Today as never before our world is becoming increasingly “Weberian”. Fifty years ago “Weberian” used to mean a world of rationality and bureaucratic organisation with space open for communal and cultural emancipation. In recent decades many other, older senses of Weber’s universe have been staging a return: religion, civilizational conflict, power and rulership, nationhood, irrationalism, ultimate callings, flux and contingency.

As a specifically OECD conception of globalization founders, occidental rationalism – as the basis of modern capitalism – has been tested close to destruction. New world powers – China, India and the Asian economies - seize on core rationality structures for their own modernization: literacy, communication, science and technology, and versions of modern acquisitive capitalism. Less fortunate nations experience depths of ressentiment that have brought forth transformative political and religious movements.

The Weberian analytic remains as sharp and as serious as ever. Yet what was deemed canonical in Weber calls out for re-assessment. Das Licht der großen Kulturprobleme ist weiter gezogen.

For bookings use the form on http://www.maxweberstudies.org. (Registration Deadline: 20 August 2010)

Programme:

Wednesday, 1 September 2010

17:00 Keynote Lecture
Joachim Radkau (Bielefeld): Eros Versus Logos in Max Weber (tbc)

Thursday, 2 September 2010

09:00 Science and the Intellect I

Austin Harrington (Erfurt): Weber’s Views on Religion and “Intellectual Rectitude”

José M. González García (Madrid): Max Weber and Rainer Maria Rilke: Enchantment, Disenchantment and Re-Enchantment of the World

Mirko Alagna (Florence): For “Sated” People No Future Blooms: The Concept of Sättigung in Max Weber’s Work

10:30 Coffee break

11:00 Science and the Intellect II

David Woodruff (LSE): Ideal types (tbc)

Gangolf Hübinger (Frankfurt/ Oder): Max Weber, the Historian: New Aspects from the Gesamtausgabe

Hans Henrik Bruun (Copenhagen): Problems in Translation (tbc)

12:30 Lunch

13:30 The Nature of the State

Kari Palonen (Jyväskylä): The State as a Complex of Chances

Rita Aldenhoff-Hübinger (Frankfurt/ Oder): Max Weber as a University Teacher

Andreas Anter (Leipzig): Max Weber’s Concept of Nature and the Ambiguity of Modernity

15:00 Coffee break

15:30 Nation and Charisma

John Breuilly (LSE): Weber, Charisma and Modernity (tbc)

Joshua Derman (Hong Kong UST): “Charisma” and Modern Political Movements: A Transatlantic Concept History

Christopher Adair-Toteff: “The Whip of Hunger”: Max Weber and the Industrial Worker

19:30 Conference Dinner

Friday, 3 September 2010

09:00 Keynote Lecture
Volker Schmidt (Singapore): Modernization

10:00 Weber and Islam

Youcef Djedi (Nantes): Weber, Islam and Modernity

Mehmet Sahin (Karamanoðlu Mehmetbey Üniversitesi): Weber and Postcolonialism (tbc)

11:00 Coffee break

11:30 Economy and Society

Sam Whimster (London Met): Capitalism and Social-Economics

Pierre de Larminat (Centre Maurice Halbwachs): Max Weber’s Answer to Financial Crises: Understanding What Makes Die Börse a Whole

Laura Ford (Cornell): Max Weber on Property: An Effort in Interpretive Understanding

13:00 Lunch

14:00 Citizenship and the City

Joachim Fischer (TU Dresden): Contemporary Society as Bourgeois-Civil-Creative Society: Weber’s Theory of the Origin of Modern Society in the Mediaeval Occidental Cities as Background of Analysis

Michael Sommer (Liverpool): Citizenship, the Civic and Die Stadt: Ancient Perspectives on a Current Topic

15:00 Coffee break

15:30 Authority and Bureaucracy

Masahiro Noguchi (Ritsumeikan): Reflections on Passion in Max Weber’s Works on Bureaucracy: “Sine Ira et Studio” and “Sterile Excitation”

Andrea Erizi (Rome): Different Origin, (Quite the) Same Function: The Concept of Subrogation in Max Weber

Frank Furedi (Kent): The Authority of Public Opinion – Why Weber Declined to Take Part in the Conversation