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Newsletter of the Norbert Elias Foundation
AMANDA ROHLOFF CONTENTS In one of the most tragic Amanda Rohloff 1 announcements Figurations has ever had to make, we have to People 1 report the death of Amanda Rohloff From the Norbert Elias Foundation only weeks after gaining her New Secretary to the foundation 2 PhD at Brunel University. Many Norbert Elias Prize to be discontinued 2 readers will have met Amanda at The NEF blog 2 conferences in the last few years. The abstract of her thesis, together Human Figurations online journal 2 with a list of her recent publications, appears in this issue – we had pasted Enlarged edition of What is Sociology? published 3 it into the text just days before news of her death reached us. Her In the media 3 PhD supervisor, Jason Hughes, has written a heartfelt obituary in this Goudsblom promovendi celebrate his 80th birthday 4 issue of Figurations.
,7VNLOOVRIWKH¿JXUDWLRQDOIRXQGLQJIDWKHUV PEOPLE Review essay: Fred Spier Big History and the Future of Humanity – Stephen Quilley 5 Jason Hughes has been appointed a Professor of Sociology at the Recent books and articles 8 University of Leicester. Jason is a Leicester graduate, who wrote his PhD Tangential 15 thesis there under the supervision of Eric Dunning (see Figurations 9), and Books received 15 the resulting book Learning to Smoke (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Recent conferences 2003) won the Norbert Elias Prize Reinventing Norbert Elias: For an Open Sociology, in 2005. Coming immediately after Amsterdam, June 2012 16 the publication of his book with Eric, Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology Forthcoming conferences (see below), Jason’s return to Leicester Civilising Bodies: Literature, rhetoric, and image, – one of the spiritual homes of 1700 to the present day, Exeter, April 2012 17 ¿JXUDWLRQDOVRFLRORJ\±PD\EHVHHQDV Habitus, War and Civilisation, Graz, April 2012 17 a momentous event. * In Memoriam: Amanda Rohloff (1982-2012) 18 José Esteban Castro has been elected a Corresponding Member of the Mexican
Issue No.37 July 2012 Figurations 1 Academy of Sciences (AMC). The capacities of the Foundation’s modest The NEF blog citation recognised his work on the RI¿FH)XUWKHUPRUHDQXPEHURIRWKHU interrelations between water policies prizes – such as the Philip Abrams Prize http://norberteliasfoundation.nl/blog/ and citizenship rights, highlighting the in Britain – have since been established (or www.norberteliasfoundation.nl and interplay between environmental and for similar purposes. And also, the fact click on ‘Blog’). socio-political change, and focusing on that the Prize had been won ever since social struggles over control of water in 2005 by the same publisher had become We increasingly use the Norbert the process of state formation. See his an embarrassment (even if also a great Elias Foundation blog to mail out book Water, Power, and Citizenship: tribute to the quality of University of announcements and other news that Social Struggle in the Basin of Mexico Chicago Press’s list!). cannot wait for the twice-yearly (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, publication of Figurations. 2006 – mentioned in Figurations 24). Winners of the Elias Prize since its * inception have been: Just recently, though, the users list – the Steve Quilley has moved from email addresses to which the blog sends Keele University to the University 1999 David Lepoutre, Coeur de news – has become corrupted. We are of Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, as banlieue: Codes, rites et langages repairing it, but some mistakes may Associate Professor of Social and (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1997) have crept in. If you are a current user, Environmental Innovation. please check that you are back on the 2001 Wilbert van Vree, Meetings, list – or update your details if they are Manners and Civilisation (London: wrong. FROM THE NORBERT University of Leicester Press, 1999) If you receive Figurations by post but ELIAS FOUNDATION are not a subscriber to the blog, and 2003 Nikola Tietze, Islamische would like to subscribe, please email Secretary to the Identitäten: Formen muslimischer us ([email protected]) so that we can add Foundation Religiosität junger Männer in your address to the blog users list. Deutschland und Frankreich Marcello Aspria has stepped down (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2001) Human Figurations online as Secretary to the Norbert Elias Journal Foundation, in order to concentrate on 2005 Jason Hughes, Learning to completing his PhD at the Erasmus Smoke: Tobacco Use in the West Become a peer reviewer for Human University Rotterdam. In his place, we (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, Figurations: Long-term Perspectives have appointed Esther Wils. 2003) on the Human Condition
Esther has a degree in Italian language 2007 Georgi Derlugian, Bourdieu’s Our sister publication, the online and literature. For a good many years Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A journal Human Figurations, invites she has a part-time job as Editorial World-System Biography (Chicago: expressions of interest from anyone Secretary of the 175-year-old Dutch University of Chicago Press, 2005). interested in serving as a peer reviewer intellectual journal De Gids, and she of articles submitted to the journal. will continue in that role as well as 2009 Elizabeth Bernstein, Temporarily Please contact the Editor, Katie Liston, becoming the part-time Secretary to the Yours: Intimacy, Authenticity, and the at KXPDQ¿JXUDWLRQV#PHFRP. NEF. Commerce of Sex (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007). Procedure for special issues of Human Norbert Elias Prize to be Figurations discontinued 2011 Brett Bowden, The Empire of Civilization: The Evolution of an Human Figurations is released twice With regret, the Board of the Norbert Imperial Idea (Chicago: University of a year and the editor now welcomes Elias Foundation has decided to Chicago Press, 2009). proposals for special issues of the discontinue the Norbert Elias Prize, journal. A copy of the proposal which since 1999 has been awarded We are grateful to the former winners template should be obtained from for what the jury judged to be the best who have served as jury-members, and the administrator, Clare Spencer ¿UVWERRNE\DQDXWKRULQVRFLRORJ\RU most especially to Wilbert van Vree ([email protected]). This FORVHO\FRJQDWH¿HOGVSXEOLVKHGLQWKH who has chaired the jury and largely outlines the necessary information that preceding two years. run the whole proceedings for a number should be included in any proposal, of years. for example, the proposed theme and Three main reasons governed our FRQWHQWRIWKHVSHFLDOLVVXHWKHµ¿W¶ decision. Primarily, reading and It is hoped that the book prize may in with the over-arching aims of the evaluating the steadily increasing due course be replaced by an essay journal, guest editor(s) and the practical number of books submitted had become prize, and a triumvirate of Stephen management of submissions, proposed too large a task both for the members Vertigans, Annette Treibel and Johan schedule and so on. of the jury and for the administrative Heilbron is discussing that possibility.
2 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 ENLARGED EDITION IN THE MEDIA David Christian was referred to OF WHAT IS (inevitably?) as a ‘maverick historian’ SOCIOLOGY? PUBLISHED Steven Pinker wrote an op-ed piece in The Observer, London, 28 October in the New York Times, 24 October 2012. The context was an article Norbert Elias, What is Sociology?, 2012, entitled ‘Why are states so red entitled ‘Climate change and science translated by Grace Morrissey, Stephen and blue?’, discussing the ideological are at heart of new theory of history Mennell and Edmund Jephcott, edited polarisation in the Presidential election backed by Bill Gates’. The good by Artur Bogner, Katie Liston and – which is also in part a geographical news is that Bill Gates was greatly Stephen Mennell (Dublin: UCD Press, polarisation. The conclusion reads as enthused when he signed up to an 2012 [Collected Works, vol. 5]). xviii follows: online course based on David’s great + 236 pp. ISBN: 978-1-906359-05-8. ‘The historian Pieter Spierenburg has book Maps of Time: An Introduction to €60.00 suggested that “democracy came too Big History (Berkeley, CA: University soon to America,” namely, before the of California Press, 2004), and that The new edition of What is Sociology? government had disarmed its citisens. a 12-hour documentary series about includes a substantial ‘missing chapter’ Since American governance was more it, Mankind: The Story of All of Us, on Marx and another shorter text on or less democratic from the start, the was shown on the History Channel ‘The sociogenesis of the concept of people could choose not to cede to it from November. The bad news is that “society” as the subject matter of the safeguarding of their personal safety the journalist who wrote the article, sociology’ never previously published but to keep it as their prerogative. The Vanessa Thorpe, The Observer’s arts in English, both translated for this unhappy result of this vigilante justice and media correspondent, plainly had edition by Edmund Jephcott. is that American homicide rates are far no idea at all what ‘big history’ was higher than those of Europe, and those about, and tried trivially to tie the story The translation of the original book of the South higher than those of the to current British political squabbles made by Grace Morrissey and Stephen North. about the school history syllabus. (On 0HQQHOOLQWKHHDUO\ V WKH¿UVW ‘Big History’, see also Steve Quilley’s translation into English of Elias’s ‘If this history is right, the American review essay below.) major works) has been substantially political divide may have arisen not revised in the light of later translations so much from different conceptions Gad Yair (Professor of Sociology, – especially by Edmund Jephcott – of of human nature as from differences Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and other works. in how best to tame it. The North and the Iranian sociologist Behzad Akbari coasts are extensions of Europe and jointly published a powerful article The next volume, Studies on the continued the government-driven entitled ‘Iran and Israel: Humiliation, Germans, is already in press, and will civilising process that had been fear, reconciliation’ in the be published in spring 2013. Interviews gathering momentum since the Middle Jerusalem Post, 27 August 2012, DQG$XWRELRJUDSKLFDO5HÀHFWLRQV is Ages. The South and West preserved relating the two countries’ reciprocal at an advanced stage of preparation, the culture of honour that emerged in fear of each other to a history of for publication in the autumn, and the anarchic territories of the growing national humiliation that is common to the series will be completed with the country, tempered by their own both. eighteenth volume, supplements and civilising forces of churches, families the consolidated index to the Collected and temperance.’ Works is scheduled for the early part of 2014. A conference to celebrate the end John Carter Wood was interviewed of the project will be held in June 2014. about his book The Most Remarkable Woman in England: Poison, Celebrity Buy online: Copies of any of the and the Trials of Beatrice Pace volumes of the Collected Works may (Manchester University Press, 2012, be purchased online at a 20 per cent 272 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7190-8618-2), discount, directly from the publishers, on BBC Radio 4’s show Woman’s at www.ucdpress.ie. Hour programme on 17 October 2012. Beatrice Pace was a farmer’s wife who in 1928 was tried and acquitted for the murder of her husband by arsenical poisoning. John says that there is no direct reference to the theory of civilising processes in the book itself, but the decline in the tolerance of domestic violence and the way in which 0UV3DFHWKHPDLQ¿JXUHLQWKHERRN was seen by the public in sympathetic terms does feature.
