DIRECTORY
KARL MANNHEIM
1893–1947
Karl Mannheim cofounded the
sociology of knowledge, which
looks at the processes involved
in “knowing” the world. He claimed
that we “see” the world through the
lenses of our culture and ideologies,
and as a function of our position
in society; “truth” is relative and
depends on subject-positions.
Hungarian-born, Mannheim
studied under Georg Simmel in
Berlin, Germany. In 1933 he joined
the London School of Economics.
See also: Karl Marx 28–31 ■
Max Weber 38–45 ■ Georg Simmel
104–05 ■ Norbert Elias 180–81
BARBARA ADAM WOOTTON
1897–1988
Sociologist Barbara Adam Wootton
is best known for her work Crime
and the Criminal Law (1963), which
reversed commonly accepted views
about “the criminal personality.”
She studied economics at the
University of Cambridge, UK, in
1919, and for an MA in 1920, but
as women then were not formally
recognized as students, she was
not awarded the degrees. She later
taught sociology at the universities
of London and Bedford.
See also: Sylvia Walby 96–99 ■
Ann Oakley 318–19
ALFRED SCHÜTZ
1899–1959
Alfred Schütz gained a PhD in the
philosophy of law at the University
of Vienna, Austria, and became
interested in the work of Max
Weber and the philosopher Edmund
Husserl. In 1938 he moved to Paris,
and then to New York. Following
Husserl’s phenomenological
approach, which examines how the
world is experienced in a person’s
subjective consciousness, Schütz
set out the basis for the new field
of phenomenological sociology,
which focuses on the nature of
social reality.
See also: Max Weber 38–45 ■
Peter L. Berger 336HERBERT BLUMER
1900–1987Herbert Blumer gained his PhD
in sociology at the University of
Chicago, where he taught for
27 years. In 1952, he became
the first chair in sociology at the
University of California, Berkeley. In
Symbolic Interactionism (1969), his
best-known work, he suggested
that individual and collective
actions reflect the meaning that
people place on things, and these
meanings arise from within the
context of human group life.
See also: G.H. Mead 176–77 ■
Howard S. Becker 280–85 ■
Charles H. Cooley 334THEODOR W. ADORNO
1903–1969Theodor W. Adorno was a proponent
of neo-Marxist “critical theory.”
Born in Frankfurt, Germany, he
studied under Siegfried Kracauer
and received a PhD in philosophy
from the University of Frankfurt in- In 1931 he cofounded the
Institute for Social Research (also
known as the Frankfurt School)
with Max Horkheimer, but with the
rise of Nazism he moved to the UK,
while the institute moved abroad.
He was reunited with it in the US
and helped it to become a leading
voice against US capitalism’s
“illusory” pleasures. In 1949, the
institute and Adorno returned
to (West) Germany. Adorno spent
his retirement in Switzerland.
See also: Herbert Marcuse
182–87 ■ Jürgen Habermas 286–87
■ Siegfried Kracauer 334 ■ Walter
Benjamin 334ANSELM L. STRAUSS
1916–1996US sociologist Anselm L. Strauss
developed, with Barney Glasser,
an innovative method of qualitative
analysis known as “grounded
theory,” which sought to build a
theory from research, rather than
find research to prove a theory.
Strauss studied at the University
of Chicago under Herbert Blumer,
then later wrote Social Psychology
(1949) with Alfred R. Lindesmith.
He became part of the “Second
Chicago School,” with Howard S.
Becker and Erving Goffman.
See also: Erving Goffman 264–69
■ Howard S. Becker 280–85 ■
Herbert Blumer 335LOUIS ALTHUSSER
1918–1990French Marxist philosopher Louis
Althusser was a major figure of
the structuralist movement of the
1960s, a philosophy that analyzed
society through the study of signs
(semiotics). His reinterpretation
of Marx pointed to the role of
“ideological state apparatuses” that
underlie and perpetuate particular
ideologies. Born in Algeria, he
moved to France in 1930. He spent
most of World War II in a prison335