Biography of Dr. Taylor

VERTA TAYLOR is Professor of Sociology. She teaches courses on gender, qualitative research methods, and social movements. She joined the University of California, Santa Barbara, faculty in the fall of 2002.

Professor Taylor previously taught in Sociology and Women's Studies at The Ohio Shate University. She won numerous teaching awards at Ohio State, including a University Distinguished Teaching Award, a Multicultural teaching award, and an Outstanding Faculty Award from the Office of Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Student Services.

Verta Taylor also received the Sociologists for Women in Society's Mentoring Award and served as Feminist Lecturer for Sociologists for Women in Society. In addition, she has served as chair of the Section on Sex and Gender, the Section on Social Movements, and the Committee on the Status of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgendered Sociologists of the American Sociological Association.

She has written and co-authored many different books, and her writings have appeared in numerous scholarly collections and in journals such as Signs, Gender & Society, The American Sociological Review, Social Problems, Mobilization, and the Journal of Marriage and Family. Her current research focuses on the women's movement and the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender movement. Her most recent book, co-authored with Leila J. Rupp, Drag Queens at the 801 Cabaret, looks at drag performance as a collective action repertoire of the gay and lesbian movement.

Taylor is the recipient of many distinguishing awards, as well as the author or co-author of over 15 books and 100 articles, chapters, and reviews published. Much of her work focuses on gender's studies which includes but is not limited to women's studies, as well as the LGBT (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender) movement.

Her staggering accomplishments, however, cannot be entirely summed up into words. From the awards distinguishing her books as excelling works in her field of study, to her co-authored book Feminist Frontiers which is in it's eighth edition, Taylor has provided more than her share to the study of sociology. She is also a very accomplished lecturer and has given over 60 public lectures, and served on numerous professional panels both within the United States and Internationally.

Her vitae is no less than amazing, covering 27 pages of publications, accomplishments, lectures, panels, service both within the community and within sociology and much more. And despite all of this, she still continues to be an excellent professor. She is praised over and over on the student-based website RateMyProfessor.com (http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=242763&page=1).

Until now, most of this information is what can be found on the internet relating to her professional career and vitae. However, in a chapter of Our Studies, Ourselves: Sociologists' Lives and Work, Dr. Taylor says "some things in which [she] take[s] a great deal of pride are not on [her] curriculum vitae" (Verta Taylor: My Life in Social Movements"). This is what begins her chapter regarding her personal life. She grew up in Jonesboro, Arkansas during the Civil Rights Movement. The overt racism, Taylor says, is one of the major reasons why she decided to leave the South. Due to financial situations in the family, she couldn't go to college farther than the Indiana State University in Terre Haute, Indiana, but this didn't stop her from becoming involved at the school as a social activist. As a matter of fact, while at ISU, she became very involved with the antiwar and black student movement, despite the fact that she had white skin herself. It was this involvement that helped her attain a fellowship to go to Ohio State University as a graduate student (although it had to later be switched with a different type of fellowship after the awarders found out she wasn't black herself!).

In 1978, while at OSU, Taylor met her life and long time research partner Leila Rupp. Together, they published a wide variety of publications on topics ranging from sociology, lesbianism, feminism, the women's rights movement and on. All of this on top of all the other publications she has published on her own, or alongside other colleagues and academics listed within her vitae.

[Verta Taylor (right) with her lifetime partner Leila Rupp]

Dr. Taylor is currently employed with the University of California, Santa Barbara as stated previously. She says that "in paradise [UCSB], and among arguably the best group of feminist scholars in a single sociology department- including Kumjun Bhavnani, Denise Bielby, Sarah Fenstermaker, Avery gordon, Beth Schneider, Denise Segura, and Winddance Twine- and social movement scholars Richard Flacks and Jennifer Earl, I feel much at home." She is currently the head department chair of Sociology at UCSB and that takes up a lot of her time. Other than that, she is still attending many conferences and teaching two classes. She is also working on a variety of publications which are listed in the goals section. She lives with her lifetime partner of over 30 years, Leila Rupp, and their maltese puppy, Pheobe.

References:

Verta Taylor. 2003. "My Life in Social Movements: From Sixties Activist to Lesbian Den Mother." Pp. 263-278 in Our Studies, Ourselves, eds. Barry Glassner and Rosanna Hertz. New York: Oxford University Press.

"Verta Taylor: Homepage." University of California, Santa Barbara. Accessed 26 March, 2009.