Spectrum - Volume 20 Issue 07 October 9, 1997 - Bryant to head encyclopedia project

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Bryant to head encyclopedia project

By Sally Harris

Spectrum Volume 20 Issue 07 - October 9, 1997

Clifton D. Bryant, professor of sociology at Virginia Tech, has been named editor-in-chief of an editorial team that will develop a 3,000-page, four-volume reference work titled The Encyclopedia of Criminology and Deviant Behavior .
The encyclopedia will be published by Taylor & Francis, a 200-year-old British/American international publishing corporation that specializes in scientific journals, technical treatises, and reference works. Bryant will direct and coordinate the work of 15 advisory and associate editors and more than 500 contributors, who will collectively examine the research of the last 150 years and try to identify the most significant scientific findings. They will then aggregate, integrate, synthesize, and re-articulate these findings in a comprehensive exposition of the knowledge in this subdiscipline.
This is the first encyclopedia of deviant behavior ever attempted. In effect, the team will attempt to consolidate the knowledge of this millennium and distill and refine it for the benefit of scholars and lay audiences in the next millennium.
The 15-member editorial group is composed of some of the most eminent social scientists in the field. They have edited major scientific journals, authored or edited leading texts and monographs in the field, and served as presidents of various scientific professional associations. The 500 contributors will be recruited from among the leading researchers in the field.
Work on the project will proceed over the next two years, and the publication date of the encyclopedia is scheduled for early in the year 2000.
Bryant has been a faculty member at Virginia Tech since 1972. He served as head of the Department of Sociology for 10 years. He has had teaching or research appointments at seven U.S. colleges, universities, or agencies, and at two Asian universities.
He was the founding editor-in-chief of the scientific journal Deviant Behavior and has authored or edited 11 volumes, most of which addressed criminology or deviant behavior. He is a past president of both the Southern Sociological Association and the Mid-South Sociological Association. Bryant is listed in Who's Who in America and Who's Who in The World.