Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review 2013, 49(6): 951-968 | DOI: 10.13060/00380288.2013.49.6.04

Lewis A. Coser-A Stranger within More Than One Gate

Christian Fleck
University of Graz

This article presents a short portrait of Lewis A. Coser (1913-2003), the American sociologist who became renowned as one of the founders of 'conflict sociology'. Born in Berlin, Coser had to leave his homeland for political reasons and he spent the years before Nazi Germany's invasion of France in Paris. Coser then fled to the United States and started his academic career there at the College of the University of Chicago. An abridged version of the PhD thesis he wrote at Columbia University was published as The Functions of Social Conflict, which earned him recognition, a promotion, and made him a figure of authority for sociologists in the 1960s. In this article the author draws on archival materials to examine Coser's life, major publications and achievements. His intellectual trajectory from Marxism to Mertonian Functionalism, his strong commitment to a Weberian view of the separation of politics from scholarship, the breadth of his erudition in literature and classical sociological theory, and his lifelong place in New York intellectual circles and intellectual magazines made him an extraordinary figure even amongst his contemporaries.

Keywords: Lewis A. Coser, confl ict sociology, refugee scholars, functionalism, American sociology, intellectuals

Published: December 1, 2013Show citation

ACS AIP APA ASA Harvard Chicago IEEE ISO690 MLA NLM Turabian Vancouver
Fleck, C. (2013). Lewis A. Coser-A Stranger within More Than One Gate. Sociologický časopis / Czech Sociological Review, 49(6), 951-968. doi: 10.13060/00380288.2013.49.6.04.
Download citation
  • BibTeX (.bib)
  • Bookends (.ris)
  • EasyBib (.ris)
  • EndNote (.enw)
  • EndNote 8 (.xml)
  • ISI WoS (.isi)
  • Medlars (.medlars)
  • Mendeley (.ris)
  • MODS (.xml)
  • Papers (.ris)
  • RefWorks (.txt)
  • RefManager (.ris)
  • RIS (.ris)
  • MS Word (.xml)
  • Zotero (.ris)
    • Open full article

