Hermann Usener
| Hermann Karl Usener | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Born | October 23, 1834 Weilburg, German Confederation |
| Died | October 21, 1905 (aged 70) Bonn, German Empire |
| Nationality | German |
| Fields | Classics |
| Doctoral students |
H. A. Diels U. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff Hermann Osthoff |
| Other notable students |
Eduard Schwartz Friedrich Leo Paul Natorp Hans Lietzmann Albrecht Dieterich Richard Reitzenstein Aby Warburg |
Hermann Karl Usener (October 23, 1834 – October 21, 1905) was a German scholar in the fields of philology and comparative religion.
Hermann Usener was born at Weilburg and educated at its Gymnasium. From 1853 he studied at Heidelberg, Munich, Göttingen and Bonn.
In 1858 he had a teaching position at the Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium in Berlin. He was Professor 1861 to 1863 at the University of Bern, then at the University of Greifswald, before becoming professor at the University of Bonn.
The Bonn School of classical philology was led by Usener with Franz Buecheler.
Usener was a large-scale thinker who combined scholarly research with theoretical reflection. His research on the ancient world used a comparative method, drawing on a variety of ethnological material for the study of social and religious matters. His theoretical method was phenomenological or hermeneutical, and centered on social psychology and cultural history. He was influential most of all through his work on the formation of religious concepts, which influenced thinkers such as Albrecht Dieterich, Ludwig Radermacher, Aby Warburg, Walter F. Otto, and Ernst Cassirer. In his book on “the names of gods” (Götternamen, 1896), Usener introduced the concept of a momentary god. This phrase entered the English-speaking world, to describe deities who seem to exist only for a specific purpose, time and place.
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