Dawson, Lorne L. 1954–

PERSONAL:

Born March 11, 1954, in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada; son of Donald Robert and Muriel Dawson; married; remarried, 2001; wife's name Dianne L.; children: Taylor Fletcher (first marriage). Education: Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada, B.A. (with honors), 1978; McMaster University, M.A., 1980, Ph.D., 1986.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Office—Department of Sociology, University of Waterloo, 200 University Ave. W., Waterloo, Ontario N2L 3G1, Canada; fax: 519-746-7326. E-mail—ldawson@uwaterloo.ca.

CAREER:

University of Lethbridge, Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada, assistant professor of sociology, 1989-92; University of Waterloo, Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, assistant professor, 1992-97, associate professor, 1997-2005, professor of sociology and religious studies, 2005—. Director of the Lauirer-Waterloo Ph.D. in Religious Studies.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Postdoctoral fellow, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, 1987-89.

WRITINGS:

Reason, Freedom, and Religion: Closing the Gap between the Humanistic and Scientific Study of Religion, Peter Lang (New York, NY), 1988.

(Editor) Cults in Context: Readings in the Study of New Religious Movements, Canadian Scholars' Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 1996, Transaction Books (New Brunswick, NJ), 1998.

Comprehending Cults: The Sociology of New Religious Movements, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 1998, revised edition, 2006.

(Editor) Cults and New Religious Movements: A Reader, Blackwell (Malden, MA), 2003.

(Editor, with Douglas E. Cowan) Religion Online: Finding Faith on the Internet, Routledge (New York, NY), 2004.

I nuovi movimenti religiosi, Il Mulino (Bologna, Italy), 2005.

Contributor to several books, including Misunderstanding Cults, University of Toronto Press (Toronto, Ontario, Canada), 2000; Cults, Religion, and Violence, Cambridge University Press (New York, NY), 2002; The Oxford Handbook of New Religious Movements, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004; and Religion in Cyberspace, Routledge (New York, NY), 2005. Contributor to periodicals, including Journal of Contemporary Religion, Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, Sociology of Religion, and Journal of the American Academy of Religion.

SIDELIGHTS:

Lorne L. Dawson once told CA: "While my academic articles are often theoretical and demanding, I have tried to write my books for a more general readership. I think scholars have a social obligation to make reliable information, on often controversial subjects (e.g., why some new religions become violent), as accessible as possible. For this reason I also write newspaper articles occasionally and commonly accept invitations to speak with the media about religious issues in the news."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

ONLINE

University of Waterloo Web site: Department of Sociology Home Page for Lorne L. Dawson,http://sociology.uwaterloo.ca/lorne_dawson.html (April 8, 2007).

University of Waterloo Web site: Faculty of Arts Home Page for Lorne L. Dawson,http://arts.uwaterloo.ca/arts/ugrad/profiles_professors/dawson (April 8, 2007).