Professor Craig Calhoun FBA

Social movements, shifting conditions for democracy and the relation of the local community to larger-scale solidarities have been at the centre of Craig Calhoun’s research. He has explored these themes in historical studies of England, France, and the US, in more contemporary projects in China, Ghana, and the Horn of Africa and in broader comparative-historical and theoretical enquiries. Originally a social anthropologist, Calhoun also engages in history, sociology, political economy, political theory, and philosophy. His work explores possibilities for collective action and choices about human development and social institutions in the face of cultural inheritance and material and social structures. This has led to studies of social movements, democracy, nations and nationalism, the politics of identity and belonging, the future of capitalism, the shaping role of technological infrastructures, and the public sphere. Calhoun has also served as Director of the LSE, President of the Social Science Research Council and published analyses of the transformation of universities and knowledge institutions.