Clark McPhail
Contact Information
- Office: 339 Lincoln Hall
- Phone: (217) 333-2528
- Email: cmcphail@illinois.edu
Field of Study
Collective Action, Social Movements, Social Psychology
PhD
Michigan State University
About
- Download my Current CV (PDF)
- Download McPhail EFCA (PDF)
Since 1967 I have studied one or more phases in the life course of hundreds of prosaic, religious, sport and political gatherings. I am the author of the award-winning monograph The Myth of the Madding Crowd (1991), and dozens of articles on the assembling processes that produce temporary gatherings, the alternating and varied individual and collective actions that compose them, and the dispersing processes that terminate them. PDF copies of several of my publications are available on my linked homepage (select: Publications and CV Homepage Publications and CV Homepage; then go to PDF PUBLICATIONS in the header). A relatively current listing of all my publications and presentations is on my CV:pdf (see above).
I was the Fulbright Senior Research Scholar to Great Britain in 1999-2000 where I analyzed the Poll Tax Riot and other demonstrations with videotapes from the archives of Scotland Yard. In 2005 I received the George Herbert Mead Award for lifetime achievement in the study of symbolic interaction.
My work in progress includes: a monograph, Beyond the Madding Crowd, Purposive Actors and the Social Organization of Gatherings; with David Schweingruber and Alin Ceobanu, a systematic observation study of collective actions during 1997 Promise Keeper rally in Washington, D.C.; with Alin Ceobanu, a television news archival analysis of the annual March for Life, 1974-1999; and, with John McCarthy (Penn State University) and Andrew Martin (Ohio State University), a study of U.S. campus disorders, 1985-2002. A series of National Science Foundation collaborative grants to John McCarthy (my principal co-investigator) and me have supported much of research.
After 30 years on the faculty at the University of Illinois, I retired in 1999 to devote full time to research, writing and consulting. I have lectured to civilian and military police officials in the United States, Great Britain and France. I consult with university and municipal administrators and police on planning and preparing for safe, smart and orderly gatherings in public places.