M. Rainer Lepsius

Mario Rainer Lepsius was born in Rio de Janeiro, at that time the capital of Brazil. His Portuguese first name reflected the country where the family lived when he was born, while his second name reflected the German provenance of the family. Lepsius came from a prominent Berlin family. His father, Wilhelm Lepsius (1890–1942) had a doctorate degree in law, and by the time Lepisus was born, was working for Schering AG, a large pharmaceutical company headquartered in Berlin. His mother, the daughter of a Munich judge, came from a middle class Protestant Franconian family, with a number of lawyers, doctors, and pastors among her ancestors. In 1934, when Lepsius was six years old, his family relocated to Madrid where he first attended school. At LMU, he was able to obtain a grounding a sociology from Alfred von Martin. At the University of Cologne, he was one of the so-called "young Turks" Gerhard Weisser triggered his interest in town planning. In autumn 1951, during an extended stay in London, he was able to pursue his studies at the London School of Economics. 1963 was also the year when he moved from LMU to the National Economic Academy () in Mannheim (rebranded in 1967 as the University of Mannheim). Here, he held a full professorship in Sociology until 1981 when he moved again. In 1981, he took a leading position at the then-threatened Sociology department at Heidelberg University, where he held an equivalent professorship until he became an emeritus professor in 1993. ==Memberships==

Between 1971 and 1974, Lepsius chaired the German Sociological Association. He was a member of several learned institutions; from 1977 a full member of the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, from 1992 a corresponding member of the Bavarian Academy of Sciences and Humanities, and from 2004 a foreign member of the . ==Reputation and influence==

Lepsius was considered one of the leading West German researchers and theoreticians of contemporary society. Like most sociologists of the postwar generation, he started out as an industrial sociologist, and like many of the better known sociologists of that generation, he was a member of the Expert Committee for Industrial Sociology at the German Sociological Association (). Lepsius had a particular interest in the work of Max Weber: he was prominent among the co-compilers of the (eventually) 47-volume edition of the . == Writing and publications ==

Lists of publications are included in: Adalbert Hepp, Martina Löw (eds.): M. Rainer Lepsius. Soziologie als Profession. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main/New York 2008, , pp. 161–178 and Steffen Sigmund, Gert Albert, Agathe Bienfait, Mateusz Stachura (eds.): Soziale Konstellation und historische Perspektive. Festschrift für M. Rainer Lepsius. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2008, , pp. 468–483. • Soziologie und Soziologen. Aufsätze zur Institutionalisierung der Soziologie in Deutschland. Edited by Oliver Lepsius. Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2017, • Max Weber und seine Kreise. Essays. Tübingen 2016, . • Soziale Schichtung in der industriellen Gesellschaft. With an introduction by Wolfgang Schluchter . Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen 2015, (also: Habil.-Schr., Munich 1963). • Institutionalisierung politischen Handelns. Analysen zur DDR, Wiedervereinigung und Europäischen Union. Springer VS, Wiesbaden 2014, • Demokratie in Deutschland. Soziologisch-historische Konstellationsanalysen. Ausgewählte Aufsätze. [Selected essays] . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 1993, • Interessen, Ideen und Institutionen. Westdeutscher Verlag, Opladen 1990, (2nd edition. VS Verlag, Wiesbaden 2009, • Extremer Nationalismus. Strukturbedingungen vor der nationalsozialistischen Machtergreifung. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1966. • "Parteiensystem und Sozialstruktur. Zum Problem der Demokratisierung der deutschen Gesellschaft." In: Wilhelm Abel, Knut Borchardt, Hermann Kellenbenz, Wolfgang Zorn (Hrsg.): Wirtschaft, Geschichte und Wirtschaftsgeschichte. Festschrift zum 65. Geburtstag von Friedrich Lütge. Fischer, Stuttgart 1966, DNB 458669210, pp. 371–393. Reprinted in: Gerhard A. Ritter (ed.): Deutsche Parteien vor 1918. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1973, , pp. 56–80. • “Sozialstruktur und soziale Schichtung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland.” In: Die Zweite Republik. 25 Jahre Bundesrepublik Deutschland – Eine Bilanz, edited by Richard Löwenthal and Hans-Peter Schwarz. Stuttgart: Seewald Verlag, 1974. pp. 272–275. Complete Works of Max Weber Horst Baier, Gangolf Hübinger, M. Rainer Lepsius, Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Wolfgang Schluchter, Johannes Winckelmann (eds.): Max-Weber-Gesamtausgabe (MWG). 47 Bände. Mohr-Siebeck, Tübingen 1984–2019. ==References==