Sociology: Nonviolent social movements, Gandhi, sociology of religion
Lester Kurtz is the editor of the Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict (3 vols., Elsevier) and The Warrior and the Pacifist (Routledge), co-editor of Women, War and Violence (2 vols., Praeger), Nonviolent Social Movements (Blackwell), The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements (Syracuse U. Press), Nonviolent Conflict and Civil Resistance (Emerald), and The Web of Violence (U. of Illinois Press) as well as author of books and articles including Gods in the Global Village (Sage; Beijing University Press Chinese translation), The Politics of Heresy (U. of California Press), Evaluating Chicago Sociology (U. of Chicago Press), and The Nuclear Cage (Prentice-Hall). He is currently working on a book on Gandhi’s Paradox, two edited volumes on Women, War, and Violence (Praeger, 2014), another on The Paradox of Repression, and a project called “Peaceful Warriors.” He has lectured in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and served as chair of the Peace Studies Association and the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association, which recently awarded him its Robin Williams Distinguished Career Award.
The Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, Lester R. Kurtz Editor-in-Chief. 4 volumes. Revised Third Edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier, forthcoming.
Our understanding of violence, peace, and conflict is crucial to the flourishing of humanity and the world, but our scholarship tends to take place in disciplinary silos and often national boundaries. The Encyclopedia brings together a transdisciplinary and transnational collection of experts who can summarize and analyze the best scholarship from across academia around the world in about 350 articles.
Gods and Bombs: Understanding Religion, Violence, and Nonviolence, by Lester R. Kurtz.
Analyzes the conundrum of religion and violence by exploring three motifs: the warrior, the pacifist, and the nonviolent activist. Moving from the Bhagavad Gita, the Hebrew, Christian and Islamic scriptures, the history of the crusades, and the teachings of the Buddha to Mohandas K. Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. it concludes by examining the role of religious beliefs, rituals, and institutions in diffusing Gandhian nonviolent civil resistance in the past century. The ethical dilemmas of the warrior and the pacifist, which provide competing moral concepts of fighting against injustice and evil, etc., as a sacred duty, versus injunctions against harming others. Gandhi’s nonviolent civil resister fights like the warrior but avoids harming like the pacifist.
Fighting Violence, by Lester R. Kurtz.
Max Weber claims that we must wrestle with the demon of our time. For him, in Germany at the dawn of the twentieth century, it was rationality. For us, at the beginning of the twenty-first, it is violence.
Nonwestern Social Theory: An Introduction and Anthology, edited by Lester R. Kurtz
Nonwestern Social Theory is a preliminary investigation into alternatives to classical Western social theory, an exploratory examination of "The Great Books of the Nonwestern World." One major assumption underlies the organization of this course: our knowledge is so profoundly influenced by the social context in which it is constructed that our theories should not be based exclusively on Euro-American experience. The purpose of this anthology is to initiate a dialogue between Western and Nonwestern theory and to provide source materials for preliminary study.
The Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, Lester R. Kurtz Editor-in-Chief. 3 volumes. Revised Second Edition. Amsterdam: Elsevier. Includes an online version in Science Direct. First edition: San Diego: Academic Press, 1999. Revised 4-volume Third Edition is in progress.
The Warrior and the Pacifist: Competing Themes in Buddhism, Judaism, Islam, and Christianity, edited by Lester R. Kurtz. New York: Routledge, 2018.
The Paradox of Repression and Nonviolent Movements, edited by Lester R. Kurtz and Lee A. Smithey. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2018.
Gods in the Global Village: The World's Religions in Sociological Perspective by Lester R. Kurtz. Fourth edition. Thousand Oaks: Pine Forge Press/Sage. Sociology for the Next Century Series. First edition, 1995. Second edition, 2008. Chinese translation: Beijing: Beijing University Press, 2010. Third edition, 2011. Fourth edition, 2015.
Women, War and Violence: Typography, Resistance and Hope, edited by Mariam M. Kurtz and Lester R. Kurtz. 2 volumes. Santa Barbara: Praeger.
Nonviolent Civil Resistance, edited by Sharon Erickson Nepstad and Lester R. Kurtz. Research in Social Movements, Conflicts and Change Volume 34. Emerald Group Publishing. Paperback edition, 2015.
Nonviolent Social Movements: A Geographical Approach, edited by Stephen Zunes, Lester R. Kurtz, and Sarah Beth Asher. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers.
Third World Peace Perspectives, Lester R. Kurtz and Shu-Ju Ada Cheng, Guest Editors. Peace Review: A Transnational Quarterly 10:1 (1998)
The Web of Violence: From Interpersonal to Global, edited by Jennifer Turpin and Lester R. Kurtz. Champaign-Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1997.
