Key Sociological Thinkers

Ted Benton is a Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, UK.

ROBERT J. HOLTON is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.

Jason Hughes is Professor of Sociology at the University of Leicester, UK. His research interests span a range of concerns but include: the sociology of consumption; the sociology of the body and health; emotions, work and identity; figurational sociology and sociological theory; moral panics and regulation. His first book, Learning to Smoke (2003) was winner of the 2006 Norbert Elias prize. More recently he has completed, together with Eric Dunning, a major study of the work of Norbert Elias entitled Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, Process (2013). He has also recently published a number of edited books, including Visual Methods (2012) and Internet Research Methods (2012); and co-edited books, including Moral Panics and the Contemporary World (2013); Human Documents and Archival Research (2013) and Communities of Practice: Critical Perspectives (2007).

STEVE MATTHEWMAN is Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Auckland, New Zealand.

William Outhwaite is Chair and Professor of Sociology at Newcastle University, UK. His recent publications include The Future of Society (2006), European Society (2008), Habermas (2nd edn, 2009) and, with Larry Ray, Social Theory and Postcommunism (2005). His work focuses on social and political change in Europe since 1989, for which he was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Fellowship.