Bio

I am a sociologist and organizer living in Portland, Oregon. I have diverse interests and read widely, but my writing and thinking clusters around a few themes, including the social basis of democracy, the party-class-movement nexus, the sociology of higher education, and classical social theory.

I received my BA from the International Studies department at DePaul University, and my MA/PhD from the venerable Department of Sociology at the University of Oregon. I have had the privilege of being taught by some excellent scholars, including Shiera Malik, Brendan McQuade, Gil Gott, Kaveh Ehsani, Michael Dreiling, and the great John Bellamy Foster.

I have been a proud member of the Democratic Socialists of America since 2017, and of Bread & Roses (B&R) since 2021. I was a mentor for the University of Oregon Young Democratic Socialists of America chapter (UOYDSA) and a founding member of the campaign to unionize student workers at UO, together my proudest achievements (shared with many others).

I’m not active on social media but I keep my publications list updated here. You can reach me at davidpurucker@gmail.com or dpurucke@uoregon.edu. I use he/they pronouns.