Daniel Foss
Encyclopedia
Daniel A. Foss is an American
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 sociologist and database researcher. He is the author of Freak Culture: Life Style and Politics (1972), and Beyond Revolution: A New Theory of Social Movements (1986).

Early life and education

Foss was born in the Bronx, New York, on July 26, 1940, and received his bachelor's degree
Bachelor of Arts
A Bachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences, or both...

 in Sociology
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...

 from Cornell University
Cornell University
Cornell University is an Ivy League university located in Ithaca, New York, United States. It is a private land-grant university, receiving annual funding from the State of New York for certain educational missions...

. Foss went on to study at Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...

, where he earned his master's degree
Master of Arts (postgraduate)
A Master of Arts from the Latin Magister Artium, is a type of Master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The M.A. is usually contrasted with the M.S. or M.Sc. degrees...

 in 1962, and his Ph.D.
Ph.D.
A Ph.D. is a Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree.Ph.D. may also refer to:* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group*Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip*PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* PhD Docbook renderer, an XML renderer...

 in Sociology in 1969. His book Freak Culture is an abridged version of his Ph.D. dissertation. After receiving his doctoral degree, Foss taught at the School for Critical Studies at the California Institute of the Arts
California Institute of the Arts
The California Institute of the Arts, commonly referred to as CalArts, is located in Valencia, in Los Angeles County, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the United States created specifically for students of both the visual and the...

, at Livingston College
Livingston College
From 1969 to 2007 Livingston College was one of the residential colleges that comprised Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey's undergraduate liberal arts programs. It was located on Livingston Campus in Piscataway, NJ. In the Fall of 2007 the New Brunswick-area liberal arts undergraduate...

, and at the Newark College of Arts and Sciences at Rutgers University
Rutgers University
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey , is the largest institution for higher education in New Jersey, United States. It was originally chartered as Queen's College in 1766. It is the eighth-oldest college in the United States and one of the nine Colonial colleges founded before the American...

. Foss later took coursework at Syracuse University
Syracuse University
Syracuse University is a private research university located in Syracuse, New York, United States. Its roots can be traced back to Genesee Wesleyan Seminary, founded by the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1832, which also later founded Genesee College...

 in the field of data processing
Data processing
Computer data processing is any process that a computer program does to enter data and summarise, analyse or otherwise convert data into usable information. The process may be automated and run on a computer. It involves recording, analysing, sorting, summarising, calculating, disseminating and...

, and has worked as a database manager and computer programmer for government and academic researchers.

Career

Foss met fellow sociologist Ralph W. Larkin
Ralph Larkin
Ralph Wild Larkin is an American sociologist and research consultant. He is the author of Suburban Youth in Cultural Crisis , Beyond Revolution: A New Theory of Social Movements , and Comprehending Columbine...

 when they were both teaching Sociology at Rutgers University. They have frequently partnered in research on the study of social movements. The book Beyond Revolution: A New Theory of Social Movements was co-authored with Larkin. Foss and Larkin have also jointly published research in sociology journals
Academic journal
An academic journal is a peer-reviewed periodical in which scholarship relating to a particular academic discipline is published. Academic journals serve as forums for the introduction and presentation for scrutiny of new research, and the critique of existing research...

, including a piece on the white middle class youth movement of the 1960s and its relationship to later movements such as the Children of God
Children of God
The Family International , formed as as the Children of God and later named Family of Love and the Family, is a new religious movement, started in 1968 in Huntington Beach, California, United States. It began in the late 1960s, with many of its early converts drawn from the hippie movement...

, the Divine Light Mission
Divine Light Mission
The Divine Light Mission was an organization founded in 1960 by guru Shri Hans Ji Maharaj for his following in northern India. During the 1970s, the DLM gained prominence in the West under the leadership of his fourth and youngest son, Guru Maharaj Ji...

, Swami Muktananda
Muktananda
Swami Muktananda is the monastic name of an Indian Hindu guru and disciple of Bhagavan Nityananda. Swami Muktananda was the founder of Siddha Yoga...

 and the Revolutionary Youth Movement
Revolutionary Youth Movement
The Revolutionary Youth Movement was the section of Students for a Democratic Society that opposed the Worker Student Alliance of the Progressive Labor Party...

 in Theory and Society. They later wrote a more focused article dealing with Guru Maharaj Ji and his followers, which was published in Sociological Analysis, and a piece dealing with the vocabulary
Vocabulary
A person's vocabulary is the set of words within a language that are familiar to that person. A vocabulary usually develops with age, and serves as a useful and fundamental tool for communication and acquiring knowledge...

 utilized in these social movements, in Social Text. Foss and Larkin's research has later been cited by books on both the 1960s subculture, and on movements of social change
Social change
Social change refers to an alteration in the social order of a society. It may refer to the notion of social progress or sociocultural evolution, the philosophical idea that society moves forward by dialectical or evolutionary means. It may refer to a paradigmatic change in the socio-economic...

 such as the Hippie movement
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...

 and other forms of counterculture
Counterculture
Counterculture is a sociological term used to describe the values and norms of behavior of a cultural group, or subculture, that run counter to those of the social mainstream of the day, the cultural equivalent of political opposition. Counterculture can also be described as a group whose behavior...

 and subculture
Subculture
In sociology, anthropology and cultural studies, a subculture is a group of people with a culture which differentiates them from the larger culture to which they belong.- Definition :...

.

External links

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