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research inquiry



I am posting the following on behalf of a German colleague; replies can go
either to me or directly to him.

Thanks--

Liz Goodstein
The Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts
Emory University
egoodst@emory.edu


QUERY: Georg Simmel Correspondence

I am writing on behalf of the editors of the Georg Simmel Gesamtausgabe
(Frankfurt 1988ff.) to ask for help in locating any archival materials in
which Simmel appears either as correspondent or as topic in the context of
turn-of-the-century American social research. Because this is a critical
edition, we would be very interested in any material that mentions Simmel
in a way that could be helpful in tracing his contacts with individuals or
institutions in the U.S.

Georg Simmel (1858-1918) was one of the most important German philosophers
and sociologists at the turn of the 19th century. His thought and writings
are significantly related to central developments in intellectual history
such as Voelkerpsychologie, Neo-Kantianism, Pragmatism, and Philosophy of
Life. Among his students were later well known intellectual figures such
as E. Cassirer, B. Groethuysen, G. H. Mead, G. Lukacs, R. E. Park, G.
Santayana, and O. Thon. Through them and through his writings, he found a
great deal of resonance in philosophy and sociology in the first half of
the 20th century, from M. Heidegger to the Frankfurt School.

Of particular interest for the purpose of our research is Simmel's
relationship to American sociology, psychology and anthropology.
Unfortunately we still know very little about how these contacts took
place as most of Simmel's extensive correspondence was lost during the
Nazi period. Thus far we know that in the 1890s he was on the editorial
board of the American Journal of Sociology, which was founded by A. Small
of the University of Chicago. We also have evidence that he may have been
offered a professorship at an American university, perhaps Northwestern or
Case Western Reserve, but we have not yet been able to confirm this. Our
researches in American archives thus far have yielded letters to F. H.
Giddings (University of Columbia), H. Muensterberg (Harvard University),
and L. F. Ward (Brown University), and correspondence with German friends
(Boston Public Library, The Getty Research Institute, and the Leo Baeck
Institute).

It is very likely that there are more traces of Simmel in American
archives, either among the papers of American scholars in philosophy,
sociology, anthropology or among those of German academics and writers
such as members of the George circle or Zionists such as Osias Thon. We
would be very grateful for any information that could be helpful in
uncovering sources regarding anything related to Simmel's personal or
professional American connections.

Many thanks in advance!

Sincerely,

Willfried Gessner

Dr. Willfried Gessner
Raabestrasse 15
D-10405 Berlin
wgessner@gmx.net

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