Solon Simmons

Headshot Photo of Solon Simmons
Titles and Organizations

Professor at the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution, Carter School

Contact Information

Phone: 703-993-3781
Campus: Arlington
Building: Arlington: Vernon Smith Hall
Room 5104
Mail Stop: 4D3

Biography

Solon Simmons is full professor and the director of The Narrative Transformation Lab (TNT Lab) at George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. A sociologist by training, he is the author many books and articles on narrative and storytelling in peace and politics, including Conflict Resolution after the Pandemic Building Peace, Pursuing Justice (2021), Root Narrative Theory and Conflict Resolution; Power, Justice and Values (2020),  and The Eclipse of Equality: Arguing America on Meet the Press (2013), and most recently, Narrating Peace: How to Tell a Conflict Story (2024) and The Handbook of Social and Political Conflict (coming 2025). At The Narrative Transformation Lab, Solon is leading efforts to develop cutting-edge narrative tools for use in practical applications in both adversarial struggles for justice and collaborative journeys toward peace. Solon served as interim dean for the Carter School in 2013, and Vice President for Global Strategy for George Mason from 2014-2017, and is current President of the Faculty Senate. He teaches classes on the craft of peace writing, conflict theory, narrative, media, discourse and conflict, human rights, quantitative and qualitative methodology, global conflict, and critical theory.

Books

Book cover of Root Narrative Theory and Conflict Resolution with artwork depicting roots below a surface.

 

Root Narrative Theory and Conflict Resolution: Power, Justice, and Conflict Resolution

2020

This book introduces Root Narrative Theory, a new approach for narrative analysis, decoding moral politics, and for building respect and understanding in conditions of radical disagreement.

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Book cover of "Eclipse of Equality" with a red elephant and blue donkey butting heads on an old-style television.

Eclipse of Equality: Arguing America on Meet the Press

To understand American politics, it is essential to understand our disparate political tendencies as they have played out in public debate. Uncovering how and why certain arguments have been persuasive over the last decades—as set forth on Meet the Press, the longest running political roundtable—Simmons chronicles the defining political debates of the 20th century.

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Degrees

  • PhD, Sociology , University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • MA, Sociology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • BA, History, University of Chicago