​About Robin M. Williams Jr.

Robin Murphy Williams (1914-2006) was born on October 11, 1914, in Hillsborough, NC, the son of Robin M., Sr. (a farmer), and Mabel (a homemaker). He received his B.S. in 1933 from North Carolina State College; his M.S. in 1935 from N.C. State and the University of North Carolina; his M.A. in 1939 from Harvard University; and his Ph.D. in 1943 from Harvard University. During World War II, he served in the Special Services Division of the US War Department in Washington, D.C., and the European Theater of Operations from 1942 to 1946.

As an Army researcher on the frontlines, he was a contributor to the classic work, The American Soldier. For much of his long and distinguished career at Cornell University (from 1946 to 1985, then emeritus from 1985 to 2003), he was a member of the Sociology Department. He served as chair of that Department from 1956 through 196l and was appointed the Henry Scarborough Professor of Social Science in 1967. After becoming Professor Emeritus in 1985, Williams continued to teach at both Cornell University and the University of California, Irvine. His research fostered understanding of some of the most difficult problems of American society. He devoted much of his career and writing to studies of intergroup tensions, race relations, war and peace, ethnic conflict, and altruism and cooperation.

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Dr. Williams was a Past-President of the American Sociological Association, Past-President of the Eastern Sociological Association, Founding Editor of Sociological Forum, and the Co-Chair of the Committee on the Status of Black Americans. Dr. Williams’ many awards and honors include the Commonwealth Award for Distinguished Service, the American Sociological Association’s Career of Distinguished Scholarship Award, and the Robin M. Williams, Jr. Distinguished Lectureship Award established by the Eastern Sociological Association.

His best-known works include The American Soldier (Vols. 1-11, 1949); Schools in Transition (1954); and What College Students Think (1960); The Reduction of Intergroup Tensions (1947); Strangers Next Door (1964), American Society: A Sociological Interpretation (1st edition, 1951; 2nd edition, 1960; 3rd edition, 1970); Mutual Accommodation: Ethnic Conflict and Cooperation (1977); and most recently, The Wars Within: Peoples and States in Conflict (2003). He was also a co-editor of A Common Destiny: Blacks and American Society (1989). He was the author as well of some hundred and fifty articles, monographs, and chapters in edited volumes.

CURRENT LECTURER (2022-23):

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Daniel Thomas Cook

Distinguished Professor of Childhood Studies Department of Childhood Studies Rutgers University-Camden

Dr. Cook's work focuses on moral configurations of childhood and the child vis-à-vis commercial and economic cultural fields. In particular, he explores the various ways in which tensions between “the child” and “the market” play themselves out in various sites of children’s consumer culture, such as advertising, food, rituals, clothing and media.

He is the author of The Moral Project of Childhood: Motherhood, Material Life and Early Children’s Consumer Culture (2020, NYU Press) and The Commodification of Childhood: The Children’s Clothing Industry and the Rise of the Child Consumer (2004, Duke University Press). The SAGE Encyclopedia of Children and Childhood Studies, a four-volume, 1.1 million word reference work was published in 2020 under Cook’s editorship. A field-defining and field-coalescing work, the Encyclopedia is composed of just under 600 entries on a wide range of topics written by seasoned and emerging scholars and practitioners.

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Along with Spyros Spyrou (European University, Cyprus) and Rachel Rosen (University College London), Cook co-edited Reimagining childhood Studies (2019, Bloomsbury Press), in which contributors rethink the parameters of key arenas of the field in an effort to chart new directions. Cook also is co-editor of Children and Armed Conflict (2011, Palgrave), along with John Wall and is sole editor of Symbolic Childhood (2002, Peter Lang) and The Lived Experiences of Public Consumption (2008, Palgrave).  He is also the founding Chair of the Section on the Sociology of Consumers and Consumption of the American Sociological Association and serves on numerous editorial boards of journal and scientific committees of international scholarly organizations.

 

As part of the Society's attempt to enhance the sharing of ideas, one of our colleagues will be invited to spend time and give lectures on two campuses within the Society's jurisdiction during their year as the Williams Lecturer. The ESS Executive Office will provide transportation and honoraria: the host institution will take care of local arrangements, including room and board. The individual chosen for the Lectureship will receive an honorarium and will present two lectures on campuses in the ESS region during the terms of his or her appointment. (These campuses will be selected on a competitive basis.)

To apply for Dr. Cook to speak at your institution, please follow these guidelines:
In no more than 1 page (500 words), please let us know: 1) why Dr. Cook is a good fit for speaking on your campus and what contributions the Williams lectureship will make to your community; 2) how the ESS Robin M. Williams, Jr. Distinguished Lecture by Dr. Cook would be promoted if your campus is selected. The response to these questions should be a short statement (bullet points are fine). Deadline November 1, 2022.

Submit to: Jennifer C. Lena, ESS Vice President: jcl42@tc.columbia.edu

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TO NOMINATE SOMEONE FOR THE 2023-24 ROBIN M. WILLIAMS, JR. LECTURE:

Please send nominations (self-nominations welcome) in a letter detailing the reasons for the nomination along with no more than two supporting letters by December 15, 2022, to the Robin M. Williams, Jr., Lectureship Committee Chair:

Simon Cheng, ESS Vice President-Elect

University of Connecticut

simon.cheng@uconn.edu

Committee Members:

Dana R. Fisher, University of Maryland, ESS President-Elect

Anthony R. Hatch, Wesleyan University, 2021 RMW Recipient

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