Hermann Usener

Hermann Karl Usener (German: [ˈuːzənɐ]; 23 October 1834 – 21 October 1905) was a German scholar in the fields of philology and comparative religion.

Life

Hermann Usener was born at Weilburg and educated at its Gymnasium. From 1853, he studied at Heidelberg University, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, the University of Göttingen, and the University of Bonn.

In 1858, he had a teaching position at the Joachimsthalschen Gymnasium in Berlin. He was Professor from 1861 to 1863 at the University of Bern, then at the University of Greifswald, before becoming professor at the University of Bonn.¹

The Bonn School of classical philology was led by Usener with Franz Buecheler.

Influence

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 centred on social psychology and cultural history.² 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 . In his book “The Names of Gods” (, 1896), Usener introduced the concept of a . This phrase entered the English-speaking world, to describe deities who seem to exist only for a specific purpose, time and place.