29/05/2026
The fourth lecture of our series America 250: Society, History, Politics. With Prof. Dr. Heiko Beyer.
• Lecture Hall 6
1 June, 5 PM
Sociology understands itself as the science of civil society (“bürgerliche Gesellschaft”) — yet where and when does this object actually become available to observation? Standard histories of the discipline reach back to the French Revolution, occasionally to England’s Glorious Revolution. The American Revolution, by contrast, hardly appears at all. This lecture corrects that blind spot.
Heiko Beyer is Heisenberg Professor of Sociology at Heinrich‑Heine‑Universität Düsseldorf. His research focuses on the sociology of ideology, antisemitism, populism, social movements, and the history of social theory.