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 3 GOUDSBLOM PROMOVENDI CELEBRATE HIS 80TH IT SKILLS OF THE BIRTHDAY FIGURATIONAL FOUNDING FATHERS Joop Goudsblom, Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University of Amsterdam, celebrated his eightieth birthday on 11 October 2012, and the following evening his Katie Liston found this in a card-shop. promovendi – the former students whose PhDs he had supervised – gave a dinner Of course, Norbert Elias died before in his honour. Not quite all of them were able to attend, but here is the complete list the IT age had really begun, but Katie of the 30 graduates, many of them now prominent social scientists. found that the cartoon unaccountably made her think of Eric Dunning.
1978 Ruud Stokvis 1991 Bram van Stolk 1980 Paul Kapteyn, Han Israëls 1992 Fred Spier 1984 Nico Wilterdink, Christien 1993 Jan Willem Gerritsen Brinkgreve 1994 Maarten van Bottenburg, Wilbert 1985 Stephen Mennell van Vree 1986 Kees Schmidt 1995 Gerhard Durlacher (honorary 1987 Bart van Heerikhuizen, Henri degree) Goverde, Bram Kempers 1997 Jo Swabe 1988 Godfried van Benthem van den 1999 Dienke Hondius, Wilma Aarts Bergh, Bas Willink 2000 Giselinde Kuipers 1989 Kees Bruin 2001 Cas Smitshuijsen 1990 Anneke van Otterloo, Cas 2002 Johannes van der Weiden Wouters, Johan Heilbron, Warna Oosterbaan, Sophie de Schaepdrijver
4 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 REVIEW ESSAY NQRZOHGJHZKLFKPDNHVLWGLI¿FXOW meant that intellectual endeavour see the big picture. At the same time, was invariably leavened with a cross- Fred Spier, Big History and the Future without a shared, taken-for-granted referencing impetus to synthesis and of Humanity (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, UHOLJLRXVZRUOGYLHZLWLVDOVRGLI¿FXOW integration. Norbert Elias was part 2011). WR¿QGPHDQLQJDQGVLJQL¿FDQFHLQWKH of the last generation that attempted world. WRVXVWDLQWKLVEUHDGWKRIVFLHQWL¿F Stephen Quilley vision. However, the pace of technical University of Waterloo During the last two centuries, science development between the wars, the has been profoundly successful in massive growth of universities and Imagine that you could look at the unravelling the connections and the emergence of hundreds of new Earth and the universe from a vantage processes underlying all of the dynamic national education systems after1945, point outside space and time. Imagine complexity observable in the material saw not only a permanent rift between that you could press a re-wind button ... world. This proliferating stock of C. P. Snow’s ‘two cultures’ but also and go all the way back? What would VFLHQWL¿FNQRZOHGJHKDVFUHDWHGD the increasing fragmentation of you see? What would be the most cognitive map that allows humanity to VXEGLVFLSOLQHVZLWKLQWKHEURDG¿HOGV VLJQL¿FDQWIHDWXUHVRIFRVPLFKLVWRU\ predict, intervene in, and manipulate of science, the humanities and the in reverse? Great episodes such as natural processes to an astonishing social sciences. World War I or the French Revolution degree. Such success has been achieved would disappear into a blur. A series of largely on the back of a programme A notable highpoint in the reductionist PRUHVLJQL¿FDQWSXQFWXDWLRQVZRXOG of methodological reductionism – ethos in biology was Richard come into view: modernity and the that is, a strategy for understanding Dawkins’s 7KH6HO¿VK*HQH (1975). connecting up of a global human complex phenomena by focusing on the Dawkins’s imperial vision insisted culture; agriculture and the emergence interaction of ever more fundamental that the diversity of all biological RIWKH¿UVWFLWLHV ¿UHFXOWXUHDQG parts. This methodological strategy has form and function, including human language; the Cambrian explosion and often been accompanied by an implicit culture and psychology, could be multi-cellular organisms; the evolution and sometimes unacknowledged explained with reference only to the of life; the creation of planets and solar assumption that the epiphenomena characteristics of individual parts systems; the birth of stars ... the Big of complex systems can be explained (genes). However, since the 1970s, Bang. satisfactorily with reference only to the even in the biological sciences there characteristics of their constituent parts. has been an increasing recognition that That is a lot of history and seemingly this version of Darwinian evolutionary an impossibly large canvas. Is it really In broad terms, there is no doubt theory is unbalanced and one-sided. possible to make sensible observations that reductionism in the natural Productive and successful as it has about process of cosmic unfolding, science has proved itself. But such been, reductionism is reaching the so broadly conceived? Is it really success has come at a cost, evident limits of its explanatory potential, meaningful to delineate continuities in the fragmentation of knowledge certainly in relation to many of the in developments operating at such and the proliferation of specialised most urgent problems facing humanity. different levels of integration, units of disciplines. At an anecdotal level, A revolution in theoretical biology and analysis and time frames? How can this is very clear in the biography of ecology has seen the re-emergence of such a big picture help us to navigate VFLHQWL¿FLQWHOOHFWXDOV1RWHGSRO\PDWK the organicist tradition in biology, with the social and ecological problems of Benjamin Franklin combined a career DUHQHZHGIRFXVRQWKHVLJQL¿FDQFHRI WKHWZHQW\¿UVWFHQWXU\" DVD¿UVWUDWHVFLHQWLVWZLWKLQYHQWRU complexity, emergent dynamics and (lightning rods, bifocals, the Franklin the interweaving of processes operating Although all species eventually become stove, odometer), musician, postmaster, simultaneously at different levels of extinct, most manage to stay the course politician, political theorist, printer integration (see Quilley 2010). This for around two million years. In the DQGEHQHIDFWRUERWKRIWKH¿UVWSXEOLF ongoing paradigm has many sources, long view, sustainability is about lending library in the United States and including Lyn Margulis’s theory of whether humanity manages to live out WKH¿UVW¿UHVWDWLRQLQ3HQQV\OYDQLD symbiogenesis, James Lovelock’s Gaia this evolutionary potential. For this A century later, Charles Darwin was theory, Stuart Kauffman’s reworking of reason it should not be measured in (I assume) less accomplished on the complexity theory, and Buzz Holling’s decades or even centuries, but rather piano, took little active role in politics concept of ‘panarchy’. Notable attempts millennia and aeons. Longer than and had few inventions to his name. to provide synthetic overviews of the recorded history, such a time-scale Like other scientists of the time, he emerging intellectual landscape have LVGLI¿FXOWWRFRQFHLYHOHWDORQH was, however, able to keep abreast of been provided by Stuart Rose (1997) to operationalise at the level of developments across all of the major and more recently Marion Lamb and politics. But this is the task facing the disciplines. And until the First World Eve Jablonka (2005). current generation and their great- War, the relatively small number of grandchildren. The problem is made universities, the limited number of What is most interesting is the PRUHGLI¿FXOWE\WKHIUDJPHQWDWLRQDQG technical specialisations and the small extent to which interdisciplinarity LQFUHDVLQJVSHFLDOLVDWLRQRIVFLHQWL¿F community of professional academics is becoming once again the default
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 5 mode for scientists who aspire to hard-vacuum space. Humanity’s habitat the dots and to make connections be public intellectuals. At all levels, looked tiny, fragile and rare. Suddenly between different modules, courses the most pressing and intellectually humans had a planet to tend to.’ (Brand and disciplines. Viewing the past on H[FLWLQJVFLHQWL¿FSUREOHPVUHTXLUH 2000) multiple time scales, the emphasis is a broader vision and the appreciation on seeking out common themes and of links between processes operating &RPELQHGZLWKVFLHQFH¿FWLRQDO patterns. Synthesising the headline at sometimes wildly different levels explorations of our deep future and ¿QGLQJVIURPFRVPRORJ\DQGSK\VLFV of integration. Consider, for instance, distant past and the possibilities of chemistry and the life sciences, James Lovelock’s comment, in The astro-biology and comparative cosmic history and anthropology, Big History Revenge of Gaia, that, by detecting civilisation, and against the backdrop provides the ultimate Hitch Hiker’s DQGSRVVLEO\GHÀHFWLQJWKUHDWVIURP of possible nuclear oblivion, the Guide – identifying key episodes incoming asteroids, technological technological achievements of the in the development of complexity humanity might come to function as 1960s and 1970s primed the intellectual in the universe and an underlying the sentient brain for a biosphere in culture for a great expansion in order which links the birth of stars the process of becoming self-aware. temporal horisons. The project of the with the origins of life and even the This extraordinary thought echoes the ‘Clock of the Long Now’ and the Long current social and ecological crises grandiose claims for ‘encephalisation’ Now Foundation lead by Stewart Brand of civilisation. Focusing on critical RIWKHSODQHWPDGHE\VFLHQWL¿F (1999) provided the most graphic threshold moments, the Big History humanists such as Teilhard de Chardin, exemplar of this new sensibility: that focuses on the ‘Goldilocks conditions’ Julian Huxley, Henri Bergson, Vladimir all of recorded history was a blip in – ‘not too hot, not to cold ... but just Vernadsky and Édouard Le Roy in the a wider process of cosmic evolution; right’ – which periodically allowed early-mid twentieth century (Quilley and that human problems, possibilities the emergence of entirely new forms 2010; Sampson and Pitt 1999). If one and interventions were inextricably of complexity. The fragility of these accepts the extended time-horizon, interwoven with wider biological pinpricks of complexity and the it also suggests a troubling trade-off and physical dynamics unfolding Goldilocks conditions that sustain between ecological damage in the and cycling over much, much longer them provides a foundation for a more present and the possible ecological periods. In many ways, this incipient nuanced and long-term view of the VLJQL¿FDQFHRIWHFKQRORJLFDO appreciation of the big picture is part possible futures for humanity and the civilisation for the deep future. of the long drawn out reorganisation of biosphere. Exemplifying what seems to be a our temporal means of orientation that general rule, a great deal depends not ¿UVWVWDUWHGLQWKHHLJKWHHQWKFHQWXU\ The list of core texts is growing rapidly just on the point of view but also the DQGJDLQHGD¿UPIRRWLQJZLWKWKH and includes notable syntheses from ‘time of view’. evolutionary theories of Charles Lyell, David Christian (2005), William James Hutton and Charles Darwin. McNeill and John McNeil (2003), Eric Elucidating common patterns operating Chaisson (2001), Johan Goudsblom across the entirety of what Elias called The emergence of Big History as (1992), Bert De Vries and Goudsblom ‘the great evolution’ (2007), Big an undergraduate programme is (2002) and Cynthia Stokes Brown +LVWRU\V\QWKHVLVHVWKH¿QGLQJVIURP perhaps evidence of an accelerating (2012). Fred Spier has made a the full gamut of natural and social shift in this cognitive revolution. The VLJQL¿FDQWFRQWULEXWLRQWRWKH¿HOGIURP science disciplines, from astronomy ¿UVWSLRQHHULQJFRXUVHVZHUHWDXJKW the outset. Big History and the Future and geology, to climate science, in the late 1980s by John Mears at of Humanity builds on an earlier book, evolutionary biology, anthropology Southern Methodist University (Dallas, The Structure of Big History (1996). and neuroscience, and everything in Texas) and by David Christian at Starting with a concise introduction between. This new discipline perfectly Macquarie University (Australia) and WRWKH¿HOGWKHQHZERRNIROORZV captures the renewed interest in San Diego State University (USA), provides a complete overview of the synthesis and integration. The modern followed by Johan Goudsblom and subject covering cosmic evolution, sensitivity to cosmic evolution emerged (his erstwhile PhD student) Fred biological life on earth, human in part in the wake of cold war rivalries Spier at the University of Amsterdam, evolution and social development and in the space-race. As Stewart Brand IURP :LWKDKLJKSUR¿OH7(' our current global industrial civilisation pointed out, the biosphere and the [Technology, Entertainment and Design as the ‘greatest known complexity’ in anthroposphere viewed from space conferences] talk by David Christian, the universe. With regard to this core presented a cognitive jolt unique in the the establishment of the International content, Spier’s book is not dissimilar history of humanity. %LJ+LVWRU\$VVRFLDWLRQDQGVLJQL¿FDQW to Christian’s Maps of Time. However, sponsorship from the Bill Gates WKHUHDUHVLJQL¿FDQWGLIIHUHQFHV6SLHU¶V µ)RUWKH¿UVWWLPHKXPDQLW\VDZLWVHOI )RXQGDWLRQWKHQHZ¿HOGLVQRZ contribution is shorter and perhaps from outside. The visible features from HVWDEOLVKLQJDVLJQL¿FDQWEHDFKKHDGLQ more digestible for an undergraduate space were living blue ocean, living academia (see Resources below). audience. He provides, in passing, a green-brown continents, dazzling polar superb review of a (predictably) wide ice and a busy atmosphere, all set like As a nascent undergraduate discipline, range of literatures and the book is a delicate jewel in vast immensities of Big History allows students to join worth purchasing for the bibliography
6 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 alone. This historiography usefully science-based, liberal-cosmopolitan and Models (Amsterdam: Amsterdam frames the intellectual prehistory of civilisation (Quilley 2011, 2012). University Press) the ‘macroscopic’ perspective with *LYHQWKHVLJQL¿FDQFHWKDW6SLHU reference to Alexander Von Humboldt, attaches to this question, the only Elias N. (2007) Involvement and H. G. Wells and Arnold Toynbee, (surprising) omission is the lack Detachment, ed. S. Quilley (Dublin: DPRQJRWKHUV0RUHVLJQL¿FDQWO\ of attention given to Howard T. UCD Press [Collected Works, vol. 8]). the text is focused, from the outset, Odum’s ‘energy hierarchy’ and the on the relevance of Big History as a concept of ‘transformity’ (2007). Elias, N. (1987) ‘The retreat of means of orientation, in relation to Although technically problematic sociologists into the present’, in Essays issues of long-range governance and (Hau and Bakshi 2004), Odum’s III: On Sociology and the Humanities sustainability. Where David Christian framework provides the only serious (Dublin: UCD Press, 2009 [Collected is preoccupied with the function of attempt to quantify the prerequisite Works, vol. 16]), pp. 107–26. %LJ+LVWRU\DVDVFLHQWL¿FRULJLQ thermodynamic relationship between myth and a source of meaning and different orders of complexity in Goudsblom, J. (1992) Fire and UHHQFKDQWPHQW6SLHU¶VIRFXVLV¿UPO\ general, and the minimum ecological Civilisation (London: Allen Lane) on humanity ‘facing the future’ (chapter conditions for civilisation in particular 7KHSRLQWRIGHSDUWXUHIRUWKLV¿QDO (2001). Developing a more precise, Goudsblom, J. (1977) Sociology in the chapter is established at the outset quantitative model of the relationship Balance: A Critical Essay (Oxford: with a framework that centres on the between different levels of complexity Blackwell). UHODWLRQVKLSEHWZHHQHQHUJ\ÀRZVDQG seems an important next step if Big complexity. Spier’s contention is ‘that History is to become more than a useful Gunderson L. and Holling, C. S. ³WKHHQHUJ\ÀRZVWKURXJKPDWWHU´ heuristic. Having said this, Spier’s text (2001) Panarchy: Understanding approach combined with the Goldilocks provides an outstanding introduction Transformations in Systems of Humans 3ULQFLSOHPD\SURYLGHD¿UVWRXWOLQH to Big History and a perfect foundation and Nature (Washington, DC: Island of a historical theory of everything, upon which to consider the human Press) including human history’ (p. 39). His condition ‘in the round’. It should most salutary conclusion is that greater be required reading for sociologists, Hau, J. L. and Bakshi, B. R. (2004) complexity is correspondingly more political scientists, ecologists, ‘Promise and Problems of Energy SUHFDULRXVDQGGLI¿FXOWWRVXVWDLQ politicians and anyone with any interest Analysis’, Ecological Modelling, 178, The long-term survival of human in ‘sustainability’ or a long-term future pp. 215–225 (special issue in honour of complexity will depend on whether for humanity. H. T. Odum). we can constrain an apparently innate propensity ‘to harvest more energy than Jablonka, E. and Lamb M. J. (2005) is needed for survival and reproduction’ References Evolution in Four Dimensions: (p. 204). The networked connectivity Genetic, Epigenetic, Behavioral, and of billions of human brains presents Brand, S. (1999) The Clock of the Long Symbolic Variation in the History of the most astounding (and possibly Now (NY: Basic Books). Life (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press). cosmically rare) degree of complexity. Other things being equal, sustaining Brand, S. (2000) ‘Taking the Long Laughlin, G. (1999) The Five Ages such complexity over hundreds View’, Time Magazine 26 April 2000 of the Universe: Inside the Physics of of years, let alone millennia (or Available from http://longnow.org/ Eternity (New York: Free Press). ‘perpetuity’) is an unlikely prospect. As