James Rufus Abbott, Ph.D.

Basic Information:
Department of Sociology, Rowan University,
Glassboro, NJ 08028, USA
E-Mail: abbott@rowan.edu
Phone: 856-256-4885

Education:
B.A. University of San Diego
M.A. University of Pennsylvania
Ph.D. University of Pennsylvania

Teaching:
1 Classical Sociological Theory
2 Contemporary Sociological Theory
3 Political Sociology
4 Historical/Comparative Sociology
5 Sociology of Culture
6 Sociology of Knowledge
7 Introduction to Sociology

Recent Publications:
“ Facts, Values and Evaluative Explanation: Contributions of Leo Strauss to Contemporary Debates,” in The American Sociologist, Spring 2001, Volume 32, Number 1, pp. 50-77.

“ Leo Strauss and the American Academy,” a review essay of Kenneth L. Deutsch John A. Murley, eds., Leo Strauss, the Straussians, and the American Regime (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 1999), in SOCIETY, May/June 2001, Volume 38, Number 4, pp. 83-87.

" Louis Sullivan, Architectural Modernism, and the Creation of Democratic Space," in The American Sociologist, Spring 2000, Volume 31, Number 1, pp. 62-85.

“ E. Digby Baltzell Reconsidered” in Sociological Theory, No. 17, Vol. 1, March 1999, pp. 102-107.

Research in Progress:
“ Ressentiment as a Motive Force in Sociological Research,” (with R. Farnum and H.J. Bershady), presented at the annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, August 2002, Chicago, Illinois.

“ Natural Right and American Sociology” (in development)

Abbott is also working on a manuscript focused on 19th century Chicago politics and the evolution of the city’s infamous democratic. This study follows the work of E. Digby Baltzell, a pioneer in the examination of American upper classes and elites. For discussion of Baltzell’s work see my “E. Digby Reconsidered” in the March 1999 edition of Sociological Theory. This edition contains as well commentary on Baltzell’s work by Dennis H. Wrong and Samuel Z. Klausner.