Hans Joas

The Divinity School is pleased to announce that Hans Joas, Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at Humboldt University, Berlin, will deliver the 2024 John S. Nuveen Lecture. The lecture will be held on Friday, October 25, 2024, at 5:30 p.m. in Swift Lecture Hall (3rd floor; elevator available).

This lecture “Against the Hegelian Temptation: Global History Without Teleology” also serves as a Plenary Lecture for the 50th Anniversary Ricoeur Society Conference, "Imagination and Metaphor: Paul Ricoeur at Chicago."

Hans Joas is Ernst Troeltsch Professor for the Sociology of Religion at the Humboldt University of Berlin and, for over twenty years, has also been Visiting Professor of Sociology and in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. He received his Ph.D. from Freie Universität Berlin in 1979 (G. H. Mead: A Contemporary Re-examination of His Thought, MIT Press, 1985, 1997). 

Joas’ work concentrates on social philosophy and sociological theory, particularly American pragmatism and historicism, the sociology of religion, war and violence, as well as the changing values in modern society.

Among his numerous prizes are the Niklas Luhmann Prize in 2010; the Max Planck Research Award in 2015; the Prix Paul Ricoeur in 2017 and the Distinguished Lifetime Achievement Award of the German Sociological Association in 2022. His latest book in English is Under the Spell of Freedom: Theory of Religion after Hegel and Nietzsche, Oxford University Press, 2024.

John S. Nuveen was one of Chicago’s most influential business leaders and an active civil and cultural leader with ties to many educational institutions. An accomplished member of the University’s faculty gives the annual Nuveen Lecture.

For more information and a full schedule of events, please visit The Society for Ricoeur Studies.