Meet Assistant Teaching Professor of Sociology Brad Nabors, PhD
October 7, 2021
Brad Nabors, PhD, is an assistant teaching professor in the Department of Sociology. He earned his PhD at the University of Southern California, where his dissertation focused on organized nonbelief and the normative boundaries of religious pluralism. Since 2015 he has taught a range of courses at Drexel, including Sociology of Health and Illness, Sociology of Deviance, Contemporary Sociological Theory and Introduction to Sociology.
Degree: PhD, Sociology, University of Southern California
Research Interests: Cultural sociology, sociology of religion, sociological theory
Hometown: Auburn, CA
What did you do before coming to Drexel?
I was a PhD candidate at University of Southern California. Before USC, I taught in the Philosophy Department at Butte College in Chico, CA.
What book, movie, show or podcast would you recommend?
A book I recommend is Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music by Greg Milner, which goes beyond the historical development of recording techniques to an exploration of what it is we think we are listening to when we listen to our favorite artists.
What is your favorite thing about Philadelphia?
My wonderful and numerous in-laws.
When was the last time you did something “for the first time”? What was it?
In June, I stepped into the Atlantic Ocean for the first time at Assateague Island, VA. It was also the first time my daughter Frida saw the ocean, so it was a big day for all of us.
What would students be surprised to learn about you?
I moved up and down the entire West Coast of the U.S. throughout my 20s (from San Diego to Seattle), and held many different jobs before committing to academia as a career: dishwasher, prep cook, car wash attendant, elementary school janitor, silkscreener, dry cleaner, AAA call center specialist, substitute teacher, drug store clerk, touring musician, receptionist, real estate photographer and paratransit driver.
What did you want to be when you were a kid? What made you want to become a professor?
I had no specific (nor vague) career plans as a kid, but I wanted to become a professor thanks to a number of meaningful conversations I had with some of my own professors as an undergraduate. The fact that they took an active interest in my intellectual development meant the world to me. Some of them I now consider friends.