University Of Washington Sociologist To Lecture Feb. 3

Dr. Rodney Stark, a noted scholar in the field of sociology of religion, will lecture at 3 p.m. Monday, Feb. 3, in room 116 at the Draper Academic Building on the Baylor University campus. Stark's lecture, "Upper Class Aescetism: Social Origins of Aescetic Movements and Medieval Saints," is part of Baylor's Sociology of Religion Colloquium series and is sponsored by the department of sociology and anthropology.
Stark, a former newspaper reporter, earned his doctorate from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1971. He serves as professor of sociology and comparative religion at the University of Washington, where his introductory sociology course attracts 800 students per semester.
He is the author of 23 books, including The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in 1996. Stark is past president of the Association for the Sociology of Religion and the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion and also is co-founder of Microcase Corporation, a statistical software company that specializes in instructional packages.
The lecture is free and open to the public. For more information, call 710-1165