Psychologist for UA’s Basowitz Lecture to Speak on Terror, Intergroup Violence

TUSCALOOSA, Ala. — Dr. James Sidanius, a professor in the departments of psychology and African and African American studies at Harvard University, will deliver the annual Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 24, in room 208 of Gordon Palmer Hall at The University of Alabama.

The lecture, presented by UA’s psychology department, is free and open to the public.

The lecture is titled “Under Color of Authority: Terror, Intergroup Violence and the Law: A Social Dominance Perspective.”

Sidanius received his doctorate from the University of Stockholm and has taught at several universities in the United States and Europe. His primary research interests include the political psychology of gender, group conflict, institutional discrimination and the evolutionary psychology of intergroup prejudice.

He has written and published more than 150 papers. His latest books include “The Diversity Challenge: Social Identity and Intergroup Relations on the College Campus” (2010) .

Sidanius received the 2006 Harold Lasswell Award for distinguished scientific contribution in the field of political psychology from the International Society of Political Psychology. He is a fellow of the Society of Personality and Social Psychology (2011 inductee) and the National Academy of Arts and Sciences (2007 inductee).

The Harold Basowitz Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the UA department of psychology in memory of Basowitz, who came to UA in 1940 and remained until called into military service. Basowitz returned to Tuscaloosa in 1946 and received his undergraduate degree from UA in 1947. He then went on to complete his doctoral degree in clinical psychology at Princeton in 1951.

Basowitz’s distinguished career included administrative roles at the National Institute of Mental Health and professor of psychology for many years at New York University. Basowitz’s lifelong friend, Dr. Irving Alexander, is the donor of the Basowitz endowment.

The psychology department is part of UA’s College of Arts and Sciences, the University’s largest division and the largest liberal arts college in the state. Students from the College have won numerous national awards including Rhodes Scholarships, Goldwater Scholarships and memberships on the USA Today Academic All American Team.