Background
Levine, Donald Nathan was born on June 16, 1931 in New Castle, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Abe and Rose (Gusky) Levine.
( It is one thing to lament the financial pressures put o...)
It is one thing to lament the financial pressures put on universities, quite another to face up to the poverty of resources for thinking about what universities should do when they purport to offer a liberal education. In Powers of the Mind, former University of Chicago dean Donald N. Levine enriches those resources by proposing fresh ways to think about liberal learning with ideas more suited to our times. He does so by defining basic values of modernity and then considering curricular principles pertinent to them. The principles he favors are powers of the mind—disciplines understood as fields of study defined not by subject matter but by their embodiment of distinct intellectual capacities. To illustrate, Levine draws on his own lifetime of teaching and educational leadership, while providing a marvelous summary of exemplary educational thinkers at the University of Chicago who continue to inspire. Out of this vital tradition, Powers of the Mind constructs a paradigm for liberal arts today, inclusive of all perspectives and applicable to all settings in the modern world.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226475530/?tag=2022091-20
( Don Levine moves from the origins of systematic knowled...)
Don Levine moves from the origins of systematic knowledge in ancient Greece to the present day to present an account that is at once a history of the social science enterprise and an introduction to the cornerstone works of Western social thought. "Visions" has three meanings, each of which corresponds to a part of the book. In Part 1, Levine presents the ways previous sociologists have rendered accounts of their discipline, as a series of narratives—or "life stories"—that build upon each other, generation to generation, a succession of efforts to envisage a coherent past for the sake of a purposive present. In Part 2, the heart of the book, Levine offers his own narrative, reconnecting centuries of voices into a richly textured dialogue among the varied strands of the sociological tradition: Hellenic, British, French, German, Marxian, Italian, and American. Here, in a tour de force of clarity and conciseness, he tracks the formation of the sociological imagination through a series of conversations across generations. From classic philosophy to pragmatism, Aristotle to W. I. Thomas, Levine maps the web of visionary statements—confrontations and oppositions—from which social science has grown. At the same time, this is much more than an expert synthesis of social theory. Throughout each stage, Levine demonstrates social knowledge has grown in response to three recurring questions: How shall we live? What makes humans moral creatures? How do we understand the world? He anchors the creation of social knowledge to ethical foundations, and shows for the first time how differences in those foundations disposed the shapers of modern social science—among them, Marshall and Spencer, Comte and Durkheim, Simmel and Weber, Marx and Mosca, Dewey and Park—to proceed in vastly different ways. In Part 3, Levine offers a vision of the contemporary scene, setting the crisis of fragmentation in social sciences against the fragmentation of experience and community. By reconstructing the history of social thought as a series of fundamentally moral engagements with common themes, he suggests new uses for sociology's intellectual resources: not only as insight about the nature of modernity, but also as a model of mutually respectful communication in an increasingly fractious world.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226475476/?tag=2022091-20
(Greater Ethiopia combines history, anthropology, and soci...)
Greater Ethiopia combines history, anthropology, and sociology to answer two questions. Why did Ethiopia remain independent under the onslaught of European expansionism while other African political entities were colonized? And why must Ethiopia be considered a single cultural region despite its political, religious, and linguistic diversity?
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226475581/?tag=2022091-20
( The essays turn about a single theme, the loss of the c...)
The essays turn about a single theme, the loss of the capacity to deal constructively with ambiguity in the modern era. Levine offers a head-on critique of the modern compulsion to flee ambiguity. He centers his analysis on the question of what responses social scientists should adopt in the face of the inexorably ambiguous character of all natural languages. In the course of his argument, Levine presents a fresh reading of works by the classic figures of modern European and American social theory—Durkheim, Freud, Simmel and Weber, and Park, Parsons, and Merton.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226475565/?tag=2022091-20
( In Abyssinian poetry, the wax” is the obvious meaning,...)
In Abyssinian poetry, the wax” is the obvious meaning, the gold” is the hidden meaning. In Wax and Gold, Donald N. Levine explores mid-to-late-twentieth-century Ethiopian society on the same two levels, using modern sociology and psychology to seek answers to the following questions: What is the nature of the traditional culture of the dominant ethnic group, the Amhara, and what are its enduring values? What aspects of modern culture interest this society and by what means has it sought to institutionalize them? How has tradition both facilitated and hampered Ethiopian efforts to modernize? Enriched by the use of Ethiopian literature and by Levine’s deep knowledge of and affection for the society of which he writes, Wax and Gold is both a scholarly and a personal work.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/022621544X/?tag=2022091-20
( Greater Ethiopia combines history, anthropology, and so...)
