Author: Mark Benney
Alternate names: Henry Ernest Degras; H.E. Degras; Mark Benney
Born: 1910
Died: 1973
Bio: <b>Mark Benney</b> (1910&#8211;1973), born Henry Ernest Degras, was an influential writer and sociologist in the mid-20th century.  Almost entirely self-taught, he may have been the only University of Chicago professor ever to have no degrees at all.  Born in the slums of Soho in London, Benney began his adult life as a burglar, but rocketed to fame with the publication of his first book, the memoir <i>Low Company</i>, in 1936. On the strength of his writing and analysis, Benney rose to prominence as a sociologist, and in the early 1950s he crossed to the US to work with prominent researcher <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Riesman">David Riesman</a>.  With Riesman's support, he was hired by the University of Chicago, where he taught the social sciences component of the U of C's radical <a href="http://www.shimer.edu/academicprograms/curriculum/index.cfm">Great Books curriculum</a>.  After he was ousted from the U of C in the late 1950s, Benney was hired at <a href="http://shimer.edu">Shimer College</a>, where he taught until 1963. (from <a href="http://shimercollege.wikia.com">Shimer College Wiki</a>)