Social scientists' autobiographies can yield insight into personal commitments to research agendas and the very project of social science itself. But despite the long history of life writing, sociologists have tended to view the practice with skepticism.

Canadian Sociologists in the First Person is the first book to survey the Canadian sociological imagination through personal recollections. Exploring the lives and experiences of twenty contributors from across the country, this book connects the unique and shared features of their careers to broad social dynamics while providing a guide to their own research and administrative contributions to their universities, their profession, and their broader society and communities. The contributors teach in different types of institutions, are prominent in the discipline and in their specializations, and represent significant and diverse intellectual currents, political perspectives, and life and career experiences.

Aiming to start a broad conversation about what social science and the academic profession look like in Canada from an insider's perspective, Canadian Sociologists in the First Person offers invaluable lessons for younger scholars as they envision a diverse sociological imagination for the twenty-first century.

Stephen Harold Riggins' profile page

Neil McLaughlin is Professor in the Department of Sociology at McMaster University in Hamilton Ontario, Canada. In addition to have written extensively on Fromm’s critical theory, he has published widely in the sociology of ideas with case studies on Noam Chomsky, Edward Said, public sociology and public intellectuals in Canada and the United States, and on the sociology of creativity. He is currently researching the spread of Soros conspiracy theories in Hungary, Poland, the United States and Canada, the popularity of Jordan Peterson’s psychological writings and social media lectures and the politics of university funding in North America.

Neil McLaughlin's profile page

“Written from multiple theoretical and methodological perspectives, as well as institutional and social locations, Canadian Sociologists in the First Person offers readers a strong sense of connection to sociological practice and important insights on ‘doing sociology,’ with its many challenges, joys, and contingencies.” Eric Mykhalovskiy, York University