essays/taking-long-view/ – Accessed 10 Spier makes very clear, it will depend May 2012. McNeil, W. and McNeil, J. R. (2003). on the extent to which humanity is able The Human Web: A Bird’s-Eye View to develop a more detached picture of Christian, D. (2004) Maps of Time: An of World History (New York: W. W. its own metabolic constraints, as if from Introduction to Big History (Berkeley, Norton). the outside, and using this cognitive CA: University of California Press). guide, begins to internalise entropic Odum, H. T., with Mark T. Brown constraints on individual, social and Chaisson, E. J. (2001) Cosmic (2007) Environment, Power and institutional patterns of behaviour. In Evolution: The Rise of Complexity Society for the Twenty-First Century: Elias’s terms such a development would in Nature (Cambridge, MA: Harvard The Hierarchy of Energy (New York: constitute an ‘ecological civilising University Press). Columbia University Press). process’ (Quilley 2009). Davies, P. (2006) The Goldilocks Odum, H. T. and Odum, E. (2001), It is an open question whether the Enigma (London: Allen Lane) A Prosperous Way Down: Principles maximum scale of the ‘anthroposphere’ and Policies (Boulder, CO: University (De Vries and Goudsblom 2002) De Vries, B. and Goudsblom, J. Press of Colorado). compatible with ecological integrity (2002) Mappae Mundi:Humans and overlaps with the minimum scale Their Habitats in a Long-Term Socio- Quilley, S. (2009) ‘The land ethic necessary for a globally connected, Ecological Perspective : Myths, Maps as an ecological civilising process:
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 7 Aldo Leopold, Norbert Elias, Environmental Values (forthcoming) Websites and Resources and Environmental Philosophy’, Rose, S. (2005) Lifelines: Life Beyond Environmental Ethics 31: 2, pp. the Gene (New York: Vintage) The Long Now Foundation: http:// 115–34. longnow.org/ Samson P. R. and Pitt, D. (eds)(1999), Quilley, S. (2010) ‘Integrative levels The Biosphere and Noosphere Reader: The International Big History and the ‘Great Evolution’: organicist Global Environment, Society and Association: http://www.ibhanet.org/ biology and the sociology of Norbert Change (London: Routledge). Elias’, Journal of Classical Sociology David Christian has just done a very 10: 4, pp. 1–19. Smil, V. (2006) Energy: A Beginner’s well received TED talk: http://www.ted. Guide (Oxford: One World). com/talks/david_christian_big_history. Quilley, S. (2011) ‘Entropy, the html anthroposphere and the ecology of Spier, F. (1996) The Structure of Big civilisation: An essay on the problem History: From the Big Bang Until 7KH¿HOGKDVUHFHQWO\DWWUDFWHG of ‘liberalism in one village’ in the long Today (Amsterdam: University of the attention and long term view’, Sociological Review, 59, pp. Amsterdam Press). sponsorship of Bill Gates: http:// 65–90. www.bighistoryproject.com/ Stokes Brown, C. (2012) History: From The-Latest-Word/Bill-Gates-BHP Quilley, S. (2012) ‘Degrowth is not a the Big Bang to the Present (New York: liberal agenda: Relocalisation and the The New Press). limits to low energy cosmopolitanism’,
RECENT BOOKS AND ARTICLES
Eric Dunning and Jason Hughes, Noting that several other books about Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Elias have appeared previously – they Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, mention those by Richard Kilminster, Process (London: Bloomsbury Johan Goudsblom, Hermann Korte, Academic, 2012). xii + 239 pp. ISBN: Robert van Krieken, Jonathan Fletcher, 978-1-78093-225-5 (hb); 978-1-78903- Marc Joly (see below), Cas Wouters 226-2 (pb). and myself – Dunning and Hughes point to three ways in which their book To say that this book is ‘long awaited’ is distinctive. They write: is no exaggeration: the authors have been working on it for more than a µ7KH¿UVWLVWKDWDFHQWUDOIRFXVRI decade! the text is upon Elias’s sociology of knowledge. … The second is that
8 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 we have attempted to position our Marc Joly, Devenir Norbert Elias: appreciate their value and importance. discussion … within the context of a Histoire croisée d’un processus Notable among the new generation of more general crisis, both of sociology GHUHFRQQDLVVDQFHVLFHQWL¿TXH OD historians are Quentin Deluermoz, who as a subject and of the human world at reception française (Paris: Fayard, edited the special issue of Vingtième large. Thirdly, … we have endeavoured 2012). 469 pp. ISBN: 978-2-213- Siècle devoted to Elias in 2010 (see throughout this book … to advance a 66678-5 (pb). Figurations 33; now reprinted as a central line of argument concerning book: see below), and Marc Joly, these twin crises [through] our French historians always seem to have who so brilliantly edited (or rather exposition of Elias’s work.’ (p. 1). served Elias well. He drew extensively reconstructed) the essay on Freud that on the writings of Achille Luchaire Elias was writing at the very end of his In fact the central argument is that, life (see Figurations 37). despite its currently parlous intellectual state, sociology as a discipline is Now Fayard have published SRWHQWLDOO\RIVLJQL¿FDQFHIRUDQG Marc Joly’s doctoral thesis, EHQH¿WWRKXPDQNLQG and the book has already attracted a lot of interest in The list of chapters will give a good France. In outward form, as the impression of how the authors pursue title suggests, it is a study in this ambitious argument: intellectual history, tracing the Introduction: Sociology and its tangled path leading to Elias’s discontents HPHUJHQFHDVDµJUHDW¿JXUHLQ 1 Working with Elias sociology’, with a particular 6RPHEDVLFFRQFHSWVRI¿JXUDWLRQDO focus upon the French part of sociology the story. But it is much more 3 Elias’s ‘Central Theory’ than that. Joly has probed the 4 The development of knowledge and archives in London, Leicester the sciences as social processes and Marbach, and unearthed 5 Problems of method and values much that is new. He corrects in the development of sociological the ‘partial misunderstanding’ knowledge prevalent in France that Elias 6 Elias and ‘The habits of good was simply a sort of precursor sociology’ to the Annales school. And he Conclusion: A relational turn? The very interestingly situates the IXWXUHSURVSHFWVRI¿JXUDWLRQDO reception of Elias in France sociology and others who were writing in the in the aftermath of 1968. He is an late nineteenth and early twentieth excellent guide to how Elias relates The title of chapter 6, a neat play on centuries, and even between the wars to such other intellectual megastars as the mid-nineteenth-century manners a convergence between the notions of Lévi-Strauss and Braudel. book extensively quoted by Elias, The mentalités and longue durée emerging Habits of Good Society, has already in the early Annales school and Elias’s This is not just a history. Marc Joly has caused some resentment among ideas concerning long-term changes made himself a major expert on Elias’s other sociologists who do not wish in social habitus. (Both parties were work per se, and his book can serve as to be taught how to behave as better LQÀXHQFHGE\WKH'XWFKKLVWRULDQ-RKDQ a general introduction. He is a powerful sociologists. That is a good sign. Huizinga.) Much later, when Über advocate for the continuing relevance den Prozess der Zivilisation and Die of Elias for the human sciences at large. Particularly valuable are the detailed K|¿VFKH*HVHOOVFKDIW were published in discussions of how Elias compares and French translation in the early 1970s, FRQWUDVWVZLWKRWKHU¿JXUHVSURPLQHQW the annalistes gave Elias’s books a Érik Neveu, ‘Elias, Wouters et la in recent sociology, such as Bourdieu, warm welcome. A little later still Roger théorie de l’informalisation: Un outil Foucault and Giddens. And this book Chartier, now of the Collège de France, conceptuel pour sociologiser des EHQH¿WVIURPEHLQJZULWWHQIURPWKH as the by-product of meeting Elias at régimes émotionnels et leurs effets’ perspective of a wide knowledge of the a conference in Germany, emerged as [Elias, Wouters and the theory of habits – good and, especially, bad – of one of the most effective champions informalisation: a conceptual tool for current empirical social research in of Elias in France. Of course, the sociologising emotional regimes and PDQ\¿HOGV historians were not entirely alone: their effects], in Isabelle Sommier and among historians Pierre Bourdieu Xavier Crettiez (eds), Les Dimensions In short, it was well worth waiting for. became a friend, and French political pPRWLRQQHOOHVGXSROLWLTXH &KHPLQVGH Recommended. scientists including Bernard Lacroix traverse avec Philippe Braud (Rennes: have also made extensive use of Elias’s Presses Universitaires de Rennes, Stephen Mennell ideas. But today historians continue to 2012), pp. 273–90.