The Nuclear Cage: A Sociology of the Arms Race by Lester R. Kurtz. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1988.
The Politics of Heresy: The Modernist Crisis in Roman Catholicism by Lester R. Kurtz. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1986.
Evaluating Chicago Sociology: A Guide to the Literature with an Annotated Bibliography, by Lester R. Kurtz. Foreword by Morris Janowitz. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Heritage of Sociology Series, 1984. Paperback edition, 1986.
2017- Distinguished Research Fellow at the Institute of Nanjing Massacre History and International Peace, Nanjing, China
2014 Lester F. Ward Distinguished Contribution to Applied and Clinical Sociology Award, Association for Applied and Clinical Sociology
2005 Robin Williams Distinguished Career Award, Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association.
Sept. 2000 National Institutes of Health, co-principal investigator with Alfred McAlister,
– May 2003 University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, “Moral Disengagement: Measurement and Modification” (NIH GRANT 1 R21 HD40067: $869,000)
1998 Ford Foundation, “Gandhian Models of Economic Development: Trade versus the Environment” [with Rennison Lalgee and S. Jeyapragasam].
1995 Academic Press grant for preparation of The Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict.
1992- National Science Council (Republic of China), Visiting Research
1993 Professorship.
1990 Indo-U.S. Fellowship, Indo-U.S. Sub-Commission on Education and Culture,
1990 American Institute of Indian Studies Fellowship.
1989 National Science Foundation (U.S.A.) Grant for research in India
-1990
1988 Fulbright Research Fellowship Award for research in India
1987 Distinguished Book Award, Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, for The Politics of Heresy: The Modernist Crisis in Roman Catholicism
1980, 1982, 1986, 1988, 1990 University Research Institute Grants, University of Texas at Austin
1995-1996 Faculty Research Assignment, University of Texas at Austin
1979 Stouffer-Starr Dissertation Grant Award, University of Chicago
Peace and Conflict Studies Sociological Theory (Western and Nonwestern)
Sociology of Comparative Religions History of Sociology
Social Change and Social Movements Religion and Violence
Sociology of Culture Gandhi
Gods and Bombs Nonviolent Social Movements
Blues, Rock and Race Social Movements and Political Protest
University of Chicago Ph.D., 1980 (sociology)
Yale University, M.A.R., 1974 (religious studies)
Westmar College, B.A., 1972 (sociology and religion)
“Postpandemic Gandhi” Lecture for Mahatma Gandhi Central University of Bihar, India to celebrate the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, July 2020. Available online (with more than 5,000 views) here.
“Gandhi’s Global Legacies,” Keynote address at a joint international symposium, “Gandhi’s Global Legacies: Peacebuilding from Asia and the West” hosted by Yonsei University, George Mason University Korea, and the Indian Embassy in Seoul, South Korea, October, 2019. Available online here.
“Tapping Asian Wisdom for Peacebuilding and Resistance,” Asian Pacific Peace Research Association, Jakarta, Indonesia, April, 2019.
“Mobilizing for Happiness,” OECD World Forum, Songdo, South Korea, November, 2018. Available online at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peiV1MDfadE&feature=share.
“The Warrior and the Pacifist are both Buddhist and Muslim,” George Mason University Korea, November, 2018. http://tinyurl.com/y6lpyw57
“The Paradox of Repression and the Promise of Nonviolent Resistance,” Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand, September, 2018. Online at http://tinyurl.com/y3t44kzj
“Why Nonviolent Resistance Works,” Center for Human Rights, Conflict and Peace Studies, Ramkamhaeng University, Bangkok, Thailand, September, 2018. Online at http://tinyurl.com/y32th6au
“The Warrior and Pacifist Motifs: Buddhist and Islamic Traditions,” Prince of Songkhla University, Pattani, Thailand, September, 2018. Online at http://tinyurl.com/y65gqdkb.
“Muslims’ Nonviolent Resistance,” Prince of Songkhla University, Pattani, Thailand, 22 September, 2018.
“Fighting Violence and War: Resources from Asian Civilizations.” Understanding of History and East Asia Peace Forum Nanjing, China, September, 2017.
“Rethinking Nonviolence,” with Johnny Mack, American Sociological Association, Montréal, Canada, August, 2017
“Gods and Bombs,” International Week, Vechta University, Vechta, Germany, June, 2017
Abdullah Al-Nassar, Conversion to Islam and Impact on Racial Identity (2021)