Armand Mauss

Infobox academic
name = Armand Mauss
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birth_date = Birth date and age|1928|6|5
birth_place = Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
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field = Sociology
work_institutions = Washington State University
alma_mater = Sophia University
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religion = Mormon
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Armand Lind Mauss (born June 5 1928) is an American sociologist specializing in the sociology of religion. He is professor emeritus of Sociology and Religious Studies at Washington State University, is the most often published sociologist in the twentieth century of works on the Mormons, and is broadly recognized as one of the leading Mormon intellectuals of his generation.

Academic work

Mauss joined the Washington State University faculty of sociology in 1969, formally retiring there in 1999. During his career, he taught and published in several different fields of sociology and social problems, but his work in the sociology of religion was ultimately the most visible. He has enjoyed invitations as visiting professor at several universities in California, Canada, and the United Kingdom. In 2004, he was invited as a visiting scholar to the School of Religion at the Claremont Graduate University in California, where he taught courses on the history and sociology of the Mormons and helped to develop the Council for the Study of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the Howard W. Hunter Chair in Mormon Studies [http://www.howardhunterfoundation.org ] , first occupied by Richard L. Bushman.

Author or editor of five books and scores of academic articles, Mauss also served as editor of the "Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion", the major journal in its field. He has received three different awards from the Mormon History Association for his books and other works, and two from the Dialogue Foundation for his articles in "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought", the major scholarly journal in Mormon Studies, independent of Church auspices. Mauss had a formative influence on the rise and survival of "Dialogue", serving 20 years on its editorial or advisory boards, and then ten years as either chairman or member of the Dialogue Foundation's Board of Directors. Mauss also served as president of the Mormon History Association from 1997–1998. [cite web|title=Past MHA Presidents|publisher=Mormon History Association|url=http://www.mhahome.org/about/past_presidents.php|accessdate=2008-07-21]

Biography

Mauss was born June 5, 1928, in Salt Lake City, Utah and grew up in California, graduating from Oakland High School in 1946. A life-long Mormon, he served a full-time, two-year mission as a youth for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in New England, and throughout his life in many other lay ecclesiastical roles. In 1949, he accompanied his family to Japan where his father was sent to preside over the work of the Church in east Asia. In 1954 Mauss graduated from Sophia University of Tokyo, a distinguished Jesuit institution, with a B.A. in History and Asian Studies. While in Japan, he was also inducted into the U.S. Air Force, serving four years in military intelligence. During that period he was married to Ruth E. Hathaway. They eventually became parents of six sons and two daughters. After returning to California, Mauss earned his M. A. degree in 1957 (history, with an emphasis on Asia) and in 1970 his Ph.D. in sociology, both at the University of California, Berkeley.

Publications

Books

* "All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage". Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2003. ISBN 0252028031

* "The Angel and the Beehive: The Mormon Struggle with Assimilation". Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1994. ISBN 0252020715

* "Neither White nor Black: Mormon Scholars Encounter the Race Issue in a Universal Church". Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1984. (Lester E. Bush Jr., and Mauss, authors and editors.) ISBN 0941214222

* "This Land of Promises: The Rise and Fall of Social Problems in America". Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1977. (Mauss and Julie C. Wolfe, eds.) ISBN 1397473710

* "Social Problems as Social Movements". Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott Co., 1975. ISBN 0397473257

Representative articles since 2000

* Mormons and Race, in Richard T. Schaefer, ed., "Encyclopedia of Race, Ethnicity, and Society". Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publishing Co., Vol. 2 (2008).

* From Near Nation to World Religion. In Cardell Jacobson, Tim Heaton, and John Hoffman, eds., "Revisiting O’Dea’s The Mormons: Persistent Themes and Contemporary Perspectives". Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press (2008).

* The Emergence of Mormon Studies in the Social Sciences, 121-150 in Anthony J. Blasi, ed., "American Sociology of Religion: Histories". Leiden and Boston: Brill Academic Publishers (2007).

* Flowers, Weeds, and Thistles: The State of Social Science Literature on the Mormons. 153-97 in Ronald W. Walker, David J. Whittaker, and James B. Allen, eds., "Mormon History" (bibliographic essays). Urbana & Chicago: University of Illinois Press (2001).

* Attaining a “Sophisticated Maturity”: A Brief History of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. "Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion" 39 (4): 449-73 (JSSR 50th anniversary issue). With Stacy A. Hammons (2000).

* Social Problems, 2759-2766 in E. F. Borgatta & R. J. V. Montgomery, eds. "Encyclopedia of Sociology" (2nd edition). New York: Macmillan Co., 2000 (with Valerie Jenness).

Notes

External links

* [http://libarts.wsu.edu/soc/people/faculty_profile_web/ArmandMauss.html Professional C. V.]
* [http://www.sssrweb.org/ Society for the Scientific Study of Religion]
* [http://www.howardhunterfoundation.org Howard W. Hunter Foundation]