Robert Staughton Lynd

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Robert Staughton Lynd (born September 26, 1892 in New Albany , Indiana , † November 1, 1970 in New York City ) was an American sociologist and professor at Columbia University , New York.

Life

Robert S. Lynd and his wife Helen M. Lynd were best known for their community sociological studies Middletown (1929) and Middletown in Transition (1937).

Lynd had received no formal training as a sociologist, but at the Union Theological Seminary Theology studied. He worked as a chaplain on an oil field of the Rockefeller Group and received a research assignment from the Rockefeller Institute of Social and Religious Research for his community sociological studies through an article about the living conditions there . Based on these studies, he received his PhD in sociology from Columbia University.

reception

In Knowledge for what? (1939) Lynd analyzes the relationship between the contemporary state of American culture and the situation of the social sciences . He directs his socio-critical attention to the tensions and divisions in US society and advocates a social science that should work on socially relevant problems across disciplines . The book, characterized by the contemporary experience of the Great Depression , the New Deal and the threat of resurgent fascism , can in many ways as an anticipation of today more famous book The Sociological Imagination (dt .: critique of sociological imagination ) of C. Wright Mills conceived become.

Works (selection)

  • with Helen M. Lynd: Middletown. A Study in Contemporary American Culture (A Harvest Book; 27). Harcourt, Brace & World, New York 1965 (reprint of the New York edition 1929).
  • with Helen M. Lynd: Middletown in Transition. A Study in Cultural Conflicts . Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, New York 1982, ISBN 0-15-659551-6 (reprint of the New York 1937 edition).
  • Knowledge for what? The Place of Social Science in American Culture . Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, Conn. 1986, ISBN 0-8195-6170-3 .

Single receipts

  1. ^ Lewis A. Coser : Introduction to the Wesleyan Paperback Edition. In: Robert S. Lynd: Knowledge for what? The Place of Social Science in American Culture . Wesleyan University Press. Middletown, Conn. 1986, ISBN 0-8195-6170-3 , p. XII (reprint of the Princeton edition, NJ 1939)
personal data
SURNAME Lynd, Robert Staughton
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American sociologist and professor at Columbia University, New York
DATE OF BIRTH September 26, 1892
PLACE OF BIRTH New Albany , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1970
Place of death New York City