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 9 Érik Neveau, Director of Sciences Po, sociology’ – to understanding the world father whose son lost his job and moved Rennes, and one of the organisers of at the present day. One cannot help back in with his parents, and then the memorable ‘Colloque International wondering whether, if more leading fell into total inactivity, lethargically Norbert Elias’ held in Rennes in Americans had a better knowledge of watching daytime television. Finally, October 2000 (see Figurations 14), Iranian history, they could continue the father told the son that this was argues for the relevance to political to behave as idiotically towards the not good enough, and that he should scientists not just of Elias’s theory of country as they do. pull himself together … and so on. civilising processes, but especially Whereupon his wife, the lad’s mother, of Cas Wouters’s elaboration of the SJM denounced her husband for ‘being process of informalisation. This essay judgmental’. The husband ended up in presents a useful and comprehensive Quentin Deluermoz (ed.), Norbert confusion, depression and ultimately account of Wouters’s key ideas, Elias et le XXesiècle: Le processus therapy. This incident has nothing including the ‘lust balance between de civilisation à l’épreuve (Paris: in itself to do with the question of love and sex’ and (still controversial) of Perrin, 2012). 443 pp. ISBN: relations between ethic minorities and a transition from a ‘second nature’ to a 978-2-262-03902-8. majorities, or more generally between ‘third nature’ dominant habitus. established and outsiders, but it This is a handy pocket-book version brilliantly captures the thrust of Dalal’s of the special issue of the journal argument. The chapter titles also give a Behrouz Alikhani, Institutionelle Vingtième siècle published in 2010 (see VWURQJÀDYRXU Entdemokratisierungsprozesse: Zum Figurations 33), with slightly revised Nachhinkeffekt des sozialen Habitus and updated contributions. The struggle to live and let live: the in Frankreich, Iran und Deutschland liberal world view [Institutional de-democratisation: the Equal strokes for different folks: the drag effect in social habitus in France, Farhad Dalal, Thought Paralysis: The legislature Iran and Germany] (Wiesbaden: Virtues of Discrimination (London: Manufacturing kinds of people: Springer VS, 2012). 303 pp. ISBN Karnac, 2012). x + 246 pp. ISBN: processes of inclusion and exclusion 978-3-531-19307-6 (pb); 978-3-531- 978-1-7804-9055-6. The human condition: psychology 19308-3 (eBook). Counting discriminations Farhad Dalal is a practising Group Corrupting the liberal ideal: diversity in This important book is Behrouz Analyst, whose writings have played organisational life Alikhani’s doctoral thesis at the a key part in the reception of Norbert Perverting the liberal ideal: fear and University of Hanover, where it was Elias’s ideas back into the theory control in the Panopticon supervised by Dawud Gholamasud. and practice of the Group Analytic The difference that dare not speak its Part I presents a critique of Society of which Elias was a founder. name: the Lexicon Police theories concerning the failure of Particularly notable was Dalal’s book Islam: the new black the ‘constitutuional revolution’, Taking the Group Seriously: Towards a Tolerating discrimination: with special reference to the Post-Foulkesian Group Analytic Theory discriminating tolerance de-democratisation of the constitutional (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1998 – see The road to nowhere: conceptual monarchy in Iran (1906–25). This Figurations 10), and his next book, cul-de-sacs is followed by an outline of Elias’s Race, Colour and Racialisation (Hove: understanding of processes of Brunner–Routledge, 2002) also covered This is not just a courageous book, democratisation, its incorporation in WHUULWRU\RILQWHUHVWWR¿JXUDWLRQDO but quite as brilliant as Dalal’s earlier Gholamasud’s three-dimensional model sociologists. works. of democracy, and comparison of the personality structures associated with His new book is perhaps his most SJM parliamentary and autocratic–dynastic courageous to date. As he remarks, his states. Part II deals with institutional status as an Indian-born British citizen de-democratisation in France and makes it possible for him to advance an Stephen Vertigans, The Sociology Germany: France during the Second argument that would no doubt be badly of Terrorism: People Places and Republic (1848–52), drawing upon received if put forward by a standard Processes (London: Routledge, 2012). Marx’s and Tocqueville’s contemporary ‘white British’ author. In good Eliasian xiv + 214 pp. ISBN: 978-0-415- writings about that, and Germany in the fashion, he seeks to break down a 57265-1 (hb); 978-0-415-57266-8 (pb); Weimar Republic (drawing, of course, static false polarity. He walks a thin 978-0-203-85581-2 (ebk). on Elias). Part III returns to the decline line between the apologists who deify of the Iranian constitutional monarchy ‘difference’ and the zealots and bigots Stephen Vertigans begins his book and its overthrow by Reza Shah. who vilify the different. He argues by decrying the virtual absence of that in order to create a fairer world, sociology and sociologists from debates No better example could be found of we need to enhance our capacities for about terrorism and counter-terrorism. the relevance of ‘historical’ sociology GLVFULPLQDWLRQQRWVWLÀHWKHP(DUO\LQ (Sometimes one wonders whether – and, more exactly, of Elias’s ‘process the book, he tells a vivid story about a the list of topics deemed beyond the
10 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 scope of sociology by most mainstream homicide). His earlier book, The or students. The argument was that representatives of the discipline is Spectacle of Suffering: Executions in Western Europe states established becoming longer than the list of topics and the Evolution of Suffering relatively effective monopolisation of deemed appropriate for their attention.) (Cambridge University Press, 1984) is the means of violence under autocratic Political science, International a classic, which should have ensured monarchies and that, when power Relations, and psychology are more (but did not) that no one ever again became more widely dispersed within KHDYLO\UHSUHVHQWHGLQWKH¿HOGEXW treated Foucault’s Discipline and states, the struggle was not to destroy Vertigans points out, stereotypes Punish as holy writ. Spierenburg’s the monopoly but to ‘co-possess’ it. abound and are often connected with writings, although largely based on In America, by contrast, democracy prevailing opinions about other ethic research in Dutch archives, has had arrived before monopolisation groups and religions. Thus, for instance particular impact in the USA. His DQGLQWHUQDOSDFL¿FDWLRQKDGJRQH religion becomes the explanation for 2006 article ‘Democracy came too very far, and (largely by accident al-Qa’ida, while a whole range of early: a tentative explanation for and misunderstanding) the right of other factors leading people to become the problem of American homicide’ individual Americans to go out and kill violent in the name of Islam are (American Historical Review, 111: their fellow-citizens was enshrined as a ignored. 1, pp. 104–14) is regularly cited fundamental freedom. every time some nutter in America 7KXVVHWWLQJRXWKLVVWDOORQWKH¿UVW JRHVEHUVHUNZLWKDQDVVDXOWULÀHDQG The present book is in effect a page of his book, Vertigans proceeds slaughters a dozen or two children collection of essays brought together in WRRIIHUDWKRURXJKO\¿JXUDWLRQDO perspective on terrorism, emphasising the necessity of a long-term, processual perspective on the problem. Chapter 2 deals with the historical legacy of political violence, and chapter 3 with the classic Eliasian question of processes of habitus formation: how terrorism is linked to the sociogenesis of violent dispositions. There follow discussions of how people become terrorists, how terrorist groups are formed, the dynamics of such groups, and the emotions and rationales that govern them. All along, a relatively detached view is developed of a topic that has been marked by relatively more involved viewpoints.
This outstanding book deserves a longer review – which it will indeed receive in our sister publication, the journal Human Figurations – but perhaps this is enough to indicate how a ¿JXUDWLRQDOSHUVSHFWLYHFDQFRQWULEXWH to a broader understanding of a matter of intense political debate.
Pieter Spierenburg, Violence and Punishment: Civilizing the Body through Time (Cambridge: Polity, 2012). vi + 223 pp. ISBN: 978-0-7456- 5348-8 (hb); 978-0-7456-5349-5 (pb).
Throughout his career, Pieter Spierenburg has done as much as any other historian to demonstrate the power of Elias’s theory of civilising processes in understanding long-term trends in violence (especially
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 11 intellectual unity by a forthright book about theories of “Power and Resuming the centrality of power in championing of the theory of civilising Domination” where he also wrote the Elias’ sociology, Imbusch demonstrates processes. The chapter titles are: article about the concept of power in that power is a core concept in the WKHSURFHVVDQG¿JXUDWLRQDOVRFLRORJ\ thinking of Norbert Elias about history Introduction: Violence and punishment of Norbert Elias. Starting with the and society that deserves a much more within civilizing processes statements of Elias with regard to prominent status than it actually has. 1 Long-Term trends in homicide: the importance of power for societal $PVWHUGDP¿IWHHQWK±WZHQWLHWK relations, the author reconstructs the Artur Bogner and Gabriele centuries widely neglected aspect of power in Rosenthal, ‘The ‘untold’ stories of 2 Homicide and the law in the Dutch the sociological thinking of Norbert outsiders and their relevance for the Republic: a peaceful country? Elias. Elias himself considered DQDO\VLVRI SRVW FRQÀLFW¿JXUDWLRQV 3 Violence and culture: bloodshed in power to be the central problem of Interviews with victims of collective two or three worlds sociology. The peculiarity of Elias’ violence in northern Uganda (West 4 Punishment, power and history: concept – somewhere in between Nile)’, Sociologus 62: 2 (Autumn Foucault and Elias Weber and Foucault – can be seen in its 2012). 5 Monkey Butt’s Mate: On Informal multilevel scope to address micro-level Social Control, Standards of Violence interactions as well as power relations We have conducted interviews with and Notions of Privacy between groups and in society as a women and men who are victims of 6 ‘The green, green grass of home’: whole. Power is seen by Elias as the collective violence in the region of UHÀHFWLRQVRQFDSLWDOSXQLVKPHQWDQG special range of individual decision West Nile in northern Uganda, by the the penal system in europe and making that is linked to societal hands either of rebels or members america from a long-term perspective positions, therefore it can be seen as an of various government armies. We 7 Elites and etiquette: changing expression of a chance to decide about show the position and relevancy of standards of personal conduct in the the fate of other people. Elias considers their perspectives in public discourses Netherlands until 1800 power as the capacity of any person to in and about this region. Using 8 Civilising celebrations: an redirect social relations to his own ideas biographical-narrative interviews and exploration of the festive universe and interests. Power is woven into all group discussions, we highlight how 9 The body’s end: death and paradise in kinds of relations between people. their voices are subdued in public human history After clarifying the understanding of discourses in which ex-rebels present Epilogue: A personal recollection of power by Elias, Imbusch considers themselves as victims of history. The Norbert Elias and how I became a the central terminological aspects of interviews illustrate that the narrative crime historian his concept (e.g. balance of power, interview method is of help also in this power chances, differentials of non-European research setting as it power). Afterwards, he showed how supports the interviewees to verbalise Angela Perulli (ed.), Fare sviluppo: to make fruitful use of the term power what they have suffered. Identità, luoghi, trasformazioni sociali and how Elias used it to understand in un’area della Toscana [Doing important developments in society. The analysis of how collective violence development: identity, places, social ,PEXVFK¿UVWORRNHGDWWKHKLVWRULFDO is thematised in the interviews as well transformation in an area of Tuscany] dimensions of power shifts between as in public discourses brings about (Milan: FrancoAngeli, 2009). 248 pp. groups and classes in the sense of a important insights into the perspectivity historical sociology to explain long and the biases of these discourses – and This book reports on sociological term democratisation. Then he pointed how these were generated. The authors studies of Pistoia and its area, with to the early European court to show XVHD¿JXUDWLRQDODSSURDFKEDVHG FKDSWHUDXWKRUVLQFOXGLQJVXFK¿JXUHV one of Elias major examinations with on Elias’s theories of established– IDPLOLDUIURP¿JXUDWLRQDOJDWKHULQJVDV power as an important but complex RXWVLGHUV¿JXUDWLRQVDQGZHLPDJHV – besides Angela Perulli herself – Paolo resource in a net of interdependent to understand the interaction between Giovannini and Filippo Buccarelli relationships. A third aspect where Elias dominant we-images in public deals with power is social inequality. discourses and the interpretation and Peter Imbusch (ed.) (2012): Macht und Here, the author takes established- remembering of armed violence. As Herrschaft: Sozialwissenschaftliche outsider-relations to make clear how their analysis shows, it is important Theorien und Konzeptionen, 2nd power works and what effects it for studying the region’s recent history revised and enlarged version produces. A fourth aspect only seldom DVZHOODV SRVW FRQÀLFW¿JXUDWLRQV (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für mentioned is related to the problematic in general to accommodate the Sozialwissenschaften, 2012). Article: of domination and the use of violence biographical experiences of victims of ‘Figurations of power and processes as power. Elias is quite clear in his collective violence. of domination in the work of Norbert writings to differentiate the qualities Elias’, pp. 169–93. of power, to look for regime changes and revolutions as changes in power Peter Imbusch (University of relations and to consider domination Wuppertal) not only edited this as a result of power consolidation.
