Robert Alun Jones is Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies, History, and Sociology. He has won a number of awards for innovative teaching, including four University of Illinois Undergraduate Instructional Awards, two AMOCO Foundation Awards for Undergraduate Instruction, the Prokasy Award for Distinguished Teaching, and the University’s Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. His major research and teaching interests include the French philosopher and social theorist Emile Durkheim (1858-1917), the methodology of intellectual history, theory and method in the study of religion, and the problem of evil in Western thought. He is the author of Emile Durkheim: An Introduction to Four Major Works (Sage, 1986), The Development of Durkheim's Social Realism (Cambridge, 1999), and The Secret of the Totem: Religion and Society from McLennan to Freud (Columbia, 2005), as well as numerous essays on Durkheim, Weber, Frazer, Robertson Smith and others. He is also the co-editor and translator of Durkheim’s Philosophy Lectures (Cambridge, 2004).

Courses Taught Recently
RLST 450 Theories of Religion