Sociologists for Women in Society honors Marlese Durr with prestigious feminist lecturer award

Marlese Durr, professor of sociology

Marlese Durr, Ph.D., professor of sociology at Wright State University, is the 2022 recipient of the prestigious Distinguished Feminist Lecturer Award from Sociologists for Women in Society.

The society is an international organization of social scientists, including students, faculty, practitioners and researchers, working together to improve the position of women within sociology and society in general.

The lectureship was founded in 1985 to recognize members whose scholarship employs a feminist perspective.

“I am thrilled to help bring a firmer understanding to feminist issues, especially for women of color, but also to be counted alongside feminist scholars who continue to work on issues of importance globally,” said Durr.

Durr will receive a certificate and a $250 award during the society’s Jan. 29 winter awards banquet in Santa Ana Pueblo, New Mexico. She will present a lecture at the society’s 2024 winter meeting and on one selected college campus during the 2023–24 academic year.

“Campuses vie for the opportunity to host the lecture, and our criteria favor less urban, less affluent and less feminist-friendly contexts to broaden the number of students and faculty who are exposed to the best in feminist sociology,” said Barret Katuna, the society’s executive officer.

Last year, Durr was named the recipient of the 2021 Doris Wilkinson Faculty Leadership Award from the Society for the Study of Social Problems. The society is an interdisciplinary community of scholars, practitioners, advocates and students dedicated to promoting greater social justice through social research.

Durr is a Senior Fellow of the Yale University Urban Ethnography Program and a research associate at the University of Albany’s Center for the Elimination of Minority Health Disparities.

Her research focuses on African American women in managerial positions in public institutions as well as specialized interests in labor markets, social networks, entrepreneurship, inner-city neighborhoods and stressful life events for African American women.

Durr has served as president of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and for Sociologists for Women in Society and chair of publications for Gender & Society. She is a member of the American Sociological Association Publications Committee, is on the association’s W.E.B. Du Bois Career Distinguished Scholarship Committee and is a founding editorial board member of The Sociology of Race and Ethnicity.