Donald N. Levine
Professor
B.A. University of Chicago, 1950
M.A. University of Chicago, 1954
Ph.D. University of Chicago, 1957
Office: Gates-Blake 509
Phone: 773-702-7917
Email: dlok@midway.uchicago.edu
Donald N. Levine is the Peter B. Ritzma Professor of Sociology.
Levine's current research and teaching interests focus on classical social theory, modernization theory, Ethiopian studies, conflict theory and aikido, and philosophies of liberal education.
Levine's current research projects include an examination of the positive and negative effects of modernization, body and society, a cross-cultural study of masculinity and warriorhood, translating and editing texts of Georg Simmel, and the study of the history and future of liberal learning.
Journals
Dr. Levine serves on the editorial boards of the American Journal of Sociology, Journal of Classical Sociology, Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences, Theory, Culture and Society, and the Aiki Thought papers.
Centers
Committee on African StudiesResearch Interests
Culture, Social Theory, and Transnational Processes.
Selected Publications
Powers of the Mind: The Reinvention of Liberal Learning in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006.
"Merton's Ambivalence towards Autonomous Theory-and Ours." Canadian Journal of Sociology 31(2), 2006.
"Japan, Ethiopia, and Jamaica: A Century of Globally Linked Modernizations." International Journal of Ethiopian Studies 2(1), 2006.
"Somatic Elements in Social Conflict." In Embodying Sociology: Retrospect, Progress and Prospects, ed. Chris Shilling. Oxford: Blackwell, 2006.
"Georg Simmel." In Fifty Key Sociologists: The Formative and the Contemporary Thinkers, ed. John Scott. London: Routledge, 2006.
"Does Modernity have a Core Ethical Complex After All?" In The Concept of Modernity, ed. Gerard Delanty (forthcoming).
"Reconfiguring the Ethiopian Nation in a Global Era," Journal of Ethiopian Studies, 2005.
"Modernization and its endless discontents." After Parsons: A Theory of Social Action for the 21st Century, Russell Sage, 2005.
"The Continuing Challenge of Weber's Theory of Rational Action, Economy and Society at 2000, Stanford University Press, 2005.The Dialogical Turn. Essays in Honors of Donald N. Levine, ed. C. Camic and Hans Joas. Rowman & Littlefield, 2004.
"Dialogues of the Nations: Revisiting Visions and Its Critics, The Sociological Quarterly, 2001.
Greater Ethiopia: The Evolution of a Multiethnic Society, revised edition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Amharic translation: Tiliqua Etyopya. Addis Ababa: Addis Ababa University Press, 2001.
"Ethiopia and Japan in Comparative Civilizational Perspective." Passages: Journal of Transnational and Transcultural Studies, Spring 2001.
"On the Critique of 'Utilitarian' Theories of Action: Newly Identified Convergences Among Simmel, Weber, and Parsons, Theory, Culture and Society, 2000.
"Theory and Practice Revisited: Reflections on the Philosophies of Richard McKeon and Talcott Parsons,"
Pluralism in Theory and Practice: Richard McKeon and American Philosophy, Vanderbilt University Press, 2000.
"Simmel Reappraised," in Reclaiming the Sociological Classics, ed. Charles Camic. London: Blackwell, 1997.
Visions of the Sociological Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Portuguese translation: Vis.1es da Tradi? .o Sociol ?gica. Rio de Janeiro: Jorge Zahar, 1997.
"Conflict, Aggression, and the Body in Euro-American and Asian Social Thought." International Journal of Group Tensions 24 (1994): 205-17.
The Flight from Ambiguity: Essays in Social and Cultural Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1985; paperback, 1988.
