Murray Milner Jr.

Murray Milner, Jr. is Professor Emeritus of Sociology at the University of Virginia and is currently Senior Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture. He received B.Sc. from Texas A & M, and M.A. from the University of Texas, and M. Div. from Union Theological seminary (New York), and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. For three years, he directed a relief and rehabilitation program in Bangladesh.

His Fellowships include: NIMH Training Fellowship, NEH Summer Institute for Cross-disciplinary Study; Senior Fulbright Fellow to India; American Institute of Indian Studies Fellowship. He has been a visiting scholar at Clare Hall, Cambridge University, the Delhi School of Economics, and London School of Economics, and Downing College, Cambridge. In 1997, he was the American Sociological Association Sorokin Lecturer at the Eastern Sociology Association meetings and the Pacific Sociological Association meetings. In 1998 he received the Virginia Social Science Association Distinguished Scholar Award. In 2007 he received his second Fulbright award and served as a lecturer in sociology at Delhi School of Economics and at St. Edmund's College of North East Hill University.

Over the years, Dr. Milner has written an array of articles in addition to authoring and co-authoring seven books. Much of his works focuses on how status systems work. He has shown how his theory of status relations can help us to understand such diverse phenomena as Indian castes, high school teenagers, celebrities and human rights. He also suggests that sacredness can be understood as the ultimate form of status and hence his theory helps to understand much of religious behavior. He is currently completing a book entitled, “Understanding Sacredness: A Sociological Theology."