Draft:Reiner Keller

• Comment: Please find non-primary sources that establish this person is notable per the notability guideline for professors. Thanks! —asparagusus (interaction) ^sprouts! 19:49, 6 November 2024 (UTC)

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Reiner Keller (born 1962) is a German sociologist and professor at the University of Augsburg. His main research and work interests include sociological theory and analysis of contemporary Societies, sociology of knowledge and culture, discourse research and theory (the Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse), sociology of nature-culture relations, French sociology, and interpretive methodologies.

Biography

Reiner Keller studied sociology, social planning, social policy, and administrative science at the University of Saarland, Saarbrücken (Germany), the University of Haute Bretagne II in Rennes (France), and the University of Bamberg (Germany), graduating in 1988. He continued his academic journey as researcher in a Munich based research lab and then joined the Technical University of Munich (Germany), where he was a doctoral scholar under the Bayerische Begabtenförderung grant program. In 1996, he earned his doctorate with a dissertation titled Die gesellschaftliche Konstruktion des Wertvollen. Eine vergleichende Untersuchung der öffentlichen Diskussionen über Hausmüll in Deutschland und Frankreich (The Social Construction of the Valuable: A Comparative Study of Public Discussions on Waste Management in Germany and France). 2004, Keller completed his habilitation at the University of Augsburg (Germany) with his seminal work Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse: Grundlegung eines Forschungsprogramms (Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse: Foundations of a Research Program), which laid the groundwork for a new research program in discourse analysis.

From 1997 to 2006, Keller worked at the University of Augsburg in various academic roles, including research assistant and senior research associate. He then moved to the University of Koblenz-Landau (Germany), where he was appointed full professor of sociology in 2007. In 2011, Keller returned to the University of Augsburg as the Chair of Sociology. He has also held visiting positions at institutions such as the University of California, San Francisco (USA), University of California, Berkeley (USA), PUCRS, Porto Alegre (Brazil), University of Lisbon (Portugal), University of Tokyo (Japan) and German-Kazakh University, Almaty (Kazakhstan).

Research and Contributions

Keller is renowned for developing the Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse (Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse), a social science research programme for studying discourse. It combines Peter L. Berger’s and Thomas Luckmann’s sociology of knowledge with Michel Foucault’s discourse theory.

Kellers’s research focuses on the processes, prerequisites, and consequences of societal knowledge production. Utilizing primarily discourse and dispositive analysis, his work examines knowledge controversies and interpretive conflicts within the public sphere and across key societal domains such as science, law, politics, and economics.

Keller has led numerous large-scale research projects funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG). Notable projects include the EnergiCorpus (co-directed with Francis Chateauraynaud) study comparing the energy transitions in Germany and France, research on knowledge politics of the regulation of prostitution in Germany, a comparative analysis of hydraulic fracturing debates across Europe, and a comparative analysis on sociological cultures of knowedlege/history of qualitative methods in France and Germany (co-directed with Angelika Poferl).

Keller serves as the founding editor of the Journal for Discourse Studies and co-edits several academic book series, including Theorie und Praxis der Diskursforschung (Theory and Practice of Discourse Research).

He has delivered numerous lectures, organised multiple conferences, and led many discourse workshops in both German and English since the early 2000s.

Professional Affiliations

Keller was and is an active member of various professional associations, including the International Sociological Association (ISA), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Soziologie (DGS), and the European Sociological Association (ESA). He has held numerous leadership positions, such as member of the DGS’s executive committee and council, and chair of the DGS’s section on sociology of knowledge from 2010-2016. In addition, he was dean for student affairs, vice-dean and dean of the faculty of philosophy and social sciences at the University of Augsburg from 2015-2021.

Publications (selection)

Becker, H. S. and Keller, R. (2016). Ways of Telling About Society. Howard S. Becker H. S. in Conversation With Keller R. [65 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(2), Art. 12. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1602122.

Cantoni, R., Foltyn, C., Klaes, M. S. and Keller, R. (2023). What is Fracking a Case of? Theo-retical Lessons from European Case Studies. Nature & Culture, 18(1), Spring 2023.

Charmaz, K. and Keller, R. (2016). A Personal Journey with Grounded Theory Methodology. Charmaz K. in Conversation With Keller R. [60 paragraphs], Forum Qualitative Sozi-alforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(1), Art. 16. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs1601165.

Clarke, A. E. and Keller, R. (2014). Engaging Complexities: Working Against Simplification as an Agenda for Qualitative Research Today. Clarke A. in Conversation With Keller R. [137 paragraphs], Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 15(2), Art. 1. http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs140212.

Fine, G. A. and Keller, R. (2021). Tiny Publics and Social Worlds—Toward a Sociology of the Local. Fine G. A. in Conversation With Keller R. [66 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozi-alforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 22(1), Art. 8. http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-22.1.3629.

Foltyn, C., Keller, R. and Klaes, M. S. (2023). The Ordering of Green Values: Ecological Justi-fication in Public Fracking Controversies in Germany and Poland. Nature & Culture, 18(1), 88-125.

Hornidge, A. K., Keller, R. and Schünemann, W. (Eds.) (2018). The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse: Investigating the Politics of Knowledge and Meaning-making. Lon-don: Routledge.

Keller, R. (2005). Analysing Discourse: An Approach from the Sociology of Knowledge. Fo-rum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 6(3), Art. 32.

Keller, R. (2011): The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse (SKAD), in: Human Studies, 34 (1) S.43-65

Keller, R. (2013). Doing Discourse Research: An Introduction for Social Scientists. London: Sage.

Keller, R. (2016). Has Critique Run Out of Steam? On Discourse Research as Critical Inquiry. Qualitative Inquiry, 1-11.

Keller, R. (2018). Michel Foucault: Discourse, Power/Knowledge, and the Modern Subject. In Wodak, R. and Forchtner, B. (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of Language and Politics. London & New York: Routledge, 67-81.

Keller, R. (2019). New Materialism? A View from Sociology of Knowledge. In Kissmann, U. T. and Loon, J. van (Eds.), Discussing New Materialism: Methodological Implications for the Study of Materialities. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 151-172.

Keller, R. (2024). The Sociology of Knowledge Approach to Discourse. Cham: Springer. (Re-vised, updated, and expanded translation of ‘Wissenssoziologische Diskursanalyse,’ Keller 2011).

Keller, R. and Poferl, A. (2020). Epistemic Cultures in Sociology: Between Individual Inspiration and Legitimization by Procedure: Developments of Qualitative and Interpretive Research in German and French Sociology Since the 1960s [97 paragraphs]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung/Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 17(1), Art. 14. http://dx.doi.org/10.17169/fqs-17.1.2419.

Keller, R. and Poferl, A. (2000). Habermas Fightin' Waste: Problems of Alternative Dispute Resolution in the Risk Society. Journal for Environmental Policy & Planning, 2(1), 55-67.

Keller, R. and Ullrich, P. (2014). Comparing Discourse Between Cultures: A Discursive Ap-proach to Movement Knowledge. In Baumgarten, B., Daphi, P., & Ulrich, P. (Eds.), Con-ceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Researc. Hampshire: Palgrave, 113-139.