Horst Helle

Helle received a business degree from the university in his hometown of Hamburg before receiving an MBA from the University of Kansas on a Fulbright Scholarship, 1956-1957.[http://www.horst-helle.de Horst Helle wee.org/web/20230131060556/https://horst-helle.de/cirriculum-vitae-in-english/ archived]) Thereupon, he returned to the University of Hamburg and obtained the Ph.D. in sociology as well as the license to teach sociology as Privatdozent. He has since held tenured professorships at the RWTH Aachen University, the University of Vienna, and the University of Munich where, between 1973 and 2002, he was Professor of Sociology and Co-director of the Institute for Sociology. Over the course of his career, Helle has also taught at universities in several other countries, including a year as a research fellow at the University of Chicago and, since 1996, in mainland China.[http://www.sagepub.in/authorDetails.nav?contribId=600551 H.J. Helle - Author information]

Helle's work is mainly concerned with analyzing the development of Symbolic Interactionism since Herbert Blumer, although he does not single out Blumer's contribution. Instead the latter is positioned and discussed in the context of the evolution of the so-called 'Verstehen' tradition of interpretive sociology. Helle has specifically looked at the path taken by European sociology in its tension between positivism and neo-Kantianism since the writing of Georg Simmel. He connects this tradition to Blumer's indebtedness to George Herbert Mead, the widely acknowledged “father” of Symbolic Interactionism. In this theoretical continuity Helle also discusses the work of Anselm Strauss, Tamotsu Shibutani and, particularly, Erving Goffman. Most of Helle’s substantive work has centered on cultural change, religion, the family, and recently mainland China.[http://www.horst-helle.de/forschung.html Horst Helle website - Forschungsgebiete]

• Verstehende Soziologie und Theorie der Symbolischen Interaktion. Stuttgart: B. G. Teubner, 1977.
• Symbolic Interaction and Verstehen. Frankfurt am Main/New York: Peter Lang, 2005.
• [https://brill.com/view/title/19617 Messages from Georg Simmel]. Leiden: Brill, 2013.
• [https://brill.com/view/title/31937 China: Promise or Threat? A Comparison of Cultures]. Leiden: Brill, 2016.
• Refugees, Religions, and Social Change: Essays on China and the Failing West. Munich, 2019.
• Lebensrückblick als Dank: für die relevanten Anderen. Munich, 2024.
• Verstehende Soziologie: Entwicklung einer Vorgehensweise von Simmel bis Goffman. Munich, 2024.

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• [http://www.horst-helle.de Horst Helle Website]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20170430170913/http://www.soziologie.uni-muenchen.de/einrichtungen/lehrbereiche/pe_helle/personen/helle_horst/index.html Horst Jürgen Helle webpage at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität]
• [http://cdclv.unlv.edu/archives/interactionism/biographies/helle_abio.pdf Horst J. Helle - A Journey into Sociology]

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Category:German sociologists

Category:University of Kansas alumni

Category:1934 births

Category:Living people

Category:Academic staff of the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich

Category:University of Hamburg alumni