Carl Emil Schorske (March 15, 1915 – September 13, 2015), known professionally as Carl E. Schorske, was an American cultural historian and professor emeritus at Princeton University. In 1981 he won the Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction for his book Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture[1] (1980), which remains significant to modern European intellectual history. He was a recipient of the first year of MacArthur Fellows Program awards in 1981 and made an honorary citizen of Vienna in 2012.

Carl Emil Schorske
Born(1915-03-15)March 15, 1915
DiedSeptember 13, 2015(2015-09-13) (aged 100)
NationalityAmerican
Other namesCharles E. Schorske
EducationColumbia
Alma materHarvard
AwardsPulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction, MacArthur fellow, honorary citizen of Vienna
Scientific career
FieldsCultural history
Author
InstitutionsPrinceton University

Biography edit

Born in the Bronx, New York City, to Theodore Schorske and Gertrude Goldsmith, Schorske received his B.A. from Columbia in 1936 and a Ph.D. from Harvard. He served in the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the CIA, during World War II, as chief of political intelligence for Western Europe. His first book, German Social Democracy, published by Harvard University Press in 1955, describes the schism of the Social Democratic Party of Germany into a reformist/constitutionalist right faction and a revolutionary oppositionist left faction during the years 1905–1917.

Following his war-time service, Schorske taught at Wesleyan University (1946–1960), the University of California at Berkeley (1960–1969), and Princeton University (1969 until his retirement in 1980), where he was Dayton-Stockton Professor of History.[2] Professor Schorske was named by Time magazine as one of the nation's ten top academic leaders.[3] In 1987 he delivered the Charles Homer Haskins Lecture.[4] In 1998 Schorske published Thinking With History: Explorations in the Passage to Modernism (Princeton University Press), a collection of essays on Viennese and general history.[5] He turned 100 in March 2015[6] and died in September at a retirement community in Hightstown, New Jersey.[7][8][9]

Decorations and awards edit

In 2004 Schorske received the Ludwig Wittgenstein Prize of the Austrian Research Association (Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft).[10] He was a Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences. On 25 April 2012 Schorske was made an honorary citizen of Vienna during a ceremony attended by his wife, Elizabeth Rorke, his granddaughter, Carina del Valle Schorske, and the mayor of Vienna, Dr Michael Häupl. In 1981 he was a MacArthur Fellow.

Works edit

  • German Social Democracy, 1905–1917: The Development of the Great Schism (1955, Harvard University Press) OCLC 869544
  • Thinking With History: Explorations in the Passage to Modernism (1998, Princeton University Press) OCLC 37870707
  • Fin-de-Siècle Vienna: Politics and Culture (1980) OCLC 5311052
  • "A life of learning" Charles Homer Haskins lecture, April 23, 1987 OCLC 20595486
  • Budapest and New York: Studies in Metropolitan Transformation, 1870–1930, with Thomas Bender (1994, Russell Sage Foundation) OCLC 28067119

References edit

  1. ^ "Pulitzer Prize Winners: General Non-Fiction". The Pulitzer Prizes. Retrieved 2008-03-08.
  2. ^ "Carl E(mil) Schorske". Contemporary Authors Online. Detroit: Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center. Web. 11 September 2013.
  3. ^ "Teaching: To Profess with a Passion". Time. 1966-05-06.
  4. ^ "Charles Homer Haskins Lecture for 1987 A Life of Learning by Carl E. Schorske" (PDF). ALCS.
  5. ^ Review.
  6. ^ "Carl E. Schorske erhält Großes Goldenes Ehrenzeichen der Republik". Der Standard (in German). 2015-03-30. Retrieved 2015-04-22.
  7. ^ "Carl Emil Schorske (1915-2015) | Senior Correspondent: A Seasoned View of the World". www.seniorcorrespondent.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24.
  8. ^ Von Thomas Kramar (14 September 2015). "Nachruf: Der Amerikaner, der uns das Wiener Fin de Siècle erklärte". DiePresse.com. Retrieved 15 September 2015.
  9. ^ "Carl E Schorske obituary". The Guardian. 2015-09-30. Archived from the original on 2023-04-12.
  10. ^ Ludwig Wittgenstein-Preis Archived June 23, 2007, at the Wayback Machine; Österreichische Forschungsgemeinschaft.
  11. ^ "Reply to a parliamentary question" (PDF) (in German). p. 1064. Retrieved 14 February 2013.