German-American sociologist Lewis A. Coser was born as Ludwig Cohen in Berlin on November 27, 1913; the family’s surname later changed to Coser. He left Germany for France when Hitler came to power in 1933.

In Paris, Coser studied comparative literature and sociology at the Sorbonne until the advent of World War II. Despite his anti-fascist politics and Jewish religion, he was interned in the south of France due to his German nationality. In 1941, he was granted a visa through the International Relief Association and immigrated to the United States, where he changed his name to Lewis. In 1943, Coser married his immigration case-worker, Rose Laub. They had one daughter, Ellen Coser.

Coser and his wife both received doctorates in sociology from Columbia University. While a student, he lectured at the University of Chicago and co-edited Modern Review, a Leftist publication. Coser’s dissertation, directed by “the father of the sociology of science” Robert K. Merton, became the basis for The Functions of Social Conflict (1956), which was revolutionary for its illustration of conflict-generated social cohesion.

In 1951, Coser was appointed Professor at Brandeis University and went on to found the Department of Sociology there. He founded the radical journal Dissent two years later; Dissent became one of the most important and respected venues for social and cultural criticism in the United States. Coser also published Sociological Theory (1957), Sociology through Literature (1963), Men of Ideas (1965), Political Sociology (1967), and Continuities in the Study of Social Conflict (1967).

Coser became Distinguished Professor of Sociology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook in 1968. He published several further books, including: Masters of Sociological Thought (1970), Greedy Organizations (1974), and Refugee Scholars in America: Their Impact and Their Experiences (1984). He served as President of the American Sociological Association, and held fellowships at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University, the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and Clare Hall at Cambridge University. In 1982, Coser was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Lewis and Rose Laub Coser both retired from Stony Brook in 1986, and relocated to the Boston area where they taught at Boston College as an adjunct professors. Rose Laub Coser died on August 21, 1994, and Lewis Coser on July 8, 2003, in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Sources:

“Sociologists Remember Lewis Coser.” Footnotes: Newsletter of the American Sociological Association 31, No. 7 (September/ October, 2003).

Martin, Douglas. “Lewis Coser, 89, Sociologist Who Focused on Intellectuals.” New York Times, July 12, 2003.