Meet Michael Bell
Michael Bell is an author and scholar, as well as a composer and performing musician.
Mike is the author or editor of eleven books, three of which have won national awards. His most recent books are the Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology (Cambridge, 2020; Legun, Keller, Carolan, and Bell, eds.), the 6th edition of An Invitation to Environmental Sociology (Sage, 2020; Bell, Ashwood, Leslie, and Schlachter), and City of the Good: Nature, Religion, and the Ancient Search for What Is Right (Princeton, 2018). He is currently finishing a book on the sociology of heritage, with Jason Orne and Loka Ashwood.
Mike serves on the faculty of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he is Chair and Philip David Lowe Professor of Community and Environmental Sociology, as well as a member of the faculty of the Agroecology Program, the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, the Center for Culture, History, and Environment, and the Religious Studies Program.
Mike is a prolific composer of classical and grassroots music, as well as environmental and progressive song. He performs regularly on mandolin and banjo with the award-winning “class-grass” band Graminy, and on guitar as a soloist and in the Elm Duo. Discover his composition and performance at his separate music site.
Mike is passionate about progressive politics, their challenges and possibilities. He currently serves on the board of the Dane County Democrats.
Recent Book Releases
City of the Good:
Nature, Religion, and the Ancient Search
for What Is Right
(Princeton University Press, 2018)
An Invitation to Environmental Sociology
(Sage, 2016, 5th Edition)
An Invitation to Qualitative Fieldwork
(Routledge, 2015)
Current Projects
Mike’s main current book projects are The Cambridge Handbook of Environmental Sociology, in two volumes, edited by Katharine Legun, Julie Keller, Michael M. Bell, and Michael S. Carolan; a book on the social experience of heritage, co-authored with Jason Orne and Loka Ashwood; and a book on the sociology of community. When no one is looking, he is also writing a novel set in Mexico in two time periods roughly a thousand years apart: the 900s and the 1890s to early 1900s.
Since 2009, Mike has been involved in participatory fieldwork with the amaXhosa people of the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, as part of the LAND (Livelihoods, Agroecology, Nutrition, and Development) Project.
His current musical projects include a new outpouring of political songs and a fourth class-grass album with his band Graminy. He is also trying to complete a symphony (possibly) and several suites for classical piano (more likely).
Samples of Mike’s Compositions
Latest News
City of the Good is now published!
My new book, City of the Good: Nature, Religion, and the Ancient Search for What Is Right, has just been released by Princeton University Press! This one took me 7 years, but I learned so [...]
Graminy wins a second Classical Album of the Year Award!
The Madison Area Music Association has awarded my band Graminy its second Classical Album of the Year Award, for our 2015 release, Dance of the Plants. We won our first for our 2013 release, Germinations: A Bluegrass [...]
Hey, now the new album IS done! Goes on sale Dec. 5, 2015
Well, Graminy's finally gone and done it! We finished our third album, Dance of the Plants. It's a collection of Graminy tunes more on the grassy side of class-grass. We're really pleased with how it [...]
Graminy’s new album is almost done too!
My band Graminy's new album, Dance of the Plants, is now being mastered, and it sounds great! Look for it in time for Christmas.