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About Us

Anson Shupe, Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

  • Office: Classroom Medical 239
  • Phone: 260-481-6667
  • Email: shupe@ipfw.edu

Research Interests

Deviant Behavior and Social Control, Society and the Individual, Sociology of Religion and Religious Movements, Social Science Technical Writing

Courses Taught

  • Introductory Sociology (with a heavy cross-cultural emphasis)
  • Deviant Behavior and Social Control
  • Society and the Individual (Social Psychology)
  • Sociology of Religion
  • These subdisciplines also coincide with my research interests.

My initial interest in sociology, going back to my undergraduate days in the 1960s, was how group behavior can be studied and explained apart from the psychological, or individual, level. In fact, I found that the concept of "the individual" is an abstraction, for no single person exists apart from a social context and its influences. Thus, even though I respect social psychology I found that the entire field is based on guesses, or inferences, about alleged mental processes and events. In sociology we study behavior without worrying about motivations, cognitive causes, and so forth.

My teaching specialties, in my view, substantively overlap. I have published a large number of books and professional articles on religious movements and (unrelated) family violence. I am active in these areas of research and integrate the findings into my lectures. Currently I am studying the violence and exploitation committed by ministers, pastors, and gurus against their parishioners, lay people, and followers (which I call clergy malfeasance) as well as the new religions/deprogramming controversy. During the past year, in my publications or work in progress, I have worked with, respectively, several sociologists, scholars of religious studies, even an undergraduate student at IU - Northwest who manages a credit union in Gary. I enjoy all ages of students and encourage them to contribute wisdom from their own backgrounds to my classes.

Download a copy of my current Curriculum Vitae (pdf)