Rainer Egloff is a researcher at Collegium Helveticum working particularly in the project «tracking the human».
He is a historian specialized in the history of the social sciences. His dissertation was concerned with the development of sociology as an independent academic discipline in the USA of the late 19th and early 20th Century and especially at the University of Chicago, 1892–1918. Rainer Egloff’s current research mainly centers on a history of the interdisciplinary field «culture and personality». Related to this is Rainer’s research (pursued together with Andrew Abbott of the University of Chicago) on the life and work of William Isaac Thomas (1863–1947), a figure of paramount importance to the history both of «culture and personality» and 20th Century Social Science at large. Other research interests lie within urban history and cultural studies.
Rainer Egloff is also a researcher at the Ludwik Fleck Center, an institution administering Fleck’s scientific remains, collecting secondary sources, and fostering research on Fleck’s writings and life. At Collegium Helveticum, Rainer is engaged with various projects in transdisciplinary research and events. Together with Gerd Folkers and Johannes Fehr he is currently editing a volume on the pragmatics of emotions («Pragmatik der Gefühle»). He is teaching at the University of Zurich and at the ETH Zurich. Most recent teaching (together with Susanne Brauer) was on George Herbert Mead’s Mind, Self and Society (Seminar in Philosophy at the University of Zurich, Sommersemester 2008).