Taking “community” as a central concept, emeritus professor of development sociology Frank Young has published a collection of articles and essays that embodies a new approach to the study of sociology. Communities must regularly deal with a range of threats from nature, other communities, and internal conflicts. Success in managing threats depends on a community’s problem solving capacity, characterized by the ability to engage key social strategies such as the application of specialized knowledge and the practice of constructive public debate about alternative courses of action.  In a Chats in the Stacks book talk at Mann Library, Dr. Young will highlight the potential of this neo-Durkheimian framework in social ecology for understanding contemporary problems such as income inequality, the negative impacts of corporate production, and the Islamic Counter-Reformation. 

Books available for purchase and signing, and light refreshments served.