Greater Ethiopia combines history, anthropology, and sociology to answer two major questions. Why did Ethiopia remain independent under the onslaught of European expansionism while other African political entities were colonized? And why must Ethiopia be considered a single cultural region despite its political, religious, and linguistic diversity? Donald Levine's interdisciplinary study makes a substantial contribution both to Ethiopian interpretive history and to sociological analysis. In his new preface, Levine examines Ethiopia since the overthrow of the monarchy in the 1970s. "Ethiopian scholarship is in Professor Levine's debt. . . . He has performed an important task with panache, urbanity, and learning."—Edward Ullendorff, Times Literary Supplement "Upon rereading this book, it strikes the reader how broad in scope, how innovative in approach, and how stimulating in arguments this book was when it came out. . . . In the past twenty years it has inspired anthropological and historical research, stimulated theoretical debate about Ethiopia's cultural and historical development, and given the impetus to modern political thinking about the complexities and challenges of Ethiopia as a country. The text thus easily remains an absolute must for any Ethiopianist scholar to read and digest."-J. Abbink, Journal of Modern African Studies
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226475611/?tag=2022091-20
(In this work, Don Levine moves from the origins of system...)
In this work, Don Levine moves from the origins of systematic knowledge in ancient Greece to the present day in order to present an account that is at once a history of the social science enterprise and an introduction to the cornerstone works of Western social thought. "Visions" has three meanings, each of which corresponds to a part of the book. In Part 1, Levine presents the ways previous sociologists have rendered accounts of their discipline, as a series of narratives - or "life stories" - that build upon each other, generation to generation, a succession of efforts to envisage a coherent past for the sake of a purposive present. In Part 2, the heart of the book, Levine offers his own narrative, reconnecting centuries of voices into a dialogue among the varied strands of the sociological tradition: Hellenic, British, French, German, Marxian, Italian and American. Here, he tracks the formation of the sociological imagination through a series of conversations across generations. From classic philosophy to pragmatism, Aristotle to W.I. Thomas, Levine maps the web of visionary statements - confrontations and oppositions - from which social science has grown. Throughout each stage, Levine demonstrates how social knowledge has grown in response to three recurring questions: How shall we live? What makes humans moral creatures? How do we understand the world? He anchors the creation of social knowledge to ethical foundations, and shows how differences in those foundations disposed the shapers of modern social science - among them, Marshall and Spencer, Comte and Durkheim, Simmel and Weber, Marx and Mosca, Dewey and Park - to proceed in vastly different ways. In Part 3, Levine offers a vision of the contemporary scene, setting the crisis of fragmentation in social sciences against the fragmentation of experience and community. By reconstructing the history of social thought as a series of fundamentally moral engagements with common themes, he suggests new uses for soci
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AU9SEB8/?tag=2022091-20
Levine, Donald Nathan was born on June 16, 1931 in New Castle, Pennsylvania, United States. Son of Abe and Rose (Gusky) Levine.
Bachelor of Arts Chicago, 1950. Master of Arts, University Chicago, 1954. Doctor of Philosophy, University Chicago, 1957.
Postgraduate, University Frankfurt, Germany, 1953. Doctor of Philosophy (honorary), Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia, 2004.
Assistant professor sociology, University of Chicago, 1962-1965; associate professor, University of Chicago, 1965-1973; professor, University of Chicago, 1973-1986; dean of College, University of Chicago, 1982-1987; Peter B. Ritzma professor, University of Chicago, since 1986.
(In this work, Don Levine moves from the origins of system...)
( Don Levine moves from the origins of systematic knowled...)
( It is one thing to lament the financial pressures put o...)
( The essays turn about a single theme, the loss of the c...)
( Greater Ethiopia combines history, anthropology, and so...)
( In Abyssinian poetry, the wax” is the obvious meaning,...)
(Greater Ethiopia combines history, anthropology, and soci...)
Member advisory board Ethiopian Community Association Chicago, since 1993. Member International Society Comparative Study Civilization, American Sociological Association (chair theory section 1996-1997).
Married Joanna Bull, November 6, 1955 (divorced 1967). Children: Theodore, William. Married Ruth Weinstein, August 26, 1967.
1 child, Rachel.