Dr. Ulrich Beck

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Dr. Ulrich Beck (born May 15, 1944) is a German sociologist who holds a professorship at Munich University and at the London School of Economics.

[edit] Life

Beck was born in the Pomeranian town of Stolp, Greater German Empire (now Słupsk in Poland) in 1944. From 1966 onwards he studied sociology, philosophy, psychology, and political science at Munich University. In 1972 he left as a Doctor of Philosophy and worked as a sociologist at Munich University. In 1979 he qualified as a university lecturer. He was professor at the universities of Münster (1979-1981) and Bamberg (1981-1992). Since 1992 Beck has been professor for sociology and director of the Institute for Sociology of Munich University. He is also the British Journal of Sociology Professor at the London School of Economics. He has received many international prizes and honors.

From 1995-1997 Beck was a member of the Kommission für Zukunftsfragen der Freistaaten Bayern und Sachsen (Commission for Future Questions of the Free States of Bavaria and Saxony). Since 1999 he has been the speaker of the DFG research programme on Reflexive Modernity.

He is married to the German social scientist Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim.

[edit] Interests

Beck currently studies modernization, ecological problems, individualization, and globalization. Recently he has also embarked on exploring the changing conditions of work in a world of increasing global capitalism, declining influence of unions, and flexibilisation of the labor process, a new theory rooted in the concept of cosmopolitanism. Beck has also contributed a number of new words in German sociology, including "risk society" and "second modernity"