I am a Professor of Sociology at James Madison University where I study social movements and ethnic / racial violence. I recently completed a project, Racism on Campus: A Visual History of Prominent Virginia Colleges and Howard University, published by Routledge Press in September 2021.

The slideshow above has yearbook content from the University of Virginia (1-2 Corks and Curls), George Mason (picture 3), Hampden Sidney College (picture 4), Old Dominion University (picture 5), and James Madison University (picture 6).

Another long-term project has been an investigation of the patterns of violence directed toward civilians and ethnic groups during civil war in Iraq.

My early work was on Iranian social movements, particulalrly the Iranian reform movement. Some of this work was published as Social Movements in Twentieth Century Iran: Culture, Ideology and Mobilizing Frameworks (Lexington Books 2006).

I have also written about the sociology of “lifestyle sport.”

I spent much of my early childhood in the Shenandoah Valley, Virginia, but as a teenager lived with my family in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. I attended James Madison University (BS Political Science), Florida State University (MA International Affairs) and Virginia Tech (PhD in Sociology). I currently live in the Shenandoah Valley with my wife Christine and our son and daughter.

This site also includes some of my past (and ongoing) work related to institutional parochialism, institutional racism, social movements, violence directed towards civilians in civil war, social movements in Iran, and the sociology of sport.