Academic literature on the topic 'Frankfurt school sociology'

AbstractThis chapter will focus on the two decades after 1945, the period of the “post-war society” (1945–1967), which in the historical sciences is also characterized as a period of boom (keywords: “Wirtschaftswunder” (“economic miracle”), expansion of the welfare state, expansion of the educational sector, certainty about the future) and which comes to an end in the 1970s. Germany was undergoing a profound process of change: socio-structural changes in an advanced industrial society, structural changes in the family and a retreat into the private sphere, new opportunities in the areas of consumption and leisure due to the “Wirtschaftswunder,” urbanization and changes in communities, “Western Integration” (“Westbindung”), the ban on the KPD (Communist Party of Germany) in 1956, remilitarization, the development of the mass media and mass motorization, and the repression of the Nazi past were central social and sociological issues. At the same time, fascist tendencies were still virulent during the 1950s and 1960s. After 1945, sociology had to be rebuilt. Journals were refounded or newly founded, the German Sociological Association was restored and sociology was re-established as a teaching subject. Different “schools” and regional centers of sociology emerged. The so-called Cologne School centered around René König, the Frankfurt School around Adorno and Horkheimer, and the circle around Helmut Schelsky should be mentioned in particular; but also, Wolfgang Abendroth, Werner Hofmann, and Heinz Maus (Marburg School), Otto Stammer (Berlin), Arnold Bergstraesser (Freiburg i.Br.), and Helmuth Plessner (Göttingen). Despite their theoretical and political differences, up until the 1950s, they all had in common the decisive will for political and social enlightenment regarding the post-war situation. Furthermore, the particular importance that empirical social research and non-university research institutions had for the further development of sociology after 1945 is worth mentioning.At the end of the 1950s, field-specific dynamics gained momentum. The different “schools” and groups tried to secure and expand their position in the sociological field and their divergent research profiles became increasingly visible. The so-called civil war in sociology drove the actors further apart. Additionally, disciplinary struggles and camp-building processes during the first 20 years of West German sociology revolved around the debate on role theory and the dispute over positivism. By the end of the 1950s, an institutional and generational change can be observed. The so-called post-war generation, which included Ralf Dahrendorf, Jürgen Habermas, Niklas Luhmann, Erwin K. Scheuch, Heinrich Popitz, Hans Paul Bahrdt, M. Rainer Lepsius, and Renate Mayntz, assumed central positions in organizations, editorial boards of journals, and universities. While the early “schools” and circles (König, Schelsky, Adorno, and Horkheimer) initially focused on the sociology of the family and empirical research, the following generation concentrated foremost on industrial sociology, but also on topics of social structure and social stratification as well as on social mobility.

AbstractIn the 1960s, Germany was strongly marked by changes in cultural values and social concepts of order, by new developments in art, music, and film, as well as suburbanization; also, as in many other countries, in 1968 there were massive student protests in Germany. The student movement brought sociology into the limelight. The Frankfurt School and the more Marxist Marburg School in particular became closely connected with the student movement. As a subject of study, sociology gained enormously in importance, which was connected with the growing need for social reflection in all areas of life. A characteristic feature of sociology in this period was an increasing differentiation into specialized subfields. The number of academic positions for sociologists and the number of students increased, partly as a result of the founding of new universities and of reforms in higher education policy. The increasing number of non-university research institutions complemented sociological research at the universities. This expansion, which coincided with a highly visible public sociology, also led to counter-movements: Conservative sociologists criticized the growing social influence of sociology and propagated an “anti-sociology.” As far as empirical social research is concerned, quantitative research had become more professional; interpretative social research had slowly developed, reinforced by the increasing reception of symbolic interactionism. The “planning euphoria” of the 1960s and 1970s weakened, and many looked at 1968 with disappointment and some even turned away from sociology. There were debates, such as that between representatives of Critical Theory and systems theory (the “Habermas-Luhmann debate”) and the debate on “theory comparison,” and controversies regarding “postmodernism.” The 1980s was the great time for sociological theory in Germany. Also, a further increase in the differentiation and pluralization of the sociological field could be observed.

The introduction traces the development of intellectual love from its first major expression in Baruch Spinoza’s Ethics,through its adoption and adaptation in eighteenth-century moral and natural philosophy, to its emergence as a British Romantic tradition. While most scholarly work treats Romantic-era theories of love as idealized and illusory, I show how this distinct tradition of intellectual love was integral to broader debates about the nature of life, the biology of the human body, the sociology of human relationships, the philosophy of nature, and the disclosure of being. I situate this history of intellectual love within the contemporary context of ‘the affective turn’ in the humanities and social sciences, as well as recent work in aesthetic theory associated with the Frankfurt School.