Lester Kurtz is professor of public sociology at George Mason University, where he teaches courses on violence and nonviolence, social movements, peace and conflict, globalization, comparative sociology of religion, and social theory. He also lectures regularly at the European Peace University.

Kurtz holds a Master's in Religion from Yale University and a Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Chicago and was previously director of Religious Studies at the University of Texas.

He is the editor of a 3-volume Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace and Conflict (Amsterdam: Elsevier, 2008), co-editor of Nonviolent Social Movements (Oxford: Blackwell), and The Web of Violence (U. of Illinois Press). He is author of many books and articles including Gods in the Global Village (Pine Forge/Sage), The Nuclear Cage (Prentice-Hall) and The Politics of Heresy (U. of California Press), which received the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion’s Distinguished Book Award. He is currently working on books on Gandhi's Paradox and Gods and Bombs.

Dr. Kurtz is the past chair of the Peace and Justice Studies Association as well as the Peace, War, and Social Conflict Section of the American Sociological Association, which awarded him its Robin Williams Distinguished Career Award in 2005. He has lectured in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America and taught at the University of Chicago, Northwestern University, Delhi University in India, and Tunghai University in Taiwan.

Location

Fairfax, Virginia, USA

Disciplines

• Anthropology
• Area Studies
• Cultural Studies and Ethnic Studies
• Sociology
• Education

Affiliation

George Mason University

Website

http://works.bepress.com/lester_kurtz/