George Steinmetz (born November 13, 1957) is the Charles Tilly Collegiate Professor of
Sociology
Sociology is a social science that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. It uses various methods of Empirical ...
and Germanic Languages and Literatures at the
University of Michigan
, mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth"
, former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821)
, budget = $10.3 billion (2021)
, endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...
. He has taught at
the New School for Social Research, the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...
, and the
School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (École des hautes études en sciences sociales/EHESS). He is a historical sociologist of empires, states, and cities, with a focus on modern Germany, France, and Britain and their colonies. His other main areas of research are
social theory and the history and philosophy of the
social sciences
Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soci ...
.
Steinmetz received his B.A. from
Reed College in Portland, Oregon and his Ph.D. from the
University of Wisconsin
A university () is an institution of higher (or tertiary) education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. Universities typically offer both undergraduate and postgraduate programs. In the United States, t ...
in 1987. He held a
Guggenheim Fellowship
Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the ar ...
(1995-1996), won the Lewis A. Coser Award for Theoretical Agenda Setting in Sociology (awarded by the
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
, 2006), and was a Visiting Professor at the
Institute for Advanced Study
The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS), located in Princeton, New Jersey, in the United States, is an independent center for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. It has served as the academic home of internationally preeminent scholar ...
in Princeton, New Jersey (2017-2018). He was also the recipient of the Siegfred Landshut Prize (awarded by the
Hamburg Institute for Social Research, 2020) and was the second ever recipient of the award.
Steinmetz is the author of ''Regulating the Social: The Welfare State and Local Politics in Imperial Germany'' (1993) and ''The Devil’s Handwriting: Precoloniality and the German Colonial State in Qingdao, Samoa, and Southwest Africa'' (2007). ''The Devil's Handwriting'' was awarded the Barrington Moore, Jr. Award for best book in the area of comparative and historical sociology, and the Mary Douglas Award for best book, awarded by the Culture Section of the
American Sociological Association
The American Sociological Association (ASA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing the discipline and profession of sociology. Founded in December 1905 as the American Sociological Society at Johns Hopkins University by a group of fif ...
. Steinmetz is also the author of ''The Colonial Origins of Modern Social Thought: French Sociology and the Overseas Empire'' (2023), which "examines the nexus of colonialism and empire in the writings of dozens of French social scientists."
He is the editor of ''State/Culture'' (1999); ''The Politics of Method in the Human Sciences'' (2005), and ''Sociology and Empire'' (Duke, 2013). He co-directed and co-produced a 92-minute documentary film “Detroit: Ruin of a City” (2012) with Michael Chanan. Steinmetz is also editor, with Didier Fassin, of ''The Social Sciences in the Looking Glass: Studies in the Production of Knowledge'' (2023), a compilation of studies concerning the development of the social sciences from a reflexive viewpoint.
Steinmetz has published widely in journals such as the ''American Sociological Review'', ''American Journal of Sociology'', ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'', ''Sociological Theory'', ''Social Science History'', and ''The Journal of Modern History''.
References
*http://lsa.umich.edu/soc/people/faculty/geostein.html
*https://lsa.umich.edu/soc/people/faculty/geostein/_jcr_content/file.res/geostein%20cv%20May%2016.pdf
*http://www-personal.umich.edu/~geostein/
{{DEFAULTSORT:Steinmetz, George
University of Michigan faculty
American sociologists
University of Chicago faculty
The New School faculty
Reed College alumni
University of Wisconsin–Madison alumni
1957 births
Living people