Chris Prendergast describes himself as an unmotivated
student before taking Social Problems at a small Catholic college in Brooklyn, New York in 1965. Principles of
Sociology was even better, and a semester later he transferred to Brooklyn College, C.U.N.Y. There he
encountered sociological theory, the sociology of knowledge,
continental philosophy, the New Left, Joyce, Fellini, and Coltrane--and
a set of intellectual concerns which still echo in his courses. After a
brief and frustrating career in public housing, Dr. Prendergast entered
the graduate program in social theory at Southern Illinois University
at Carbondale, where he had the good fortune to study under Peter A.
Munch, Thomas Burger, and Charles Lemert in social theory and Garth
Gillan in philosophy. He completed his Ph.D. in 1979 with a
dissertation on Edmund Husserl's theory of science. After six years at
the University
of Evansville, he
came to Illinois Wesleyan in 1985, where he is responsible for courses
in the History of Social Thought, Social Organization, and Community
and Urban Society. He chaired the Department of Sociology and
Anthropology from 1995 to 2002. He is a Past President of the Midwest
Sociological Society and of the Illinois Sociological Association. He
is current working on a series of papers on social structure and
sociological explanation, focusing on explicanda such as pirate
democracy, CEO pay, and corporate scandals.