Full Name: Harries, Karsten
Gender: male
Date Born: 1937
Place Born: Jena, Thuringia, Germany
Home Country/ies: Germany
Subject Area(s): architectural theory, architecture (object genre), art theory, philosophy, and sculpture (visual works)
Career(s): philosophers and theorists
Overview
Philosopher, architectural theorist and art historian. Harries was born to Wolfgang Harries and Ilse Grossmann (Harries). Harries attended Yale University recieving his B.A. in 1958 and marrying Elizabeth Wanning the following year. He continued for his Ph.D. at Yale, teaching as an instructor in philosophy at Yale 1961-1963. Harries completed his dissesrtation on the concept of Nihilism in the philosophy department, receiving his degree in 1962. He became assistant professor of philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin between 1963 and 1965 and at his alma mater as well, rising to associate professor in 1966. He taught as a visiting professor at the University of Bonn, Germany, 1965-1966 and again 1968-1969. Between that time, Harries published his Meaning of Modern Art, 1967. He rose to (full) professor of philosophy, director of graduate studies at Yale in 1970. Harries was named a Guggenheim fellow for the 1971-1972 academic year. While teaching and writing on philosophy, Harries published his most art-historically based book, The Bavarian Rococo Church. He divorced his first wife and married Elizabeth L. Langhorne in 1991.
Selected Bibliography
[dissertation:] In a Strange Lande: An Exploration of Nihilism. Yale University, 1962; The Meaning of Modern Art, Northwestern University Press (Evanston, IL), 1967; The Bavarian Rococo Church, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 1983; The Broken Frame. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1989; edited, with Jamme, Christoph. Martin Heidegger: Kunst, Politik, Technik. Fink Verlag, 1992, English, Martin Heidegger: Politics, Art, and Technology. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1994; The Ethical Function of Architecture. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1996.
Sources
Harries, Karsten. Infinity and Perspective. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001; [special issue, “Heaven and Earth: Festschrift to Honor Karsten Harries.”] International Journal of Architectural Theory 12 no. 1 (August 2007), http://www.tu-cottbus.de/Theo/Wolke/eng/Subjects/subject071.htm.