Prof. Dr. Andreas Reckwitz

Vergangene FRIAS-Aufenthalte

• April - Juli 2012

CV

Andreas Reckwitz studied sociology, philosophy and political science at the universities of Bonn, Hamburg and Cambridge. After a Master-degree at Cambridge, he finished his Ph.D. in sociology in 1999 at Hamburg University with a thesis on “The transformation of cultural theory”. After being assistant professor at Hamburg University, he was offered the chair for social theory and cultural sociology at the University of Konstanz in 2005. In 2010, he became professor of cultural sociology at the Europa-Univesity Viadrina at Frankfurt/ Oder. Andreas Reckwitz was visiting scholar and visiting professor at Berkeley, London, Vienna, Heidelberg, Bielefeld, Freiburg and St. Gallen.
In a number of books, he has pursued the aim of a ‘cultural’ theory of the social and of modernity. So, in “The Transformation of Cultural Theories” social theory was reformulated as cultural theory between structuralism and phenomenology, amounting to the new perspective of a theory of social practices. In “The Hybrid Subject. From bourgeois modernity to postmodernity” a theory of modernity as historical sociology of cultures of the self is elaborated which lies special emphasis on the influence of artistic and aesthetic movement on modern self-formation. In “The Invention of Creativity. On the process of aesthetization”, a genealogy of the ‘apparatus of creativity’ in 20th century culture is presented, linking the fields of the arts, creative industries, psychology, the mass media and urban development. Reckwitz’s current interests are different forms of processes of aesthetization and regimes of novelty in modern society and their impacts on cultural alienation and emancipation; the specific contribution of urban and spatial development in this context; and the general question of how to understand cultural theory as a theory of materiality, considering the fluxus of artefacts, affects and senses.

Publikationen (Auswahl)

Monographien und Herausgeberschaften

• 1997 Struktur. Zur sozialwissenschaftlichen Analyse von Regeln und Regelmäßigkeiten, Opladen/ Wiesbaden: Westdeutscher Verlag
• 2000 Die Transformation der Kulturtheorien. Zur Entwicklung eines Theorieprogramms, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft; paperback version 2006; 3rd ed. 2008; 4th ed. 2012
• 2006 Das hybride Subjekt. Eine Theorie der Subjektkulturen von der bürgerlichen Moderne zur Postmoderne, Weilerswist: Velbrück Wissenschaft; paperback version 2010; 3rd ed. 2010
• 2007 Kulturen der Moderne. Soziologische Perspektiven der Gegenwart, Frankfurt (Main)/ New York: Campus Verlag (edited with Thorsten Bonacker)
• 2008 Unscharfe Grenzen. Perspektiven der Kultursoziologie, Bielefeld: transcript; 2nd ed. 2010
• 2008 Poststrukturalistische Sozialwissenschaften, Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp (edited with Stephan Moebius)
• 2012 Die Erfindung der Kreativität. Zum Prozess gesellschaftlicher Ästhetisierung, Berlin: Suhrkamp

Aufsätze

• 2002 The Status of the ‚Material’ in Theories of Culture: From ‚Social Structure’ to ‚Artefacts’, in: Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour, no. 2, pp. 195- 217
• 2002 Toward a Theory of Social Practices. A Development in Culturalist Theorizing, in: European Journal of Social Theory, no 2, S. 245- 265, reprint in: Gabrielle M. Spiegel (ed.): Practicing History. New directions in historical writing after the linguistic turn, London/ New York 2005, pp. 245- 263
• 2010 Reasons and beliefs or scripts and schemes? A comment on Raymond Boudon, in: Gert Albert/ Steffen Sigmund (erd.): Soziologische Theorie kontrovers, Sonderheft 50/ 10 der Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie, Wiesbaden, pp. 106- 115
• 2012 Affective Spaces. A praxeological outlook, in: Rethinking History

FRIAS-Projekt

In this research project, cultural theory is to be reformulated as a theory of materiality, amounting to a new version of a (critical) theory of the social, which overcomes both rationalist and semiotic biases. Proceeding from the concept of social practices, the significance of the body, the senses, affects and artefacts are to be rethought. The point of departure is the idea that social orders are always sensual orders, bodily orders, affective orders and order of artefacts. The project works with impulses from phenomenology, post-structuralism, and actor-network-theory. The aim is to provide a heuristic framework for current social and cultural analysis, rethinking at the same time the ‘political’ character of sensual-affective structures, evident above all in (urban) spatial structures.