Hans Joas is Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at Humboldt University Berlin and Visiting Professor of Sociology and Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin in 1979 (G. H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought, MIT Press, 1985, 1997). Among his numerous prizes are the Max Planck Research Award in 2015; the Prix Paul Ricoeur in 2017 and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award of the German Sociological Association in 2022. His last book in English is The Power of the Sacred. An Alternative to the Narrative of Disenchantment, Oxford UP, 2021. Andreas Pettenkofer studied sociology at the Free University of Berlin, the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and the University of Bielefeld, and received his PhD at the Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt. After positions at the University of Göttingen and at the Fernuniversität in Hagen, he is now a fellow at the Max Weber Centre, University of Erfurt, where he heads the group ""The Local Politicization of Global Norms"".
This new collection of essays regarding the thought and reception of the work of Émile Durkheim is a masterful corrective to one of social science's most important, but also most misunderstood, founding figures. Too often dismissed as a strict positivist and conservative, Durkheim has been forgotten and neglected by many in recent years. This book deserves our attention because it demonstrates (from a variety of vantage points and perspectives) his relevance to our current social theoretical efforts....Highly recommended. * Choice *