[14/06/2007]
Alain Touraine is to be invested as an Honorary Doctor at the Open University of Catalonia on June 19. The event, which is to be attended by academic and political authorities, is to take place at the University's headquarters (Av. Tibidabo, 39) at 12 o'clock.
Investiture of Alain Touraine as honorary doctor
Professor Alain Touraine, Director of Paris's École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, receives this doctorate in recognition of his numerous merits. His long academic career and his research output in the field of social studies have made him one of most prestigious and emblematic theoreticians in the field and an unavoidable point of reference for specialists interpreting the development of societal models in the 20th century, not only in Europe but also in Latin America. Especially outstanding is his contribution to the analysis of the post-industrial society, relations between the university and society and, particularly, a sociological theory that focuses on the subject as the primary source of social action. Touraine joined the École Normale Supérieure as a student in 1945, from which he qualified as agrégé in History in 1950. Subsequently, he was appointed, in turn, Research Assistant and then Researcher at the CNRS (Centre National pour la Recherche Scientifique), a position he occupied until 1958. Between 1952 and 1953, he was Rockefeller Fellow at Harvard, Columbia and Chicago universities. In 1960 he was appointed as Director of Studies at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, later renamed École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. From 1966 to 1969 he lectured at the Faculty of Arts at the University of Paris-Nanterre. Member of a number of sociology associations, Alain Touraine was President of the French Sociology Society from 1968 to 1970, and Vice-President of the International Sociological Association from 1974 to 1978. He is a foreign member of numerous academies, including the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Academia Europaea, the Mexican Academy of Sciences and the Brazilian Academy of Letters. He is also Honorary Doctor of around twenty universities around the world.
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