Damon Mayrl

Education

B.A., Yale University
M.A., Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley

Areas of Expertise

• Political sociology

• Sociology of religion

• Comparative and historical sociology

• Sociology of culture

• Sociological theory

• Social movements

• Law and society

• Public policy

 

Personal Information

Damon Mayrl joined the Colby faculty in 2017. He previously taught at Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.

Mayrl’s research uses comparative and historical methods to illuminate the interplay of culture, religion, politics, and law. He is the author of Secular Conversions: Political Institutions and Religious Education in the United States and Australia, 1800-2000 (Cambridge University Press, 2016), and co-editor (with Nicholas Hoover Wilson) of After Positivism: New Approaches to Comparison in Historical Sociology (Columbia University Press, 2024). His current projects investigate how symbolic conflicts influence the form and visibility of the American state, how local actors understand the rapidly changing landscape of church-state law, and how historical methods are actually practiced in social scientific research.

Mayrl currently serves as Treasurer of the Social Science History Association, as Secretary/Treasurer for the American Sociological Association’s Section on the Sociology of Religion, and on the editorial boards of Contexts, Sociology of Religion, The Sociological Quarterly, and Civic Sociology. His research has appeared in the American Journal of Sociology, Social Forces, Sociological Theory, and other scholarly journals and edited volumes. For further information, please visit his personal website.

Selected Publications

 

BOOKS

Wilson, Nicholas Hoover, and Damon Mayrl, eds. 2024. After Positivism: New Approaches to Comparison in Historical Sociology. New York: Columbia University Press.

Mayrl, Damon. 2016. Secular Conversions: Political Institutions and Religious Education in the United States and Australia, 1800-2000. New York: Cambridge University Press.

 

ARTICLES

Mayrl, Damon, Nicholas Hoover Wilson, Matthew Mahler, and Josh Pacewicz. 2024. “Theorizing Subdisciplinary Exchange: Historical Sociology, Ethnography, and the Case of SSHA.” Social Science History 48: 259-84.

Mayrl, Damon. 2023. “The Funk of White Souls: Toward a Du Boisian Theory of the White Church.” Sociology of Religion 84(1): 16-41.

Adler, Gary J., Jr., Selena E. Ortiz, Eric Plutzer, Damon Mayrl, Jonathan S. Coley, and Rebecca Sager. 2021. ”Religion at the Frontline: How Religion Influenced the Response of Local Government Officials to the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Sociology of Religion 82(4): 397-425 .

Mayrl, Damon, and Dahlia Venny ’22. 2021. ”The Dejudicialization of Religious Freedom?” Social Compass 68(3): 342-58.

Mayrl, Damon, and Nicholas Hoover Wilson. 2020. ”What Do Historical Sociologists Do All Day? Analytic Architectures in Historical Sociology.” American Journal of Sociology 120(5): 1345-94.

Astor, Avi, and Damon Mayrl. 2020. ”Culturalized Religion: A Synthetic Review and Agenda for Future Research.” Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 59(2): 209-26.

Mayrl, Damon, and Sarah Quinn. 2016. “Defining the State from Within: Boundaries, Schemas, and Associational Policymaking.” Sociological Theory 34(1): 1-26.

Mayrl, Damon. 2015. “How Does the State Structure Secularization?” European Journal of Sociology 56(2): 207-39.

Mayrl, Damon, and Aliya Saperstein. 2013. “When White People Report Racial Discrimination: The Role of Region, Religion, and Politics.” Social Science Research 42(3): 742-54.

Mayrl, Damon, and Jeremy Uecker. 2011. “Higher Education and Religious Liberalization among Young Adults.” Social Forces 90(1): 181-208.

Mayrl, Damon. 2011. “Administering Secularization: Religious Education in New South Wales since 1960.” European Journal of Sociology 52(1): 111-42.

For a complete CV, please click here.