12 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 Andrew Linklater, ‘Norbert Elias, Amanda Rohloff, ‘Climate change, to critically assess the development Process Sociology and International moral panic, and civilisation: On the of climate change; to reassess the Relations’ (29th May 2012). development of concept of decivilisation and the global warming as a social problem’. relation between civilising processes $QGUHZ¶VDUWLFOHKDVKDGRYHU¿YH Unpublished doctoral thesis; Brunel and offensives; and to reformulate and a half thousands hits, but for what University, London (2012) the concept of moral panic, including ZHPD\NQRZWKH¿JXUHVPLJKWKDYH suggesting how moral panic research doubled by now! If you would like to Abstract: This study combines moral ought to be undertaken. add to this number, here is the link: SDQLFZLWKWKH¿JXUDWLRQDOVRFLRORJ\RI Norbert Elias to explore how climate The thesis is currently being written URL: http://www.e-ir.info/2012/05/29/ change has developed as a social up as a book, Climate Change, norbert-elias-process-sociology-and- problem. The central argument is that, Moral Panics, and Civilisation, to international-relations/ through combining the short-term focus be published with Routledge (2014). of moral panic with the long-term focus And for those who have an interest in $EVWUDFW 7KHLQÀXHQFHRIVRFLDOWKHRU\ of Elias, we can examine the interplay moral panics, Amanda Rohloff, along on the study of international relations between planned and unplanned with Chas Critcher, Jason Hughes, and has been profound in recent years, developments in both the perception -XOLDQ3HWOH\DUHLQWKH¿QDOVWDJHV and interest in historical sociology and reality of climate change. of completing an edited book, Moral continues to grow. Many scholars Panics in the Contemporary World, have used concepts and perspectives 7KH¿UVWSDUWRIWKHUHVHDUFKFRQVLVWHG to be published with Bloomsbury LQWKRVH¿HOGVWRDGYDQFHWKHLUDUHDRI of discourse analysis of a variety (2013) – Elias features in the editors’ specialisation. More often than that, of different texts from 1800 to the introduction and one other chapter. they have imported modes of analysis present. These were used to explore that have not been used explicitly to the long-term development of climate Here is the full list of Amanda’s understand international relations. They change as emerging from an ecological publications: have looked to scholars who are not civilising process. The second stage of specialists in the discipline and who the research related these developments Amanda Rohloff, ‘Extending the display little, if any, familiarity with to moral panics, arguing that the concept of moral panic: Elias, climate the relevant literature. What is found emergence of climate change can change and civilisation’, Sociology 45: attractive in their work is not their only be understood by exploring the 4 (2011), pp. 634–49. existing explanation of international interplay between long-term processes relations or world politics then, but and short-term campaigns. Amanda Rohloff, ‘Shifting the methods and orientations that are focus? Moral panics as civilising and regarded as valuable for advancing the The third part of the research explored decivilising processes’, in Sean P. Hier ¿HOG these historical developments at the (ed.), Moral Panic and the Politics of Norbert Elias is an interesting exception individual level, examining the notion Anxiety (London: Routledge, 2011), pp. to the general trend because over of individual ecological civilising 71–85. approximately six decades his writings processes. Fifteen semi-structured returned repeatedly to the problem of interviews were undertaken with Amanda Rohloff and Sarah Wright, violence in relations between states. climate change ‘activists’ and ‘Moral panic and social theory: beyond ‘non-activists’, comparing how their the heuristic’, Current Sociology 58: 3 biographical developments related to (2010), pp. 403-419. ecological civilising processes and moral panics. John R. Deakins, Making Sense of 7KH¿QDOSDUWRIWKHUHVHDUFKFRPSDUHG Us: An Essay on Human Meaning FOLPDWHFKDQJHZLWK¿YHRWKHU (Vancouver, BC: Granville Island empirical examples of moral panics, to Publishing, 2011). xvi + 207 pp. ISBN explore the civilising and decivilising 978-1-894694-76-6. processes and civilising offensives that occur before, during, and after This book does not actually refer the panics. The central aim was to WR(OLDVRU¿JXUDWLRQDOVRFLRORJ\ demonstrate the complexity of moral but the author wrote to the editor of panics, and to aid in the reformulation Figurations that ‘I have come very late of the concepts of moral panic and to encountering Elias’s writings, but, decivilisation. after somewhat recovered from my initial euphoria at having found that his Through a synthesis of Elias and thinking was very close to my own, I moral panic, as applied to the example was then able to entertain the fantasy of climate change, this study aimed: that I might myself have encountered
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 13 him in person when I was a student in underlying this scenario by examining Christien Brinkgreve, Het Verlangen the French Department many years ago the conditions and experiences of naar Gezag: Over vrijheid, gelijkheid at what was then the University College young people whose exclusion from en verlies van houvast [‘The desire /HLFHVWHU$WWKDWWLPH ,¶PVSHFL¿FDOO\ school and inclusion in the institutions for authority: on liberty, equality and thinking of the academic year 1955–56) of the criminal justice system are loss of support’] (Amsterdam: Atlas- there was already a tradition that all intensely interwoven. It traces and Contact, 2012), 256 pp. faculty – from all departments – and all critiques nationwide developments and students, regardless of discipline, to met policy, before moving on to two more We have not received a copy of this informally for Saturday morning coffee UH¿QHGFDVHVWXGLHVWRSXWÀHVKRQWKH book, and cannot summarise it, but we in “Crush Hall”. It is not beyond the argument’s bones: the London riots of include this note to record a publication bounds of possibility that Norbert Elias August 2011 and the social changes by a prominent member of the and I might have inadvertently rubbed occurring in the western Bristol. ¿JXUDWLRQDOIDPLO\ shoulders …’ Readers are invited to read John Deakins’s book to see how much inadvertently rubbed off! Maria José de Rezende, ‘Democratisation as a process of distribution, movement and balance of Florence Delmotte and Ludivine power in Norbert Elias’ [in Portuguese], Damay, ‘Les schemas directeurs, 5HÀH[LyQ3ROtWLFD [Colombia] 14: 27 ( nouvel outil du development urbain 2012), pp. 39–53. à Bruxelles: interdépendances entre acteurs et processus de construction ABSTRACT: The purpose of this d’espaces’, in Yves Bonny, Sylvie study is to map within Norbert Elias’s Ollitrault, Régis Keerle and Yvon Le books On the Process of Civilisation, Caro (eds), Espaces de vie, espaces The Court Society and Studies on the enjeux (Rennes: Presses universitaires Germans the central aspects of the de Rennes, 2012), pp. 273–86. UHÀHFWLRQVSURSRVHGE\(OLDVRQWKH long clashes that occurred over several Matt Clement, ‘The urban outcasts centuries, which sought to promote, of the British city’, in Will Atkinson, prevent or stop the distribution of Steven Roberts power that is considered by him as and Mike Savage (eds), Class the core of civilising processes. The ,QHTXDOLW\LQ$XVWHULW\%ULWDLQ 3RZHU foundation of all changes in respect Difference and Suffering (Basingstoke: to the generation of new opportunities Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), pp. 111–27. of power to those groups until then deprived from resources of command In their different ways, both of the and decision, must be sought in above essays illustrate how the ¿JXUDWLRQDOJDPHVIXOORIPXOWLSRODU processual thinking of Elias has been tensions that are formed as a result LQÀXHQFLQJUHVHDUFKHUVLQWKH¿HOGRI of constant shifts of power, driving urban sociology. Delmotte and Damay QHZGHPDQGVQHZFRQÀLFWVDQGQHZ are concerned with the management confrontations. The way each society of space in Brussels since 1989, when responds to these tensions is in the basis it ceased to be simply the capital of of the (im)possibility of construction a Belgian unitary state and became of both procedures and personalities the third bilingual ‘region’ between increasingly democratic. Dutch-soaking Flanders and French- speaking Wallonia. They make use of such concepts as ‘functional democratisation’.
Matt Clement, in partial contrast, has specialised in studying social problems in the city of Bristol, in the West of England. In recent years Britain has been experiencing not just an abstract ‘austerity’, but rising unemployment and poverty, urban riots, and a ballooning prison population. This chapter unravels some of the processes
14 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 TANGENTIAL BOOKS RECEIVED
Hans Belting, Florence and Baghdad: These two important books will be Renaissance Art and Arab Science, jointly reviewed in the next issue of trans Deborah Lucas Schneider Figurations: (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2011). 303 pp. ISBN: 978 0 Robert van Krieken, Celebrity 05004 4. Society (London: Routledge, 2012). xi + 200 pp. ISBN 13: 9780415581509 Readers of Figurations will know (paperback; also available in hardback). that Norbert Elias originally intended to write his Habilitationsschrift for Alfred Weber on the common origins of the modern arts and sciences in Renaissance Florence. His plan for the thesis can be found in Early Writings (Dublin: UCD Press, 2006 [Collected Works, vol. 1]), pp. 111–23. The thesis was never completed, although some of its planned themes crop up much later, in Essays I: On the Sociology of Knowledge and the Sciences (Dublin: UCD Press, 2009 [Collected Works, vol. 14]).
