Bryan S. Turner

Bryan Stanley Turner is a British and Australian sociologist (dual citizenship). He was born in January 1945 to working class parents in Birmingham, England. Turner has led a remarkably nomadic life having held university appointments in England, Scotland, Australia, Germany, Holland, Singapore and the United States. He was a Professor of Sociology at the University of Cambridge (1998-2005) and Research Team Leader for the Religion Cluster at the Asian Research Institute, National University of Singapore (2005-2008).^[1] Professor Turner is currently the Presidential Professor of Sociology and Director of the Committee on Religion at The City University of New York,^[2] and Professor of Social and Political Thought and the Director of the Religion and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney.^[3] He is also faculty Associate of the Center for Cultural Sociology^[4] at Yale University, Research Associate, GEMASS at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique,^[5] Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia^[6] and Member of the American Sociological Research Association.

Early life

Turner attended Harborne Collegiate School for Boys and George Dixon Grammar School. He went on to the University of Leeds, where he completed a first class honours degree in Sociology in 1966. He received his Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Leeds in 1970 with a thesis titled "The Decline of Methodism: an analysis of religious commitment and organisation". He has received several honorary degrees recognising his contributions to Sociology: Doctor of Letters at Flinders University in 1987, Master of Arts at the University of Cambridge in 2002 and Doctor of Letters at the University of Cambridge in 2009.

Career

Professor Turner's research interests include globalisation and religion, concentrating on such issues as religious conflict and the modern state, religious authority and electronic information, religious consumerism and youth cultures, human rights and religion, the human body, medical change, and religious cosmologies.^[7]

Turner wrote his first book Weber and Islam^[8] in 1974 and has since established an international reputation for his work on religion, Max Weber and comparative sociology.^[9] He is one of the world’s leading sociologists of religion; he has also devoted significant attention to sociological theory, the study of human rights, and the sociology of the body.^[10]

He is the founding editor of the journals: Body & Society (with Mike Featherstone), Citizenship Studies, and Journal of Classical Sociology (with John O'Neill). He is also an editorial member of numerous journals including: British Journal of Sociology, European Journal of Social Theory, Contemporary Islam and Journal of Human Rights.^[11]

He is the editor of two book series for Anthem Press: Key Issues in Modern Sociology and Tracts for Our Times; and with Gabriele Marranci he edits Muslims in Global Societies for Springer.

Professional recognition