Robert Futrell

Associate Professor of Sociology
B.A., University of Kentucky
M.A., Ph.D., University of Kansas.
Areas of interest: Environmental Sociology, Social Movements, Sociology of Sport.

Robert Futrell specializes in the areas of social movements, environmental sociology, sociology of science and technological disputes, and political sociology. He is currently a co-principal investigator for the Nevada Test Site Oral History Project (with Dr. Andy Kirk [History] and Dr. Mary Palevsky [History]), an $830,000 federally-funded project documenting the experiences of people affiliated with the Nevada Test Site, the continental site for the U.S. nuclear testing program. Dr. Futrell's other research includes a series of articles on recent transformations in the U.S. white power movement with Dr. Pete Simi (Univ. Nebraska-Omaha), writings on the political and scientific controversy surrounding the U.S. Army's Chemical Weapons Disposal Program, and mapping the limits to sustainable development in the southwestern United States. His most recent publications are "Understanding Music in Movements" (with Pete Simi and Simon Gottschalk) in The Sociological Quarterly (2006), "White Power Cyberculture." (with Pete Simi) in a special issue on white supremacy in Journal of Political and Military Sociology (forthcoming 2006), "Free Spaces, Collective Identity, and the Persistence of U.S. White Power Activism" in Social Problems (2004), "Framing Processes, Cognitive Liberation, and NIMBY Protest in the U.S. Chemical Weapons Disposal Conflict" in Sociological Inquiry (2003), "Technical Adversarialism and Participatory Collaboration in the U.S. Chemical Weapons Disposal Program" in Science, Technology, and Human Values (2003), and "The Expendable City: Las Vegas and the Limits of Sustainability" in Humboldt Journal of Social Relations (2001). Other publications can be found in International Journal of Politics, Culture & Society, Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, American Behavioral Scientist, Qualitative Sociology, and Social Thought & Research. Dr. Futrell teaches undergraduate, honors, and graduate level courses in Principles of Sociology, Environmental Sociology, Social Movements, Social Change, and Sociology of Sport. He has received several awards for teaching, most recently the 2005-2006 UNLV Foundation Distinguished Teaching Award. He is also the Director of Undergraduate Studies in Sociology and supervises the UNLV Sociology Internship Program.

Joined faculty in 1999.