Hans Belting’s book tackles a closely related question, but with a distinctive twist. The gist of his thesis, to quote the review by Julian Bell in the London Review of Books, 25 October 2012, is that ‘the perspective familiar to Western modernity is an application of a visual geometry devised within classical Islam’. In particular, Belting’s DUJXPHQWLVWKDWVXFKNH\¿JXUHV of Renaissance Florence as Filippo Brunelleschi were drawing upon the work of Ibn al-Haytham (known in the West as Alhazen), written three or four centuries earlier and translated into Latin in Muslim Spain around 1200 AD Nathalie Heinich, De la visibilité under the title Perspectiva. (Paris: Gallimard, 2012).
On science in the classical Islamic world generally, an excellent introduction is Jim Al-Khalili, 3DWK¿QGHUV 7KH*ROGHQ$JHRI$UDELF Science (London: Allen Lane, 2010).
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 15 RECENT CONFERENCES
Reinventing Norbert Elias: For an Open Sociology Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research, 22–23 June 2012
The organisers of this conference, Rineke van Daalen and Giselinde Kuipers, eloquently expressed its purpose as follows:
‘The Department of Sociology at the University of Amsterdam has a special relationship to the work of Norbert Elias. Many people working in this department were inspired by Elias’ work. Moreover, Elias spent the last years of his long life in Amsterdam. Today, Elias has acquired a place in the galleries of modern classical sociologists. He is now recognized as SLRQHHULQVXFKGLYHUJHQW¿HOGVDVUHODWLRQDOVRFLRORJ\ historical sociology, the sociology of sports, culture, organizations, and emotions. A new generation of sociologists, in the Netherlands and elsewhere, is exploring new ways to read and use the work of Elias.
This conference aims to rethink Norbert Elias’ VRFLRORJ\IRUWKHVWFHQWXU\+RZFDQ¿JXUDWLRQDO sociology contribute to current sociological debates? :KDWLVWKHSODFHRI(OLDVLQWRGD\¶VVRFLDOVFLHQWL¿F landscape? How can the insights and concepts of ¿JXUDWLRQDOVRFLRORJ\EHGHYHORSHGIXUWKHU"$UH Elias’ critiques of mainstream sociology still valid? Is ¿JXUDWLRQDOVRFLRORJ\DSDUDGLJPLQLWVHOI RUUDWKHUD perspective to be used alongside others?
By bringing together different ways of working with Elias’ legacy, we hope to arouse interest in new ways of using this legacy, among students and academics. Our aim is to build an open sociology, in the footsteps of Elias: a sociology characterized by a broad approach and a marked disregard of disciplinary boundaries, a keen eye for the embodied and emotional as well as the calculating and rational aspects of human behaviour, asking wide-ranging comparative and historical TXHVWLRQVDQGDOZD\VUHÀH[LYHDERXWWKHVRFLRORJLFDO endeavour itself.’
These objectives were very clearly achieved. Participants came from far and near – including the USA and Israel as well as many parts of Europe – and the abstracts of all the papers delivered over a very busy two days cannot be printed here. (The book of abstracts can be obtained by emailing the conference RUJDQLVHUV $IHZSKRWRVZLOOKDYHWRVXI¿FH
From top:
Another intense session in progress;
Jason Hughes, Cas Wouters and a display of Cas’s book; Elke and Hermann Korte.
16 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 FORTHCOMING much hope you will still be able to war and its social consequences. The CONFERENCES: attend the conference and participate in conference is open for proposals the discussion. for plenary sessions. The following Civilising Bodies: sessions are proposed by the organizers. Literature, rhetoric, and 7KHFRQIHUHQFH¶VRI¿FLDOZHEVLWHLV image, 1700 to the http://centres.exeter.ac.uk/medhist/ 1 War and its effect on societies in a present day conferences/Civilising%20Bodies/ very long-term perspective index.shtml What are the effects of war on historical 5–26 April 2013, University of Exeter civilisations as well as on the modern The Centre for Medical History at Habitus, War and world? In order to explain societies the University of Exeter is holding an Civilisation better, are there war-orientated points interdisciplinary conference open to of view in sociology that are able postgraduates and academics at any Department of Sociology, University of successfully to rival functionalism or level. Graz. economic-centred paradigms? Graz 25–27 April 2013 The narratives, discourses, and imagery 2. Nuclear deterrence: Making unsafe of bodies and their relationship with Call for papers places safer or even more insecure? civilisation have affected a diverse Political science has much to say about range of media, from novels, poetry, This conference is to honour Helmut the proliferation of nuclear weapons. DQGSROLWLFDOWUDFWVWRDUWDQG¿OPDQG Kuzmics on the occasion of his However, what is the sociological we are eager for submissions examining retirement from his chair at Graz perspective? How are aggressive a wide a range of sources from 1700 to in May 2103. Over the last decade, impulses and hate towards others the present day. Helmut’s work has centred especially regulated differently in the nuclear age? on matters relating to war, but over Is such a kind of weaponry constitutive We welcome abstracts that examine the course of his career he has written for modern societies? issues surrounding the themes of bodies on a wide range of topics, including and civilisation and their relationship to national habitus, the arts, mass media 3. War, emotions and ‘habitus’ literature and the arts from researchers and culture, and sociological theory. We In order to understand war crimes and of any discipline, including History, Art shall welcome papers, or proposals for atrocities, a micro-level perspective on History, Film Studies, Cultural Studies conference sessions, on the whole range WKHEDWWOH¿HOGXQFRYHUVWKHIXQGDPHQWDO and Literature. RIKLVZRUN,QWKHDUHDVSHFL¿FDOO\RI importance of emotions like fear, war and the bellicose side of social life, comradeship etc. Emotions are also Topics and themes may include: we already envisage several sessions: central to understand public opinion discourses of progress; concepts of and its judgement about a ‘just’ war. savagery and barbarism; the science Proposed sessions centred on war In this session, the interconnection of of race; ailments of civilisation; war, emotions and ‘habitus’ will be medicine and modernity; mental health; Today, interstate wars merely discussed. sexuality and the body; issues of class disappeared or transformed into and gender; the politics of medical terrorism or into violent inner-states 4. War, the economic system and language; theoretical or speculative antagonisms of far remotes ‘failed ¿QDQFLDOPDUNHWV pieces states’. However, this does not mean What are the relations between that war (and the potential of it) has lost capitalism, tighter nets of economic Guest Speakers LWVVLJQL¿FDQFHIRUPRGHUQVRFLHWLHV interdependencies and war? Does the Twenty years after the breakdown of current world economic crisis lead Dr Lesley Hall (Wellcome Library) the Soviet Union, more states than ever towards situations that will make war Professor Mark Jackson (University of are acquiring nuclear weapons, a new between great powers more likely? Exeter) kind of arms race with conventional Or is it true that the conditions are weapons can be observed in parts of very different from the word of the We invite applicants to submit abstracts the world, and popular culture is still 1930s? of up to 300 words for 20 minute obsessed with war (as in movies and papers (previously unpublished), to computer games). 5. Rituals of civilizing interstate [email protected] by 14 violence January 2012 with the ‘subject’ of the Merely 30 years after Elias’s Humana The mass media focus on sport, the email as ‘Civilising Bodies abstract’. Conditio it seems that sociology Eurovision Song Contest, beauty itself has not changed fundamentally. FRQWHVWVWKH1REHOSUL]HV¿OPSUL]HV Once the deadline has passed a panel Following Saint Simon, sociology is and many other cultural contests as will review the abstracts anonymously still concerned with the paradigm of rivalries between nations. Does modern and applicants will receive a decision modern society as a peaceful place. civilisation develop certain sets of and feedback on their submissions. Thus, the aim of the conference is to rituals helping to constrain violent If your paper is not selected we very confront sociological thinking with impulses on the international arena?
