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How to Become a Forgotten Intellectual: Intellectual Movements and the Rise and Fall of Erich Fromm
(1998)
Most reputation studies focus on canonized intellectuals, scholars, and artists. With few exceptions, there has been little detailed examination of the sociological dynamics involved in exclusion. Examined here are the ideas and reputation history of the German psychoanalyst and sociologist Erich FROMM, expanding the repu-tation model outlined by Michele Lamont in >How to Become a Dominant French Intellectual: The Case of Jacques Derrida.< The example of Erich FROMM provides support for a modified version of Lamont's model as well as a level analysis framework. FROMM was a prestigious intellectual in sociology, psychoanalysis, and US intellectual life in the 1940s and 1950s, but since has gone out fashion. Similar macro-, organizational, and microfactors explain both FROMM's decline and Derrida's rise to status after 1965. Emphasis is on the importance of symbolic boundaries within and between psychoanalysis, Marxism, and sociology as factors that both create and damage intellectual reputations.
A reading of David Riesman's classic The Lonely Crowd is presented that emphasizes its links with the critical theory of German psychoanalyst & social critic Erich Fromm. The intellectual & personal relationship between Riesman & Fromm brings into focus Riesman's adaptation of the insights of European critical theory as well as the strengths of American social science & social criticism. Riesman's rela-tively neglected theoretical approach has much to offer a sociology concerned with retaining its links to public debate & empirical evidence.
Fromm, Erich
(2015)
This article presents an analytic history of the legacy of Erich Fromm, the German psychoanalyst, social psychologist, critical thinker, best-selling author, and an early member of the Frankfurt School. Fromm’s intellectual insights flowed from aspects of his life and optimal marginality in relationship to various intellectual social movements and his complex relationship with the Frankfurt School. But Fromm also became a >forgotten intellectual< for some of the same biographical and sociological reasons. Ideas and scholarly influence can rise again as well as decline, so with his contemporary relevance in mind, we will discuss some of the underappreciated contributions Fromm made to the study of authoritarianism, race, and ethnicity as well as his influence on theories of gender and the practice of public sociology. There is new interest in Fromm’s work, suggesting that he might find again a place in the history and contemporary scholarship in social psychology, sociology, critical theory, and psychoanalysis.