Larry W. Isaac
Professor of Sociology & Political Economy
Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Endowed Chair
Professor of American Studies (Secondary)
President, Southern Sociological Society (2007-2008)
Editor, American Sociological Review (2010-2015)
Department Chair (2015-2021)
Larry W. Isaac received his PhD from Indiana University (Bloomington) and currently holds the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Endowed Chair in Sociology and Political Economy. Previously he was the Mildred and Claude Pepper Distinguished Professor of Sociology at Florida State University. He specializes in social movements (anti-racist civil rights and labor), political economy of inequality, and historical sociology. He is the author of numerous scholarly articles in leading journals including the American Journal of Sociology, American Sociological Review, Social Forces, and many more. His work has been the recipient of a series of national awards (from: ASA, NSF, NEH), the Vanderbilt Chancellor’s Award for Research, and he is a fellow of the honorary Sociological Research Association. He is the past president of the Southern Sociological Society, past editor of the American Sociological Review, and past department chair. His most recent publications include “Striking News: Discursive Power of the Press as Capitalist Resource in Gilded Age Strikes,” American Journal of Sociology (2022).
Specializations
Social Movements; Political Economy; Historical Processes of Social Change
Representative Publications
Larry W. Isaac, Jonathan S. Coley, Quan D. Mai, & Anna W. Jacobs. “Striking News: Discursive Power of the Press as Capitalist Resource in Gilded Age Strikes.” American Journal of Sociology 127 (5), March 2022: 1602-1663
Larry W. Isaac, Rachel G. McKane, & Anna W. Jacobs. “Pitting the Working-Class Against Itself: Solidarity, Strikebreaking, and Strike Outcomes in the Early Labor Movement.” Social Science History: 46 (2), Summer, 2022: 315-348.
Larry W. Isaac, Jonathan S. Coley, Daniel B. Cornfield, & Dennis C. Dickerson. “Pathways to Modes of Movement Participation: Micro-mobilization in the Nashville Civil Rights Movement.” Social Forces 99 (1) September 2020: 255-80.
Larry W. Isaac, Anna W. Jacobs, Jaime Kucinskas, & Allison McGrath. “Social Movement Schools: Sites for Consciousness Transformation, Training, and Prefigurative Social Development.” Social Movement Studies 19 (2), 2020: 160-182.
Larry W. Isaac. “Performative Power in Nonviolent Tactical Adaptation to Violence: Evidence from U.S. Civil Rights Movement Campaigns.” Chapter 2 (pp. 27-53) in Social Movements, Nonviolent Resistance, and the State, edited by Hank Johnston. London: Routledge, 2019.
Larry W. Isaac, Jonathan S. Coley, Daniel B. Cornfield, & Dennis C. Dickerson. “Preparation Pathways and Movement Participation: Insurgent Schooling and Nonviolent Direct Action in the Nashville Civil Rights Movement.” Mobilization 21 (2), June 2016: 155-176.
Larry W. Isaac. “Movements, Aesthetics, and Markets in Literary Change: Making the American Labor Problem Novel.” American Sociological Review 74 (6), December 2009: 938-965.
[Recipient of: “Clifford Geertz Award,” ASA Section on Culture; “Distinguished Scholarly Article Award,” ASA Section on Labor Movements; Vanderbilt University Chancellor Research Award].
Larry W. Isaac. “Movement of Movements: Culture Moves in the Long Civil Rights Struggle.” Social Forces 87 (1), September 2008: 33-63.