Jerold M. Starr (May 12, 1941 – July 13, 2012) was an American writer, professor, and social activist.

Biography

He was born in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at ...

Michigan Michigan () is a U.S. state, state in the Great Lakes region, Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwest, upper Midwestern United States. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of nearly , Michigan is the List of U.S. states and ...

, where he attended

Mumford High School Samuel C. Mumford High School is a public high school located on the near-northwest side of Detroit, Michigan. It was operated by the Detroit Public Schools, and had been operated by the Education Achievement Authority of Michigan (EAA). DPS r ...

and Montieth College of Wayne State University. Starr earned a

Ph.D. A Doctor of Philosophy (PhD, Ph.D., or DPhil; Latin: or ') is the most common degree at the highest academic level awarded following a course of study. PhDs are awarded for programs across the whole breadth of academic fields. Because it is a ...

sociology Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of empirical investigation and ...

from

Brandeis University Brandeis University is a Private university, private research university in Waltham, Massachusetts. Founded in 1948 as a nonsectarian, non-sectarian, coeducational institution sponsored by the Jews, Jewish community, Brandeis was established on t ...

in 1970. He taught 1969–76 at the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universit ...

, 1976–2002 at

West Virginia University West Virginia University (WVU) is a public land-grant research university with its main campus in Morgantown, West Virginia. Its other campuses are those of the West Virginia University Institute of Technology in Beckley, Potomac State Coll ...

and 2004–08 at the University of California at San Diego. Since 1980 he has lived in

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Western Pennsylvania, the second-most populous city in Pennsyl ...

. Among his many awards, Starr has been a Fulbright Scholar, National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow and recipient of the Alfred McClung Lee Award from Sociological Abstracts for "Distinguished Career as a Humanist Sociologist." Starr's works have focused on two areas: One is peace and conflict resolution, organized in the 1980s under "The Lessons of the Vietnam War" program of the Center for Social Studies Education. This program received the Veterans for Peace Medal for Educational Achievement and has been used in about 3,500 colleges and secondary schools. In the 1990s he founded Citizens for Independent Public Broadcasting, an effort to bring greater diversity to public television and media reform throughout the

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of ed ...

and

NPR National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from other ...

systems. Since 1984, Starr has been active in theatre as a board member, producer, actor, and playwright.

Works

* ''Social Structure and Social Personality'', nonfiction (Boston: Little, Brown, 1974) * ''Cultural Politics: Radical Movements in Modern History'', nonfiction (New York: Praeger, 1985) * ''The Lessons of the Vietnam War: A Modular Textbook'', nonfiction (Pittsburgh: Center for Social Studies Education, 1988) * ''Air Wars: The Fight to Reclaim Public Broadcasting'', nonfiction (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000) * ''Buried: The Sago Mine Disaster'', play (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, 2006) * ''Interesting Times'', play (Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh Playwrights Theatre, 2008)

References

* Christopher Rawson (2008)
''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'': Feature on Jerry Starr
Retrieved November 14, 2008. * Amy McConnell Schaarsmith (2012)
''Pittsburgh Post-Gazette'': Obituary of Jerry Starr
Retrieved October 20, 2012.

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Starr, Jerold 1941 births 2012 deaths Writers from Pittsburgh American sociologists