Award-winning criminologist and NIU sociology professor Richard Quinney recently unveiled his latest book.

“Journey to a Far Place: Autobiographical Reflections,” is a compilation of Quinney’s personal essays in which he explores the meaning of existence. Quinney said he feels this book may reveal more about personal and social reality than his earlier works.

Influenced by Eastern religions, Quinney said he recognizes the sacred quality of life. Deeply embedded in our historical consciousness in Christianity and in the social sciences is the universal division between the “secularity of this world and the sacredness of the other world,” he said.

Yet for Quinney, a different approach is to recognize the sacred spirit in the mundane, everyday life. He refers to his book as his “journey into the unknown” through which he hopes to “gain an understanding of who I am, what I was, and what I may become,” he said.

Quinney said one’s life derives meaning for itself by the relation of that life to the human community and to the nature of the whole world. He describes the world as “mystical,” adding, “you sense your connection to all that is beyond you. You realize that you are an integral part of everything and nature.”

Quinney’s universal perspective is evident in his book, illustrated with about 90 of Quinney’s personal black and white photographs of staring faces, protest signs, drab cityscapes, and open, stark landscapes. The photos were taken from various places throughout the world such as China and Ireland.

This summer, Quinney said he plans to spend his time photographing clouds and traveling the roads of DeKalb County. “With all travel … every moment is a journey of the soul. The mystical is too great for us to understand, but we can experience it,” he said.

Quinney has earned degrees from Carroll College in Waukesha, Wis., Northwestern University at Evanston, Ill., and the University of Wisconsin at Madison. He has taught at several universities including the University of Kentucky and New York University.

In addition, he has written over 15 books and received several awards. In 1984, Quinney received the distinguished Edwin Sutherland Award from the American Society of Criminology for his contributions to criminological theory. Then in 1986, he received the Fulbright Award, which was a lectureship at University College, Galway, Ireland.