Andreas Reckwitz

“The losses — both those already experienced and those anticipated in the future — can no longer be rendered invisible so easily,” argues sociologist and 2022 Thomas Mann Fellow Andreas Reckwitz. Whether it be climate change, social equality, or political regressions, Reckwitz believes that the integration of loss and a reformulation of the definition of progress will help strengthen society’s trust in democracy. He is the author of several publications, including The End of Illusions: Politics, Economy, and Culture in Late Modernity (Polity, 2021) and continues to make contributions to German newspapers Die Zeit and Der Spiegel. Andreas Reckwitz is Professor of General Sociology and Cultural Sociology at the Humboldt University Berlin. He has held numerous fellowships and visiting professorships in Germany and abroad, including at the University of Berkeley, the London School of Economics, the Universities of Freiburg, Heidelberg, Witten/ Herdecke, and Bielefeld, the Institute for Advanced Studies Vienna, and the University of St. Gallen. In 2019, he was awarded the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation. In 2017 he received the Bavarian Book Prize, in 2020 he was shortlisted for the Leipzig Book Fair Prize, and in 2021 he received the Academy Medal of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences. From 2012 to 2020 he was a member of the advisory board “Education and Discourse” of the Goethe-Institute.