Dan E Miller

Professor
Full-Time Faculty
College of Arts and Sciences: Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work

Profile

Dr. Dan Miller is a Professor of Sociology. He received his Ph.D. from the University of Iowa and joined the faculty in 1978, serving as chair from 1998 to 2002. Dr. Miller is a symbolic interactionist with specialties in social psychology, collective behavior and interaction processes. He is the past-President of the Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, and he is a Fellow and member of the Advisory Board of the Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research.

The Faculty Perspective

I came to the University of Dayton after teaching at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Teaching in a foreign country was a great experience. I was attracted to UD because it offered what I was looking for as a college professor. I teach the courses I choose in small classroom settings where I am able to get to know my students. UD offers a nice combination of scholarship opportunities, small classes, interaction with students, and a sense of purpose with regard to issues such as social justice.

Degrees

  • Ph.D. (Sociology), University of Iowa, 1979
  • M.A. (Sociology), University of Iowa, 1972
  • B.S. (Sociology), University of Iowa, 1970

Professional Activities

  • Midwest Sociological Society, Member
  • Control Systems Group, Member
  • Society for the Study of Symbolic Interaction, Member of Executive Council
  • Carl Couch Center for Social and Internet Research, Fellow

Research Interests

  • Interaction Processes
  • Healthy and Dysfunctional Social Relationships
  • Rumor and Urban Legends
  • Collective Behavior Processes and Consequences
  • Self Theory
  • Symbolic Interaction Theory

Selected Publications

"George Herbert Mead." In R. J. McGee and R. L. Warms, Eds., Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology. Sage (2013).

"Toward a Theory of Interaction." Symbolic Interaction 34(3):340-349 (2011).

"Dyads and Triads." In George Ritzer (Ed.), Handbook of Sociology. Boston: Blackwell (2005).

"Rumor: An Examination of Some Stereotypes." Symbolic Interaction 28/4 (2005).

"The Iowa School," with Michael A. Katovich and Robert L. Stewart. In Handbook of Symbolic Interactionism, edited by L. Reynolds & N. Herman-Kinney. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press. (2003)

"Cockroach Culture." Studies in Symbolic Interaction 25 (2002):45-48.

"Empiricism on the Prairie: Four Waves of the New Iowa School," with Michael A. Katovich & Robert A. Hintz, Jr. Studies in Symbolic Interaction 25 (2002): 5-24.

"Mathematical Dimensions of Qualitative Research." Symbolic Interaction 23 (2000): 399-402.

Constructing Complexity: Social Interaction and Social Forms, with Michael A. Katovich and Stanley L. Saxton, Jr. (eds.). Greenwich, CN: JAI Press. (1997)