Former Sociology Department Chairman Philip Slater dies at 86

A prominent sociologist and former chairman of the Brandeis Sociology Department, Philip Slater died June 20 at the age of 86.

Slater was the best-selling author of “Pursuit of Loneliness,” a critique of American culture, as well as dozens of other books and plays. In 1971, he resigned from the university after a decade of teaching to co-found the Greenhouse, a personal growth center in Cambridge, Mass., with the late Morrie Schwartz, a fellow Brandeis sociologist who was featured in Mitch Albom’s “Tuesdays With Morrie.”