History of the Institute
Since 1963, i.e. for over 60 years, sociological teaching and research has been carried out continuously at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg. Therefore, Halle sociology looks back on an eventful history. In total, it required four attempts to institutionalize it: starting with the establishment of the first sociology chair in 1930 (until 1933) and the first institute for sociology in 1947 (until 1949), through a “Commission for Concrete-Sociological Research” (1963), from which the sociology academic area at the Faculty of Economics emerged (1965-1990), up to the re-establishment of the current institute for Sociology 1992. This story has now been thoroughly examined and presented for the first time, covering the period from the end of the 19th century to the present day. The precursory ideas anticipating the future paradigm of Halle's sociology at the end of the 19th century, i.e. the increasing focus on sociological questions in political economy and political science, is also part of this presentation, as well as the expulsion of the first professor of sociology at the University of Halle, Prof. Friedrich Hertz, who in 1933 had to leave the Saale city at risk of his life. The treatment of the post-war period begins with Max Gustav Lange and Leo Kofler, who worked in Halle at the time before they both fled the GDR. Since the 1970s, the University of Halle was one of only three universities in the GDR where it was possible to study sociology directly. In addition to the work of the scientific field of sociology, sociological work was also carried out at several other institutions at the Martin Luther University in the tenth years of the GDR, for example in literary, medical or sports sociology. Therefore, these activities are also documented.
Peer Pasternack / Reinhold Sackmann (ed.): Four attempts: Sociology at the University of Halle-Wittenberg. Building blocks for the local biography of the subject from the end of the 19th to the beginning of the 21st century. Mitteldeutscher Verlag, Halle (Saale) 2013, 256 S., ISBN 978-3-95462-070-8, € 14,95.