Institute of Sociology - WWU Münster
New Professor

Ines Michalowski new Professor of Sociology of Religion

Photo of Dr. Ines Michalowski
© David Ausserhofer

The Institute is pleased to announce the appointment of Dr. Ines Michalowski as Professor of Sociology of Religion with effect from December 1, 2019. The professorship is located at the IfS and is associated with the Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics".

Ms Michalowski holds a binational doctorate in sociology (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations/ Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris) and political science (WWU). From 2007 to 2008 she worked as a postdoctoral fellow at the DFG Research Training Group "Zivilgesellschaftliche Verständigungsprozesse – Deutschland und die Niederlande im Vergleich" at the WWU.
Ines Michalowski has been a research assistant at the Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung since 2008. Her research has so far focused on the sociology of religion, migration, organisation and diversity, and citizenship.

Ines Michalowski is offering a block seminar on religion and migration at the IfS this winter semester.

Climate Strike Week – Public Climate School at the IfS

Germany-wide climate strike week will start on 25 November and culminate with a global demonstration event on Friday, 29 November. The local group of Students For Future in Münster is organising this climate strike week in Münster with numerous information and discussion events, workshops and lectures on the subject.
On this occasion, various lecturers at the Institute of Sociology will open their courses and take up the topic from different perspectives:

  • Power elites and climate movement (Dr. Björn Wendt)
    Tuesday, 26.11.2019, 12:15-13:45, SCH 121.520
  • Social Connectedness and Social Climate (Prof. Dr. Matthias Grundmann)
    Tuesday, 26.11.2019, 14:15-15:45, SCH 121.5 (Lecture hall)
  • The dystopias and utopias of the climate movement (Dr. Björn Wendt)
    Tuesday, 26.11.2019, 18:15-19:45, SCH 121.554
  • Colloquium "Social Science Education" (Prof. Dr. Andrea Szukala)
    "Perspectives of participating young people in Münster on the climate movement Fridays for Future"
    Tuesday, 26.11.2019, 18.15, SCH 110.812
  • Climate change from the point of view of a sociologist (Dr. Roland Schindler)
    Wednesday, 27.11.2019, 16:15-17:45, SCH 121.554
  • Systems Theoretical Concerns about the Shortage of Time in the Climate Discourse (Dr. Peter Isenböck)
    Thursday, 28.11.2019, 10:15-11:45, SCH 121.555
  • Zur Ausbeutung der Ressource menschliche Arbeitskraft in der Industriegesellschaft. Nachhaltigkeit und Gute Arbeit (Prof. Dr. Stefanie Ernst)
    Donnerstag, 28.11.2019, 10:15–11:45 Uhr, SCH 121.5 (Hörsaal)
The entire programme of the "Public Climate School" in Münster can be viewed on the Students For Future Münster website [de].

Invitation to the Institute Colloquium with Hanns Wienold

On 27 November 2019, the first Institute Colloquium of this winter semester will take place at IfS. Hanns Wienold, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, will give a lecture on "India on the Way to Global Informality". Against the background of his new book "Indien heute - Die Armut bleibt unbesiegt", Hanns Wienold illuminates the connection between economic growth, impoverishment and ethnic, religious and social conflicts in India.

The Institute of Sociology invites all interested persons to this lecture next Wednesday, 27 November 2019 from 18:15. The event will take place in room 553a (conference room on 1st floor).

New Release

C. Wright Mills. Die Machtelite

In his study The Power Elite (1956), C. Wright Mills confronted the then dominant schools of the social science power- and elite-research with a new model of how and by whom the US is governed. It initiated a controversial debate on the power and inequality relations in democratic societies, which had an impact far beyond the US and represented an important milestone in the establishment of the critical school of elite research.

Mills' long out-of-stock classic of political sociology and social criticism has now published in a revised and expanded German reissue with an introduction by the publishers Björn Wendt, Michael Walter and Marcus B. Klöckner at Westend Verlag.