Wolf Lepenies

Lepenies ( born January 11, 1941 in Deuthen in Olsztyn, East Prussia, today Olsztyn - Dajtki, Poland ) is a German sociologist, science policy and scientific writer and professor emeritus at the Free University of Berlin.

Life

Lepenies grew after the war in Koblenz, where he attended the State Eichendorff -Gymnasium. He studied at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität in Münster sociology and philosophy and became a PhD in 1967 with Dieter Claessens with the work " Melancholy and society." In 1970 he completed his habilitation at the Free University of Berlin. Abroad led him to Paris at the Maison des sciences de l' homme and to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (New Jersey).

1984 Lepenies was appointed to the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin and was appointed full professor of sociology at the Free University of Berlin. Research stays brought him many a time back to the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton back. In 1986 he became the successor of Peter Wapnewski rector of the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin. 2001 followed by Dieter Grimm in this office. In 2006 he became an emeritus professor.

In 1991, he was among the founders of the Collegium Budapest in Hungary, the first Institute for Advanced Study in Central and Eastern Europe. He is a member of the PEN center of Germany since 1994. Since 2004 he is a member of the Supervisory Board of Axel Springer AG.

Lepenies is Chairman of the Scientific Committee of the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, Cologne, member of the Berlin -Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Académie Universelle des Cultures (Paris), the German Academy for Language and Literature, the Academia Europaea (London), the Aspen Institute (Berlin ), the German National Foundation, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Royal Swedish Gelehrsamkeits, history and antiques Academy (both Stockholm ).

Awards and honors

He also received the following awards:

  • Honorary doctorate from the Sorbonne in Paris
  • Officer's Cross of Merit of the Republic of Hungary
  • Commander of the Swedish Order of the North Star.

Writings (selection )

  • Melancholy and Society, 1969 ( Diss 1967)
  • Sociological Anthropology. Materials, 1971
  • The end of natural history. Change cultural truisms, 1976
  • History of Sociology ( in four volumes ), 1981
  • The three cultures. Sociology between literature and science, 1985
  • Writers and scientists in the 18th century. Linnaeus - Buffon - Winckelmann - Georg Forster - Erasmus Darwin, 1988
  • Hazardous Elective Affinities. Essays on the History of Science, 1989
  • Consequences of an incredible event. The Germans after unification, 1992
  • Rise and Fall of intellectuals in Europe, 1992
  • Sainte -Beuve. On the threshold of modernity, 1997
  • Etiquette and knowledge, 1997
  • Social science and social change. An Experience Report, 1999
  • Culture and politics. German Stories, 2006
  • The Seduction of Culture in German History, 2006

Essays and Articles (Selection )

  • Irritant to a contradiction. One hundred years ago Talcott Parsons was born, who was reflected in some Harvard and sociology in America made ​​at home. In: SZ, 13 December 2002.
  • Under the spell of the Bible. From the de-secularization of American politics. In: SZ, January 3, 2003.
  • We are all Europeans. Three speeches from the east, the New World and the Old Continent. In: SZ, January 30, 2003.
  • At the limits of power. In Iraq fails, the strategy of "forced democracy." In: SZ, November 12, 2003.
  • Why is it worth in times of crisis, to read Balzac. In: The World, December 13, 2009.
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