David Yamane
David Yamane
Professor
B.A. – Sociology, University of California-Berkeley, 1991
M.S. – Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1994
Ph.D. – Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998
David Yamane earned his BA (’91) in sociology from the University of California at Berkeley and his MS (’94) and Ph.D. (’98) in sociology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. After teaching at the University of Notre Dame and holding a post-doc at the University of Virginia’s Center on Religion and Democracy, he joined the sociology faculty at Wake Forest in 2005. He served as department chair from 2009 to 2011 and is currently an affiliated faculty member in the Department of Religion and School of Divinity.
For the first 20 years of his academic career, Professor Yamane specialized in the sociology of religion, a field in which he authored, co-authored, or edited 6 books and 2 major scholarly journals.
Since 2011, Professor Yamane has become a nationally recognized scholarly authority on guns in America, with a unique voice in our cacophonous debates on the subject, one that reaches audiences across the spectrum of opinion on guns. He especially seeks out opportunities to speak about and to the broad and deep middle of the American population whose views do not skew to the extreme in either direction. Recent publications include “Gun Culture 2.0: Evolution and Contours of Defensive Gun Ownership in America,” “Understanding and Misunderstanding American Gun Culture and Violence,” and Concealed Carry Revolution: Liberalizing the Right to Bear Arms in America. His book, Gun Curious: A Journey Inside America’s Evolving Culture of Firearms, will be published by Exposit Books in May 2024.
Committed to informing public debate and enriching everyday conversations about guns, Professor Yamane shares his thoughts on his blog, gunculture2point0.com and on Twitter at @davidyamane. In 2022, he launched a YouTube channel, “Light Over Heat with Professor David Yamane,” on which he posts weekly short videos about issues related to his scholarship.
Professional headshots and full biographies are available on Professor Yamane’s personal website davidyamane.com.
COURSES TAUGHT
SOC 151: Principles of Sociology
SOC 270: Sociological Theory
SOC 301/REL 351: Sociology of Religion
SOC 347: Society, Culture, and Sport
SOC 384: Sociology of Guns
FYS 100: Sociology of Vocation