Abstract
Richard Helmut Grathoff was born in 1934 in Unna and died in 2013 in Oerlinhausen, North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. After graduating in mathematics from Heidelberg and Göttingen he moved to the USA. At the New School for Social Research – a university which served as a new model of higher education and provided a haven for academics whose lives and careers were threatened by the Nazis – he studied under Aron Gurwitsch, Albert Salomon, Thomas Luckmann and Peter L Berger and received his PhD in 1969. His doctoral thesis The structure of social inconsistencies: A contribution to unified theory of play, game and social action won the Albert Salomon Memorial Award and was published in 1970. In 1978, soon after his return to Germany, he joined the newly established Bielefeld University. Its Department of Sociology held a unique position in the Federal Republic as the only autonomous Faculty of Sociology as well as one of the largest academic institutions of sociology in Germany, hosting such eminent figures as Helmut Schelsky and Niklas Luhmann. He never left this university, in spite of several calls, and became Professor Emeritus in 1999. Teaching until his late seventies he inspired a generation of German sociologists who now represent the tradition of Richard Grathoff’s sociological thinking and heritage as university teachers and researchers not only at main universities in Germany, but also in a number of other countries around the globe.
Richard Grathoff was an eminent phenomenological researcher of the abysses of social reality. Influenced by Charles Sanders Peirce, Edmund Husserl and Alfred Schütz, his work included research on the topics of milieu and life-world (Lebenswelt) and of contemporary social theory. His main books included: The Theory of Social Action: The Correspondence of Alfred Schütz and Talcott Parsons (1978); Alfred Schütz und die Idee des Alltags in den Sozialwissenschaften (1979); Sozialität und Intersubjektivität: phänomenologische Perspektiven der Sozialwissenschaften im Umkreis von Aron Gurwitsch und Alfred Schütz (1983); Philosophers in Exile: The Correspondence of Alfred Schütz and Aron Gurwitsch (1989); and Milieu and Lebenswelt (1989).
Richard Grathoff was an extremely important figure in the foundation of qualitative sociology in Germany. Thanks to his acquaintance with key scholars of interpretive research approaches in America he brought to Germany such stars as Goffman, Garfinkel, Cicourel, Sacks, Schegloff and Gumperz with some of the meetings between the American guests and their younger German colleagues taking place in Grathoff’s house. He was also the motivator behind the first three pivotal conferences on interpretative sociology in Bielefeld, Gottlieben and Konstanz. Along with Fritz Schütze, he founded the ad hoc group ‘Sociology of Language’ in the German Sociological Association, which was later transformed into a full-sized section.
Richard Grathoff’s commitment to the development of international sociology is reflected in his work for the International Sociological Association (ISA). From 1991 to 1996 he served as editor-in-chief of International Sociology – a journal established and published by the ISA. Apart from his seminal work in the establishment of ties between transatlantic researchers, Richard Grathoff became very important in terms of his relationship to scholars working on the other side of the Iron Curtain. His commitment to truly international sociology was reflected in his efforts to enable researchers from Eastern Europe to take part in the ISA Congress which took place in Bielefeld in 1994.
Thanks to his engagement, Bielefeld and other German universities long before the 1994 Congress hosted numerous scientists from Eastern bloc countries. When martial law was introduced in Poland, Richard Grathoff, supported by his wife, Ruth, initiated ‘Copernicus-Kreis’, an association providing young Polish scholars with fellowships enabling them to study abroad and rendering other forms of humanitarian assistance to Poles. By virtue of his vigorous efforts to popularize the thoughts of Florian Znaniecki Grathoff also earned appreciation and gratitude in Poland, which resulted in his being granted honorary membership in the Polish Sociological Society. The collection of belongings from the Znaniecki estate (letters, manuscripts, personal documents), located in Bielefeld with a duplicate of the archive in Polish Poznan, was the result of an international research project made possible by Richard Grathoff.
The strong connection between Richard Grathoff and his Polish friends was the impetus for a symposium, Life-World, Intersubjectivity and Culture: Contemporary Dilemmas, organized by the University of Warsaw under the patronage of the Polish Sociological Association in September 2014, marking the first anniversary of the death of this eminent German sociologist and phenomenological philosopher. Participants from a wide range of academic and research backgrounds met in Warsaw to explore the relevance of Grathoff’s legacy. The symposium was attended by Grathoff’s wife Ruth and son Philip and had such renowned speakers as Fritz Schutze, Dennis Smith, Thomas Eberle, Ulf Matthiesen, Tilmann Allert, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, Elżbieta Hałas, Gallina Tasheva, Hubert Knoblauch, Steven Vaitkus, Marek Czyżewski, Rafał Wierzchosławski and Sławomir Mandes. The symposium excited and intellectually challenged its participants. It was a genuine tribute to Richard Grathoff and his work: an opportunity to meet in order to explore the relevance of his ideas to a wide range of fields of research on contemporary society. It also served as a platform for meetings between scientists from different countries united by Grathoff’s ideas as well as (for some) by the experience of having worked with him at different stages of their careers. All of the participants enthusiastically supported the emerging idea of organizing regular biennial events as Richard Grathoff’s legacy.