Anthropology & Sociology

West Chester University





John J. Leveille, Ph.D.

Associate Professor of Sociology

Dr. John LeveilleDr. Leveille received his doctorate from the University of California, San Diego, and after teaching at various colleges throughout the country he landed at West Chester some years ago. His major academic interests are now social movements and sociological theory. He began focusing upon social movements a few years ago and recently spent a year and a half doing a participant observation study of the Occupy Philadelphia branch of the Occupy Wall Street social movement. He just completed a book-length manuscript based upon this research and is currently looking for a press to publish it.

Prior to his research on social movements, Dr. Leveille spent many years researching the history of mental illness, particularly the sociological history of American psychiatry. He has published numerous articles in this field and has presented a number of papers on it as well. His interest in the history of mental illness is part of a broader interest in the history of knowledge systems that are put into the service of social control. He has been interested in understanding how institutional, economic, political, and social arrangements influence the shape of knowledge systems and how these knowledge systems inform and influence the professional practices within fields of social control, such as mental health and criminal justice, as well as in the field of science.

Selected Publications (PDF)

Courses Taught:

  • Social Movements
  • Sociological Theory
  • Advanced Sociological Theory
  • Perspectives on Mental Illness
  • Sociology of Mental Illness
  • Introduction to Sociology
  • Sociology of Religion

Courses He Would Like to Teach:

  • Contemporary Sociological Theory
  • Qualitative Methods
  • Foucault
  • Postmodernism
  • Marxism and Sociology
  • Sociology of Culture
  • Sociology of Knowledge
  • Sociology of Language  

Areas of Interest:

  • Social Movements
  • Sociological Theory (specializing in twentieth century European theory, and in "post-class" based, critical theories)
  • Historical Sociology of Mental Illness
  • Sociology of Culture, Knowledge, and Science