2022 Rainwater Memorial Lecture: Professor Orlando Patterson

On September 29, 2022, the sociologist Orlando Patterson delivered the third Lee Rainwater Memorial Lecture in Harvard University’s William James Hall. Patterson, a historical and cultural sociologist, is the John Cowles Professor of Sociology at Harvard. The lecture, “Slavery and Genocide: Jamaica, The U.S. South and the Demography of Evil, 1650–1830,” was co-hosted by the Stone Center on Socio-Economic Inequality at the Graduate Center, CUNY, and the Harvard Sociology Department. The presentation featured new work by Patterson that remains in progress.

The Lee Rainwater Memorial Lecture Series was created to honor the sociologist Lee Rainwater (1928–2015). The series, launched in 2017, recognizes Rainwater’s long academic career as well as his role as founding research director of LIS, the cross-national data center in Luxembourg. The location of the lectures alternates between Harvard University, where Rainwater spent much of his career, and the Stone Center at the Graduate Center, CUNY, which houses the U.S. Office of LIS.