Interview 17 Philip S. Gorski

Abstract

Philip Gorski is currently a professor at the Department of Sociology, co-Director of Yale’s Center for Comparative Research (CCR) and the Religion and Politics Colloquium at the Yale MacMillan Center. He gained his B.A. in social studies from Harvard College in 1986 and Ph.D. in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley in 1996. Gorski joined the faculty of the University of Wisconsin at Madison immediately after he graduated and moved to Yale University in 2004. Gorski is well known as a comparative-historical sociologist with strong interests in theory, methods and modern and early modern Europe. His empirical work focuses on topics such as state-formation, nationalism, revolution, economic development and secularization with particular attention to the interaction of religion and politics. Other current interests include the philosophy and methodology of the social sciences and the nature and role of rationality in social life. His work has been recognized widely, such as Max Weber’s Economy and Society, The Protestant Ethic Revisited. And he has been the co-editor of Sociological Theory since 2004.