Degenerations of Democracy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2022.
Calhoun, Craig, and Benjamin Y. Fong, eds. The Green New Deal and the Future of Work. New York: Columbia University Press, 2022.
Other Information
https://council.science/profile/craig-calhoun/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Calhoun
https://www.cjcalhoun.com/about
Professor Calhoun’s career is notable not only for the range and depth of his scholarship, but also for the unusual extent to which he has linked academic research with institutional leadership and public intellectual life. Through major roles at Arizona State University, the London School of Economics, the Social Science Research Council, the Berggruen Institute, and the International Science Council, he has helped shape conversations about the future of the social sciences, the public mission of universities, international academic cooperation, and the role of knowledge in democratic societies. His work has been widely translated and has reached readers across multiple disciplines, countries, and intellectual traditions.