Craig Calhoun is University Professor of Social Sciences at Arizona State University and Senior Advisor to the Berggruen Institute. Formerly the President of the Institute, he directed its agenda toward connecting deep thought in the human sciences – philosophy and culture – to great transformations in human life and futures and the pursuit of practical improvements in governance and practical action. Calhoun’s newest book, Degenerations of Democracy (with Charles Taylor and Dilip Gaonkar), was published by Harvard University Press in 2022.
From 2012-2016, Calhoun was Director and President of the London School of Economics and Political Science, where he remains Centennial Professor. Earlier, he was for thirteen years President of the New York-based Social Science Research Council (SSRC), and before that was a University Professor of Social Science at NYU. Calhoun has also taught at Princeton, Columbia and the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. He has held honorary chairs or been a visiting professor in Asmara, Beijing, Berlin, Bristol, Khartoum, Oslo, and Paris and has been honored for his teaching by awards from students at UNC, Columbia, and NYU.
As a social theorist and historical and comparative sociologist, Calhoun has studied democracy and social movements, communications and the public sphere, the future of knowledge institutions, the shifting nature of capitalism and globalization, the future of place-based communities, and the place of technology in social transformation. He has done empirical research in Britain, France, the US, China, and Africa. In recognition of his contributions to social science research, Professor Calhoun was elected a Fellow of the British Academy in July 2015. He is also a Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science, and the American Philosophical Society, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, an Einstein Fellow by the City of Berlin and President of the International Institute of Sociology. His books include Roots of Radicalism (2011), Does Capitalism Have a Future? (2013) and The Green New Deal and the Future of Work (2022); he has published approximately 100 articles. He is the former editor of two scholarly journals, Social Theory and Comparative Social Research.
Calhoun received his doctorate in Politics (with an emphasis on Sociology and Modern Social and Economic History) from Oxford University, following previous study in Southern California, Columbia, and Manchester Universities, mainly in Anthropology. He is Chair of the Board of the American Assembly, President of the Board of Reset Dialogs US, and a member of the Board of the MasterCard Foundation and the Center for Transcultural Studies.
Contact Calhoun at craig.calhoun@asu.edu.