Edward Shils

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For the management professor, see Edward Benjamin Shils.

Edward Shils
Born(1910-07-01)July 1, 1910
University of Leiden
Main interests
sociology, social philosophy

Edward Albert Shils (1 July 1910 – 23 January 1995) was a

intellectuals and their relations to power and public policy. His work was honored in 1983 when he was awarded the Balzan Prize. In 1979, he was selected by the National Council on the Humanities to give the Jefferson Lecture, the highest award given by the U.S. federal government for distinguished intellectual achievement in the humanities.[4]

Education

Shils grew up in

Chinese science
and other subjects.

Career

A specialist in the thought of sociologist

United States Office of Strategic Services during World War II
. Upon returning to Chicago, he was appointed Associate Professor in 1947, and Professor in 1950. In 1971, he was named Distinguished Service Professor.

For many years, Shils held joint appointments at Chicago and other universities. He was: reader in sociology at the

University of Leiden
from 1976 to 1977.

He attempted to bridge the research traditions of German and American sociology. At Chicago, he attracted leading European scholars to teach at the University, including Arnaldo Momigliano, Raymond Aron and the British sinologist Michael Loewe, among others. Professor Shils was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

Personal life

Edward Shils married the historian Irene Coltman in England towards the end of 1951.[5] Edward Shils and Irene Coltman had a son. They divorced. Shils died in January 1995. He was survived by his son and daughter-in-law, Adam and Carrie Shils of Chicago; a grandson, Sam Shils; and a nephew, Edward Benjamin Shils, professor emeritus at the University of Pennsylvania[6] A large photo of Shils hangs in the Shils Reading Room at the University of Chicago's Social Science Research Building.

Shils had a fraught relationship with Saul Bellow, a colleague at the University of Chicago who also served on the Committee on Social Thought. Shils served as his "mentor, character model and editor" and figures prominently in many of Bellow's novels, including Mr. Sammler's Planet (Artur Sammler), Humboldt's Gift (Professor Durnwald), and Ravelstein (Rakhmiel Kogon). Artur Sammler and Professor Durnwald are both described glowingly, but in Ravelstein the Shils character is treated with "animosity [that] reaches lethal proportions" following a falling out between the two.[7] He also had a poor relationship with Alfred Kazin, with Joseph Epstein describing how he refused to have anything written by Kazin in his home and saying "I don’t want that Jew in my house" (although Shils himself was also Jewish).[8]

Bibliography

Own works

  • Parsons, Talcott & Edward A. Shils, eds. (1951). Toward a general theory of action. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard UP.
  • Shils, Edward A. (1956). The torment of secrecy : the background and consequences of American security policies. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.
  • The Intellectual Between Tradition and Modernity: The Indian Situation (1961)
  • Theories of Society: Foundations of Modern Sociological Theory, Two Volumes in One, with Jesse R. Pitts, Talcott Parsons (Editor), & Kaspar D. Naegele, New York: The Free Press (1961)
  • The Calling of Sociology, and Other Essays on the Pursuit of Learning (1980)
  • Tradition (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981)
  • The Constitution of Society (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982)
  • The Academic Ethic (1984).
  • Shils, Edward (January–February 1996). "Leopold Labedz". Intellectuals. Quadrant. 40 (1–2): 51–60.[9]
  • Portraits: A Gallery of Intellectuals. Edited by Joseph Epstein (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997)

Critical studies, reviews and biography

  • Zubrzycki, Jerzy (January–February 1996). "Edward Shils – a personal memoir". Quadrant. 40 (1–2): 61–63.

Translations

  • Mannheim, Karl (1936). Ideology and Utopia: an Introduction to the Sociology of Knowledge. Translated by Wirth, Louis; Shils, Edward. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World.
  • Weber, Max (1954). Max Weber on Law in Economy and Society. Translated by Rheinstein, Max; Shils, Edward. Cambridge MA: Harvard U.P.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Social Security Death Index
  2. ^ Edward Shils at the Leiden University "faculty since 1575" site.
  3. ^ a b Ann T. Keene, Shils, Edward Albert at American National Biography Online, Sept. 2005
  4. ^ "Jefferson Lecture in the Humanities" Archived 20 October 2011 at the Wayback Machine, National Endowment for the Humanities website (retrieved January 22, 2009).
  5. ^ "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 10 November 2018.
  6. ^ "Service for Edward Shils", Chicago Chronicle, 30 March 1995
  7. ^ Staples, Brent (22 April 2000). "Mr. Bellow Writes On, Wrestling With the Ghost of Edward Shils". New York Times.
  8. ^ Epstein, Joseph (11 November 2021). "Books Do Furnish a Civilization". Commentary.org. Retrieved 1 September 2022.
  9. ^ First published in the American Scholar.

References

External links

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