Thomas Robbins (sociologist)
Encyclopedia
Life and work
Robbins obtained a B.A. in government from Harvard UniversityHarvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
in 1965, and a Ph.D. in Sociology, at the University of North Carolina
University of North Carolina
Chartered in 1789, the University of North Carolina was one of the first public universities in the United States and the only one to graduate students in the eighteenth century...
in 1973. He subsequently held teaching or research positions at Queens College (CUNY)
Queens College, City University of New York
Queens College, located in Flushing, Queens, New York City, is one of the senior colleges of the City University of New York. It is also the fifth oldest of the City University's twenty-three institutions of higher learning. The college's seventy seven acre campus is located in the heart of the...
, the New School for Social Research, Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
and the Graduate Theological Union
Graduate Theological Union
The Graduate Theological Union ' is a consortium of nine independent theological schools, and eleven centers and affiliates. Eight of the theological schools are located in Berkeley, California. The GTU was founded in 1962. It maintains the Graduate Theological Union Library, one of the most...
. He has authored numerous articles and reviews for sociological and religious journals.
Among Robbins' early work are notable studies comparing contemporary and historical controversies, such as the mass suicides among the Russian Old Believers and those that occurred in Jonestown
Jonestown
Jonestown was the informal name for the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, an intentional community in northwestern Guyana formed by the Peoples Temple led by Jim Jones. It became internationally notorious when, on November 18, 1978, 918 people died in the settlement as well as in a nearby...
in 1979, or present-day agitation against "cult
Cult
The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...
s" and similar controversies surrounding Catholicism
Catholicism
Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....
, Mormonism
Mormonism
Mormonism is the religion practiced by Mormons, and is the predominant religious tradition of the Latter Day Saint movement. This movement was founded by Joseph Smith, Jr. beginning in the 1820s as a form of Christian primitivism. During the 1830s and 1840s, Mormonism gradually distinguished itself...
and Freemasonry
Freemasonry
Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...
in the early nineteenth century. From the mid-1980s, Robbins became increasingly focused on legal and church-state issues related to new religious movement
New religious movement
A new religious movement is a religious community or ethical, spiritual, or philosophical group of modern origin, which has a peripheral place within the dominant religious culture. NRMs may be novel in origin or they may be part of a wider religion, such as Christianity, Hinduism or Buddhism, in...
s. He has written extensively on the legal and social-science issues related to the alleged use of mind control
Mind control
Mind control refers to a process in which a group or individual "systematically uses unethically manipulative methods to persuade others to conform to the wishes of the manipulator, often to the detriment of the person being manipulated"...
by therapeutic and religious groups. Together with his colleague, the psychologist Dick Anthony
Dick Anthony
Dick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
, Robbins has been one of the most prominent critics of the anti-cult movement
Anti-cult movement
The anti-cult movement is a term used by academics and others to refer to groups and individuals who oppose cults and new religious movements. Sociologists David G...
's views on brainwashing.
Articles and book chapters
- D. AnthonyDick AnthonyDick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
and T. Robbins, "Law, Social Science and the 'Brainwashing' Exception to the First Amendment," Behavioral Sciences and the Law 10(1992):5-30 - D. AnthonyDick AnthonyDick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
and T. Robbins, "Religious Totalism, Violence, and Exemplary Dualism," in Terrorism and Political Violence 7(1995):10-50 - T. Robbins, "Religious Mass Suicide Before Jonestown," Sociological Analysis 41(1986):1-20
- T. Robbins and D. AnthonyDick AnthonyDick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
, "Cults, Brainwashing and Counter-Subversion," Annals 446(1979):78-90 - T. Robbins and D. AnthonyDick AnthonyDick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
, "Sects and Violence," in Armageddon at Waco, ed. S. A. Wright (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995): 236-259 - T. Robbins and D. BromleyDavid G. BromleyDavid G. Bromley is a professor of sociology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA and the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA. He has written extensively about "cults", new religious movements, apostasy, and the anti-cult movement.- Education and career :Bromley received his...
, "Social Experimentation and the Significance of American New Religions," Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, Vol. 4 (Greenwich, Conn.: JAI, 1992): 1-29 - T. Robbins and R. Robertson, "Studying Religion Today," Religion 21(1991):319-339.
Books
- D. AnthonyDick AnthonyDick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
and T. Robbins (eds.), In Gods We Trust: New Patterns of Religious Pluralism in America, Transaction Publishers, 1981, 1990, 1996, ISBN 9780887388002 - R. AnthonyDick AnthonyDick Anthony is a forensic psychologist noted for his writings on brainwashing, and one of the most prolific researchers of the social and psychological aspects of involvement in new religious movements.-Academic career:...
, J. Needleman, T. Robbins, The New Religious Movements: Conversion, Coercion and Commitment, Crossroad Publishing Company, 1983, ISBN 9780824504847 - T. Robbins, W. C. Shepherd, J. McBride (eds.), Cults, Culture, and the Law: Perspectives on New Religious Movements, American Academy of Religion, Studies in Religion, No 36, Scholars Press, 1985, ISBN 9780891308324
- T. Robbins and R. Robertson, Church-state Relations: Tensions and Transitions, Transaction Publishers, 1987, ISBN 9780887386510
- T. Robbins, Cults, Converts, and Charisma: the Sociology of New Religious Movements, Sage Publications, 1988, ISBN 9780803981584
- T. Robbins and S. J. PalmerSusan J. PalmerSusan Jean Palmer is a Canadian sociologist and author with a primary research interest new religious movements. She is a professor of Religious Studies at Dawson College in Montreal, Quebec, and an adjunct professor at Concordia University, teaching sociology of religion courses.-Biography:Palmer...
(eds.), Millennium, Messiahs, and Mayhem: Contemporary Apocalyptic Movements, Routledge, 1997, ISBN 9780415916493 - B. ZablockiBenjamin ZablockiBenjamin Zablocki is and American professor of sociology at Rutgers University where he teaches sociology of religion and social psychology. He has published widely on the subject of charismatic religious movements and cults....
and T. Robbins (eds.), Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial FieldMisunderstanding Cults (book)Misunderstanding Cults: Searching for Objectivity in a Controversial Field was edited by Benjamin Zablocki and Thomas Robbins. The book was published by University of Toronto Press, on December 1, 2001 and includes contributions from ten religious, sociological and psychological scholars.The book...
, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2001, ISBN 0-8020-8188-6 - P. C. Lucas and T. Robbins (eds.), New Religious Movements in the 21st Century: Legal, Political, and Social Challenges in Global Perspective, New York, Routledge, 2004, ISBN 0415965772
External links
- Profile at the International Cultic Studies Association website
- Robbins' entry in the Encyclopedia of Religion and Society