ABSTRACT
Although marginalized for much of his academic career, the German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel (1858-1918) proved to be a highly original thinker who made a substantial contribution to establishing sociology as an autonomous field of study. Antipathy towards his individualized style of writing and unconventional subject matter, combined with anti-semitism and a resistance to sociology as an academic discipline, effectively prevented Simmel from obtaining a regular faculty appointment until late in life. Yet in his studies of seemingly mundane everyday phenomena, such as money, sexuality and contemporary urban life, Simmel is now recognized as having offered some penetrating insights into the consciousness of modernity.