    References

    1. Bell, Daniel. 1980. The Winding Passage: Essays and Sociological Journeys, 1960-1980. Cambridge, MA: Abt Books.
    2. Blau, Judith et al. 2003. 'Sociologists Remember Lewis Coser.' Footnotes 31 (7): 12.
    3. Calhoun, Craig (ed.). 2007. Sociology in America: A History. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    4. Coser, Lewis A. 1956. The Functions of Social Conflict. Glencoe, IL: Free Press.
    5. Coser, Lewis A. 1960-61. 'Review of "The Academic Mind by Paul F. Lazarsfeld, Wagner Thielens".' Social Problems 8 (3): 276. Go to original source...
    6. Coser, Lewis A. (ed.) 1963. Sociology through Literature: An Introductory Reader. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice-Hall.
    7. Coser, Lewis A. [1965] 1997. Men of Ideas: A Sociologist's View. New York: Free Press.
    8. Coser, Lewis A. 1967. Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict. New York: Free Press.
    9. Coser, Lewis A. 1969. 'Unanticipated Conservative Consequences of Liberal Theorizing.' Social Problems 16 (3): 263-272 (reprinted in 1988a, 31-42) Go to original source...
    10. Coser, Lewis A. 1974. Greedy Institutions: Patterns of Undivided Commitment. New York: Free Press.
    11. Coser, Lewis A. (ed.) 1975a. The Idea of Social Structure: Papers in Honor of Robert K. Merton. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
    12. Coser, Lewis A. 1975b. 'Two Methods in Search of Substance.' American Sociological Review 40 (6): 691-700 (reprinted in 1988a, 3-15). Go to original source...
    13. Coser, Lewis A. 1977. Masters of Sociological Thought: Ideas in Historical and Social Context. 2nd ed. With a Foreword by Robert K. Merton. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.
    14. Coser, Lewis A. (ed.) 1980. The Pleasures of Sociology. New York: New American Library.
    15. Coser, Lewis A. 1984. Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences. New Haven, NJ: Yale University Press.
    16. Coser, Lewis A. 1988a. A Handful of Thistles: Collected Papers in Moral Conviction. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
    17. Coser, Lewis A. 1988b. 'Introduction.' Pp.xi-xx in A Handful of Thistles: Collected Papers in Moral Conviction. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books.
    18. Coser, Lewis A. 1988c. 'Die österreichische Emigration als Kulturtransfer Europa- Amerika.' Pp. 93-101 in Vertriebene Vernunft. Internationales Symposion, 19. bis 23. Oktober 1987 in Wien, edited by Friedrich Stadler. Vienna: Jugend und Volk.
    19. Coser, Lewis A. 1989. 'Ich freue mich immer, wenn ich aus Europa zurück bin.' Pp. 186-209 in Die andere Erinnerung. Gespräche mit jüdischen Wissenschaftlern im Exil, edited by Hajo Funke. Frankfurt/Main: Fischer.
    20. Coser, Lewis A. 1992. 'A College Remembered.' Pp. 161-166 in General Education in the Social Sciences: Centennial Reflections on the College of the University of Chicago, edited by John J. MacAloon. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    21. Coser, Lewis A. 1993. 'A Sociologist's Atypical Life.' Annual Review of Sociology 19: 1-15. Go to original source...
    22. Coser, Lewis A. (ed.) 1976. The Uses of Controversy in Sociology. New York: Free Press.
    23. Coser, Lewis A., Charles Kadushin and Walter W. Powell. 1982. Books: The Culture and Commerce of Publishing. New York: Basic Books.
    24. Coser, Lewis A. 1999a. 'Einleitung.', Pp. 9-23 in Soziale Rollen und soziale Strukturen, by Rose Laub Coser and edited and with an introduction by Lewis A. Coser. Graz: Nausner & Nausner.
    25. Coser, Lewis A. 1999b. 'Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976)-Sociology from Vienna to New York.' Isis 90 (4): 853-854. Go to original source...
    26. Coser, Rose Laub. 1999. Soziale Rollen und soziale Strukturen. Edited and with an introduction by Lewis A. Coser. Graz: Nausner & Nausner.
    27. Fleck, Christian. 2011. A Transatlantic History of the Social Sciences: Robber Barons, the Third Reich and the Invention of Empirical Social Research. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Go to original source...
    28. Gans, Herbert. 1997. 'Best-Sellers by Sociologists: An Exploratory Study.' Contemporary Sociology 26 (2): 131-135. Go to original source...
    29. Habermas, Jürgen. 1965. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Untersuchungen zu einer Kategorie der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft. Neuwied: Luchterhand.
    30. Howe, Irving and Lewis A. Coser with the assistance of Julius Jacobson. 1957. The American Communist Party: A Critical History, 1919-1957. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.
    31. Hughes, Everett C. 1994. On Work, Race and the Sociological Imagination. Edited and with an introduction by Lewis A. Coser. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago.
    32. Kaesler, Dirk. 2004. 'Zum Andenken an Lewis A. Coser: Ein amerikanischer Soziologe aus Deutschland.' Soziologie. Forum der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Soziologie 33 (1): 100-101.
    33. Kaesler, Dirk. 2007. 'Lewis A. Coser (Ludwig Alfred Cohen).' Pp. 80-83 in Hauptwerke der Soziologie, edited by Dirk Kaesler and Ludgera Vogt. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Alfred Kröner.
    34. Kalberg, Stephen. 2003. 'Lewis A. Coser (1913-2003).' Sociologia Internationalis 41 (2): 177-180.
    35. Lazarsfeld, Paul F. and Wagner J. R. Thielens. [1958] 1977. The Academic Mind: Social Scientists in a Time of Crisis. New York: Arno Press.
    36. Lepsius, M. Rainer. 1994. 'Laudatio zur Verleihung der Ehrendoktorwürde der Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin an Lewis A. Coser am 7. Dezember 1993.' Berliner Journal für Soziologie 4 (1): 115-118.
    37. Martin, Douglas. 2003. 'Lewis Coser, 89, Sociologist Who Focused on Intellectuals.' New York Times, 12 July.
    38. Merton, Robert K. 1994. A Life of Learning. Charles Homer Haskins Lecture. Philadelphia, PA: American Council of Learned Societies.
    39. Merton, Robert K. 1998. 'Working with Lazarsfeld: Notes and Contexts.' Pp. 163-211 in Paul Lazarsfeld (1901-1976). La sociologie de Vienne à New York, edited by Jacques Lautman and Bernard-Pierre Lécuyer. Paris: L'Harmattan.
    40. Park, Robert E. 1967. 'Human Migration and the Marginal Man.' Pp. 194-206 in On Social Control and Collective Behavior: Selected Papers. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press. Reprinted from American Journal of Sociology 33 (1928): 881-893. Go to original source...
    41. Powell, Walter W. and Richard Robbins (eds.). 1984. Conflict and Consensus: A Festschrift in Honor of Lewis A. Coser. New York: Free Press.
    42. Rosenberg, Bernard. 1984. 'An Interview with Lewis Coser.' Pp. 27-52 in Conflict and Consensus: A Festschrift in Honor of Lewis A. Coser, edited by Walter W. Powell and Richard Robbins. New York: Free Press.
    43. Rothschild, Kurt. 1965. 'Adolf Kozlik (1912-1964).' Zeitschrift für Nationalökonomie 25 (1-2): 1-2. Go to original source...
    44. Rule, James B. 2003. 'Lewis Coser: 1913-2003.' Dissent 50 (4): 93. Retrieved 29 November 2013 (http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/lewis-coser-1913-2003).
    45. Schafranek, Hans. 1988. Das kurze Leben des Kurt Landau. Ein österreichischer Kommunist als Opfer der stalinistischen Geheimpolizei. Vienna: Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik.
    46. Scheuch, Erwin K. 2003. 'In memoriam Lewis A. Coser.' Kölner Zeitschrift für Soziologie und Sozialpsychologie 55: 610-611. Go to original source...
    47. Sica, Alan and Stephen P. Turner (ed.). 2005. The Disobedient Generation: Social Theorists in the Sixties. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
    48. Turner, Jonathan H. 2013. Contemporary Sociological Theory. London: Sage. Go to original source...

    This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original publication is properly cited. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.


    Return to the content