On May 10th, the influential sociologist Thomas Luckmann who had been Professor of Sociology at the University of Konstanz for almost 25 years passed away at the age of 88.  In his obituary published on http://www.schutzcircle.org, sociologist Dr. Jochen Dreher summarises Thomas Luckmann’s biography and outstanding scientific contribution that went well beyond the realm of academia (excerpt):

Thomas Luckmann is one of the most significant representatives of German after-war Sociology and already during his lifetime has been considered one of classical thinkers of the sociological discipline. His major publications are The Social Construction of Reality (1966) together with Peter L. Berger, establishing a new sociology of knowledge; The Invisible Religion (1967), which refounded the sociology of religion, and the standard work The Structures of the Life-World (1975/1984), initiated by his teacher Alfred Schutz and completed by Luckmann. The Social Construction of Reality is one of the most influential publications of the sociological discipline; the American Sociological Association considers it to be one of the ten most important books in Sociology and it was translated into thirteen different languages.

With the death of Thomas Luckmann, we lose an outstanding and exceptional thinker of the human sciences and one of its finest persons.

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