Matthew Immergut
Assistant Professor of Sociology
School of Natural and Social Sciences

Office: Social Sciences building, Room 2016
Phone: (914) 251-6620
Fax: (914) 251-6403
Email: matthew.immergut@purchase.edu

Professor Immergut is currently involved in three different research projects.  The conversion and commitment processes of Westerners to Buddhism; in particular those converts who become monks/nuns.  An environmental conflict over a multi-million dollar resort proposed for the Catskill Mountains in New York.  Last, the phenomena of male body hair removal or “manscaping.” 

Education
B.A. Prescott College 1994, Environmental Education
M.A. & Ph.D Drew University 2007, Sociology of Religion

Areas of expertise
Sociology of Religion, Environmental Sociology, Sociological Theory, Qualitative Research Methods, Ecology and Religion

Research interests
Environmental Conflicts and Activism, Religious and Spiritually Motivated Activism, American Buddhism and Monasticism, Sociology of the Body, the Social Construction of Nature

Courses taught
Classical and Contemporary Sociological Theory, Self and Society, Environmental Sociology, Religion, Culture and Society, Sociology of Religion

Selected publications
Forthcoming: “When Nature is Rats and Roaches: Religious Eco-Justice in Newark, NJ,” in Lived Religion in an Urban Context: Ethnographic Portraits of Religion in Newark, edited by Karen McCarthy Brown. University of California Press

 Forthcoming: “Manscaping: The Tangle of Culture, Nature and Male Body Hair” in Key Readings in Social and Cultural Studies of the Body edited by Lisa Jean Moore and Mary Kosut, New York University Press

“Adamah (Earth): Searching for and Constructing a Jewish Relationship to Nature” Worldviews 12 (2008), P.1-24

“The Church of Euthanasia: Radical, Anti-Human, Environmentalism.” The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature, Continuum International

“Fred Krueger, Christian Wilderness Entrepreneur.” The Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature

In Progress: “Narratives of Place in Environmental Conflicts: The Belleayre Resort Proposal and the Future of the Catskills”