Visiting Professor (jointly appointed in Social Thought)
Office: Foster 309
Phone: 773-834-1090
Typically in residence at Chicago in the autumn quarter, Hans Joas teaches courses and mentors students in contemporary social theory. For more details on his research program, see his Humboldt University of Berlin profile.
Selected Publications
Moral Change and the Ambiguity of Religions: Christianity between Racism and the Struggle against It. Uppsala: Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study. 2023.
Die Macht des Heiligen. Eine Alternative zur Geschichte von der Entzauberung. Berlin: Suhrkamp. 2017. Translated to English as The Power of the Sacred: An Alternative to the Narrative of Disenchantment. New York: Oxford University Press. 2021.
Slavery and Torture in a Global Perspective: Human Rights and the Western Tradition. Leiden: Brill. 2014.
War in Social Thought: Hobbes to the Present. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2013 (with Wolfgang Knöbl).
The Sacredness of the Person: A New Genealogy of Human Rights. Washington: Georgetown University Press. 2013.
Glaube als Option. Zukunftsmöglichkeiten des Christentums. Freiburg: Herder. 2012. Translated to English as Faith as an Option: Possible Futures for Christianity. Stanford: Stanford University Press. 2014.
The Axial Age and Its Consequences. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. 2012 (edited with Robert N. Bellah).
Interdisciplinarity as a Process of Learning: Experiences with an Action Theoretic Program of Research. Gottingen: Wallstein. 2005 (with Hans G. Kippenberg).
Do Human Beings Need Religion? Freiburg: Herder. 2004.
Social Theory: Twenty Introductory Lectures. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. 2004.
The Dialogical Turn: New Roles for Sociology in the Postdisciplinary Age. Rowman and Littlefield. 2004 (with Charles Camic).
War and Modernity: Studies in the History of Violence in the 20th Century. Polity Press. 2003.
The Genesis of Values. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2001.
Philosophy of Democracy. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp. 2000.
G.H. Mead: A Contemporary Reexamination of his Thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. 1997.
The Creativity of Action. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1997.
