Lemert, Charles, April 27, 2023

In this interview Charles Lemert recalls his path through schooling and academia; he mentions his turn towards rigor in undergraduate sciences and then his turn to divinity studies, and finally his work in sociology and psychoanalyses. He discusses his studies at Divinity School and at Harvard Sociology and how amidst this education, he began working as a Protestant Minister in Needham, Massachusetts in the 1960s. He describes the circumstances that led to him leaving Massachusetts regarding the local clergy’s disapproval of his involvement with Civil Rights Activism. Lemert left to take a teaching job at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale after finishing his doctorate at Harvard. With both Carbondale and Middletown, Lemert reflects on his first impressions and his acclimation period to these different environments. He talks about being hired at Wesleyan as an academic outsider in the Sociology department and describes the politics within the department from his differing perspectives as Chair, a member of the Advisory Committee, and as the Dean of the Social Sciences (when that position was created). He expresses pride in the fact that the sociology department grew in his tenure as Chair; mentions the many successful students he has taught and significant faculty hires he was influential in (including Rob Rosenthal and Sue Fisher); and also briefly discusses his work with the Wesleyan Prison Project. Lemert describes his travels for teaching and lecturing as well as his more than 50 published works, as well as mentioning his most recent project, “Americans Thinking America.”