Place of birth: London, England

Parentage: son of the late Richard James Urry and Wilga Alison Urry

Family: son, Thomas Urry, daughter, Amy Urry

Education: BA (Hons), Economics, University of Cambridge 1967; MA, Economics, University of Cambridge 1968; PhD, Sociology, University of Cambridge 1972

Career: John Urry is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Centre for Mobilities Research (CeMoRe), Director of MA Tourism & Travel at Lancaster University. At Lancaster, John Urry has been Head of the Sociology Department (1983–89), Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences (1989–94) and the University's Dean of Research (1994–98). Also he was Chair of HEFCE's Research Assessment Exercise Sociology Panel in 1996 and 2001. Professor Urry’s research interests are in the sociology of power and revolution, social theory and the philosophy of the social sciences, urban and regional research mainly associated with the Lancaster Regionalism Group, the relationship between society and space, the possibilities of developing local economic policies, economic and social change in western capitalist societies, consumer services and especially tourist-related services, issues of environmental change and the ‘sociology of nature’, the changing nature of mobility, and the implications of complexity theory for the social sciences. He has been a Visiting Professor in the Departments of Geography at Bristol and Roskilde Universities. John Urry is a founding editor of the journal Mobilities (see url below) and has been the editor of the International Library of Sociology since 1990. He is a Founding Academician of the Academy of Social Sciences and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Honours and awards: Dr honoris causa, Roskilde University 2004

Publications include: Reference Groups and the Theory of Revolution 1973, Power in Britain (co-editor) 1973, Social Theory as Science (co-author) 1975, 1982, The Anatomy of Capitalist Societies 1981, Capital, Labour and the Middle Classes (co-author) 1983, Social Relations and Spatial Structures (co-editor) 1985, Localities, Class, and Gender (co-author) 1985, The End of Organized Capitalism (co-author) 1987, Contemporary British Society (co-author) 1988, 1994, 2000, Localities, Policies, Politics. Do Localities Matter? (co-editor) 1990, Restructuring. Place, Class and Gender (co-author) 1990, The Tourist Gaze 1990, 2002, Schools of Thought in Sociology (General Editor of 18 volumes) 1989–96, Economies of Signs and Space (co-author) 1994, Consuming Places 1995, Touring Cultures (co-editor) 1997, Contested Natures (co-author) 1998, Sociology for the New Millennium. Special issue of the British Journal of Sociology (editor) 2000, Sociology Beyond Societies 2000, Bodies of Nature. Special issue of Body and Society 6 (co-editor) 2000, Bodies of Nature (co-editor) 2001, Global Complexity 2003, Presence-Absence. Special issue of Environment and Planning A: Society and Space 22 (co-editor) 2004, Automobilities. Special issue of Theory, Culture and Society 21 (co-editor) 2004, Tourism Mobilities. Places to Play, Places in Play (co-editor) 2004, Performing Tourist Places (co-author) 2004, Complexity. Special Issue of Theory, Culture and Society 22: 1–270 2005, Automobilities (co-editor) 2005, Sociologie de Mobilités: Une nouvelle frontière pour la sociologie? 2005, Mobilities and Materialities. Special issue of Environment and Planning A (co-editor) 2006, Mobile Technologies of the City (co-editor) 2006, Mobilities, Geographies, Networks (co-author) 2006, Mobilities 2007; around 200 book chapters and peer-reviewed articles in academic journals

Contact details: Address: Sociology Department, Bowland North, Lancaster University, Lancaster, LA1 4YD, England; Tel: +44 (0)1524 594179; Fax: +44 (0)1524 594256; Email: j.urry@lancaster.ac.uk ; Website: http://www.lancs.ac.uk/fss/sociology/ ; Website: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/titles/17450101.asp/ .