The Anthem Companion to Karl Mannheim

An international collection of original articles Karl Mannheim documenting the current revitalization of the reception of this classical sociologist.

The Hungarian-born Karl Mannheim became recognized as a pathbreaking sociologist in Germany when he published 'Ideologie und Utopie' (1929) and in the English-speaking world upon publication of 'Ideology and Utopia' (1936), a book in which he explored the possibilities of an approach to political thought by way of sociology of knowledge. Eighty years later, and viewed from varied substance-rich perspectives worldwide, the many facets of Mannheim’s original work are examined in their bearing on numerous other questions in political theory, cultural studies and social analysis. 'The Anthem Companion to Karl Mannheim' is an international collection of original articles on the classical sociologist and documents the current revitalization of the reception of this social thinker. Using “learning from Mannheim” as their motif, the chapters in this volume favor fresh negotiations with his works, including the writings published posthumously in recent decades.

Introduction: Karl Mannheim as Interlocutor, David Kettler and Volker Meja; Chapter One Between Ideology and Utopia: Karl Mannheim’s Quest for a Political Synthesis, Henrik Lundberg; Chapter Two Karl Mannheim and the Realism Debate in Political Theory, Peter Breiner; Chapter Three Mannheim, Mass Society and Democratic Theory, Ryusaku Yamada; Chapter Four Karl Mannheim and Hannah Arendt on Conduct, Action and Politics, Philip Walsh; Chapter Five Karl Mannheim and Women’s Research, David Kettler and Volker Meja; Chapter Six The Melodrama of Modernity in Karl Mannheim’s Political Theory, Hartmut Behr and Liam Devereux; Chapter Seven Historicization and the Sociology of Knowledge, Reinhard Laube; Chapter Eight Karl Mannheim, T. S. Eliot and Raymond Williams: Cultural Sociology or Cultural Studies?, Claudia Honegger; Chapter Nine Karl Mannheim’s Sociology of Self- Refl exivity, Amalia Barboza; Chapter Ten Praxeological Sociology of Knowledge and Documentary Method: Karl Mannheim’s Framing of Empirical Research, Ralf Bohnsack; List of Contributors; Index.