Irene Taviss Thomson

Professor Emeritus of Sociology
Department of Social Sciences and History
Fairleigh Dickinson University
College at Florham

• E-mail: thomson[at]fdu.edu

EDUCATION AND JOB HISTORY:
 
B.A. in Sociology - Brooklyn College, CUNY
Ph.D. in Sociology - Harvard University

After receiving my Ph.D., I worked for six years as a Research Associate to the Harvard University Program on Technology and Society.  For two years thereafter I was a Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University.  I then taught for 32 years at Fairleigh Dickinson.


RESEARCH INTERESTS:
 

My research concerns the relationships between self and society, the meanings of individualism and community in American society, and contemporary cultural and political change. 

Previous publications include: In Conflict No Longer. Self and Society in Contemporary America (Rowman & Littlefield, 2000); "The Theory That Won't Die: From Mass Society to the Decline of Social Capital," Sociological Forum, September 2005; and other articles in Sociological Forum, Social Forces, and American Sociological Review.

My most recent work, Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas, was published by the University of Michigan Press in February 2010. This work challenges the assumption of a deeply divided American society. It finds that the culture warriors all subscribe to the same American cultural ideas and wrestle with enduring dilemmas that have long plagued American politics. There is no single cleavage along which the culture wars are fought - no "either/or." Elite and popular opinion alike support "both/and": individualism and community, morality and pragmatism, populism and elitism. A talk and Q&A about the book was aired on CSPAN's Book-TV.