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 17 Does IR (International Relations) and the domination of ‘others’. OBITUARY neglect these contests as important Yet, arguably, civilisation, or more institutions? VSHFL¿FDOO\ WRXVH(OLDV¶VWHFKQLFDO In Memoriam: Amanda term) ‘civilising processes’, with its Rohloff (1982–2012) 6 Popular Culture and Civilisation. structure and process connotations, See the call for papers below . remains sociologically useful and Dr Amanda Rohloff, who died aged encompasses much that is normally 30 on the 5 December 2012, was an The conference will consist of plenary considered in relation to studies and extremely gifted academic who had just sessions with speakers and panels of analyses of ‘culture’. This presents an embarked on a promising career as a discussants. HQGXULQJSUREOHPIRUµ¿JXUDWLRQDO¶ sociologist. scholars: how does ‘culture’, The deadline for registering for the SDUWLFXODUO\µSRSXODUFXOWXUH¶µ¿W¶ Mandy was born in 1982 and grew conference, and for submitting abstracts within the conceptual scheme and up in Wellington, New Zealand, of papers, is 31 January 2013. the approach to research developed the youngest of three children (her by Elias? What is the ontological and two brothers, Jason and Colin) born To register, please send an abstract epistemological status of ‘cultural to Judy and Maurie Rohloff. She to following email address: dieter. artefacts’? Might popular culture excelled at hockey as a teenager, and [email protected] constitute a vehicle for standards of won a number of awards and trophies socially acceptable behaviour, one that through her participation in the sport. follows in a line of succession from She was a very able student at school, Call for Papers for a previous modes of arbitration, such SHUIRUPLQJVXI¿FLHQWO\ZHOOWRJDLQ Session on Popular Culture as manners texts, aristocratic edicts, access to the Victoria University of and Civilisation, Graz, and spoken (and eventually unspoken) :HOOLQJWRQ$W98:$PDQGD¿UVW 25–27 April 2013 codes of etiquette? Where do studies studied for a Bachelor of Arts, majoring of popular culture stand in relation to in Anthropology, Criminology and Email 300-word abstract plus bio to analyses of civilising processes? How Sociology, graduating in 2005. It was Jason Hughes at jason.hughes@brunel. might a contemporary researcher locate the sociological component of this ac.uk. Deadline for abstracts: 31 UHVHDUFKLQWRVD\¿OPWHOHYLVLRQQHZ degree, particularly the lectures by January 2013 media, in the context of longer-term David Pearson, that awakened her processes of development? How might intellectual passions and energies. In Elias had excellent sociological reasons one reconcile Elias’ (and others’) work 2007, she completed a BA Honours in for selecting the term ‘civilisation’ with ‘media studies’ and other analyses Sociology, achieving an outstanding to bear the conceptual weight of his of popular culture? UHVXOW D¿UVWFODVVGHJUHHZLWKJUDGHV theoretical approach. As he discusses of A+, A+, A+ and A. Upon graduation, in the opening to On the Process We invite papers that explore the Mandy won an LB Wood Travelling of Civilisation, the term ‘Kultur’, relationship between popular culture Scholarship from the New Zealand Vice particularly in its German usage, has and civilisation, exploring these Chancellors’ Committee. While still an retained certain connotations from questions amongst others. We would undergraduate she had made contact LWVVSHFL¿FVRFLRJHQHVLV±VWUHVVLQJ particularly welcome papers which with Stephen Mennell – an old friend of introspection, difference, uniqueness. are research-based, and which grapple David Pearson’s – who recommended ‘Civilisation’, on the other hand, with the problems of combining an her to got to Brunel University, has sociological value because of engagement with long-term processes London, to study for her PhD with me. its emphasis on development: for its with a contemporary empirical focus. The scholarship enabled her to move application as a term which invites to the UK, and at Brunel she was also comparison, contrast, and which awarded the Peter Caws Prize (of which is always attuned to processes of VKHZDVWKH¿UVWHYHUUHFLSLHQW DQGDQ becoming. Culture, particularly in the Overseas Research Student Award. Her anthropological usage, has largely thesis examined climate change and the emerged unchallenged as a technical sociological concept of ‘Moral Panic’. term. The distinction between culture in the technical and normative sense of Essentially, Mandy’s aim with her the world is by now so deeply ingrained thesis was to use the case of increasing in Western academic traditions that it public concern about climate change hardly needs to be stated. Civilisation, as a kind of empirical testing ground by contrast, remains highly contested, in relation to which she would seemingly unable to shake off the integrate an analysis of short-term hangovers of the normative usage as ‘moral panics’ with a consideration a watchword for colonising groups, of much longer-term civilising and particularly its mobilisation in the GHFLYLOLVLQJSURFHVVHV0\¿UVWWKRXJKW name of Western superiority, progress, on discussing the thesis topic with her
18 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013 at our initial supervision session was a concerted human response to the However, it was this illness that, sadly, that she might be a climate change challenges of climate change, or appears to have been the primary cause denier (she was anything but) – surely indeed, greater denial and ignorance of of her death. this was something about which ‘we’ the problem and a reluctance to ‘act’ in were not panicking enough? But, as she meaningful ways. At Brunel, Mandy immersed herself in soon pointed out to me, this (common) university life, soon becoming centrally reaction to her research topic said as Along with a time-series analysis of engaged with the staff–student liaison much about the received ideological various documentary sources, Mandy committee, and subsequently becoming baggage of the moral panic heuristic also conducted a number of interviews a prominent School representative ±IRUH[DPSOHWKDWE\GH¿QLWLRQVXFK with environmental activists and for postgraduate research students. ‘panics’ were inevitably disproportional non-activists. She pilot-tested her She later came to take the lead in and ‘misguided’ – as it did about our interview questions on me. I remember a series of initiatives, perhaps the own increasing sensitivity towards the feeling exhausted at the end of the most notable of which was her role environment, in turn linked to widening interview. In the space of about 30 in organising the ‘Moral Panics in FLUFOHVRIPXWXDOLGHQWL¿FDWLRQ minutes her probing questions and the Contemporary World’ conference Through examining long-term shifts in prompts had laid bare my own deeply that took place at Brunel in December SXEOLFDQGVFLHQWL¿FXQGHUVWDQGLQJVRI personal – and, I might add, entirely 2010. The conference was a highly and attitudes towards, climate change, contradictory and inconsistent – stance successful international event attended Mandy traced the ascendancy of a on climate change. Mandy had a highly by in excess of 120 participants, ‘carbon temperance’ movement – a penetrating academic mind, and treated including some of the most prominent ‘greening’ of demands to restrain and almost everything in life, including her QDPHVLQWKHDFDGHPLF¿HOGVXFKDV curb our excessive consumption of the own personal challenges, with acute Stanley Cohen and Jock Young. Other SODQHW¶V¿QLWHUHVRXUFHV7RGD\WKH VFLHQWL¿FLQWHUHVW6XFKFKDOOHQJHV NH\VSHDNHUVLQFOXGHGKLJKSUR¿OH PRYHPHQW¿QGVLWVFOHDUHVWH[SUHVVLRQ included a medical condition – epilepsy journalists such as the BBC Panorama in guides to ‘ethical’ living; in the – which commenced, seemingly from documentary maker, James Oliver rise of corporate ‘environmental QRZKHUHDIWHUKHU¿UVWVHL]XUHLQ whose programme on the ‘Baby P’ statements’; and, for instance, in 2004. It was typical of Mandy that she affair sparked a major national debate growing demands for ‘right thinking’ accepted her illness without complaint, about social care and child protection individuals to account for and ‘offset’ and doggedly refused to let it get in in the UK. The conference attracted the carbon emissions that result from the way of doing whatever she wanted. considerable highly positive media the pursuit of interests relating to work, Most recently, she commenced some attention including, the from the Times leisure and spare time activities. Mandy sociological research on people with Higher Educational Supplement, BBC explored the implications of such epilepsy, and had conducted endless Radio 4’s Thinking Allowed, and the developments, ultimately considering personal experiments with diet and British Sociological Association (BSA) whether these contributed to facilitating nutrition to manage her own condition. newsletter Network. It is testament
Issue No.38 January 2013 Figurations 19 to Mandy’s superb organisational the active involvement in another on CONTRIBUTIONS TO skills that the conference actually alcohol research; a book contract with FIGURATIONS WXUQHGLQDQRWLQVXEVWDQWLDOSUR¿W the prestigious academic publisher The next issue of Figurations will The remaining funds were used, Routledge; and most recently, her be mailed in July 2013. News and again with Mandy taking the lead in full-time appointment as a Postgraduate notes should be sent by 1 May every case, to secure a special reserve Research Fellow in Sociology at Brunel 2013 to the Editors at ¿JXUDWLRQV# collection of books on moral panics University funded by the Wellcome norberteliasfoundation.nl. in Brunel University Library; for the Trust. development of a website with archive Editor: Stephen Mennell footage of all the keynote presentations To those who were fortunate enough Editorial Address: School of from the conference (www.moral- to have known her, Mandy was a Sociology, University College Dublin, panic.com DQGPRVWVLJQL¿FDQWO\ deeply thoughtful, giving, passionate %HO¿HOG'XEOLQ,UHODQG the establishment of an international DQGLQVSLUDWLRQDO¿JXUH6KHKDGD Tel. +353-1-295 0276; Fax: moral panic studies research network, broad range of personal interests, a +353-1-716 1125. complete with working paper series and good number of which centred on her social media feed which, at the time attraction to all things gourmet. This Associate Editor: Dr Katie Liston, of writing, has a large, international including foraging for wild mushrooms, School of Sports Studies, University membership, including many major cake making and decorating, and of Ulster, Newtownabbey, County ¿JXUHVIURPWKH¿HOG GULQNLQJ¿QHZLQHVDQGZKLVNH\V Antrim, Northern Ireland BT37 0QB. Mandy never quite recovered from Phone: +44 28 9036 8539; Amanda was well known on campus, KHU¿UVWWDVWHRIFRIIHHLQWKH8.6KH Fax: +44 28 9036 6028. where to support her PhD research could scarcely believe that we Brits she also worked in the library and could tolerate the ‘appalling stuff’ Managing Editor (Dublin): Barbara. taught undergraduates. As a very that was served up to us in all but the Górnicka (UCD). Email: ¿JXUDWLRQV# active member of the postgraduate KLJKHVWHQGFDIơ+HUGHDWKFRPHVDV norberteliasfoundation.nl community, she was greatly admired, a great shock: a huge, gaping loss to us and came to be known as ‘Amanda the both personally and professionally. It Honorary Assistant Editors: Florence Wise’! Exceptionally generous, helpful is all the more poignant given that she 'HOPRWWH%UXVVHOV )UHQFK 6R¿D and friendly, she had an uncanny ability was just at the start of what was sure Gaspar, Madrid (Spanish and to tackle bureaucracy to get results to be an absolutely stellar academic Portuguese); Heike Hammer, Stuttgart – ‘ask Mandy’ seemed the default career. However, she came to the UK (German); Tatiana Savoia Landini, answer to many queries on campus to live the academic life, and that she São Paulo (Spanish and Portuguese, from students, and increasingly, from GLGZLWKWUHPHQGRXVJXVWRDQGÀDLU Latin America). colleagues on the academic staff. She She succeeded in realising her principal was successfully nominated for the aim of obtaining a PhD, and, in the Contributions should preferably be Jock McKeon Prize for inspirational process of doing so, achieved so very e-mailed to the Editor in the form of leadership – an award she was due much more. She cast her personal and MS Word (.doc or .docx), Rich Text to collect formally, together with her intellectual net far and wide. She will UWI SODLQWH[W W[W RU2SHQ2I¿FH PhD, at the graduation ceremony be terribly and painfully missed by so 7H[W RGW ¿OHV'RQRWXVHHPEHGGHG of July 2013. Mandy obtained her many – family, friends and colleagues footnotes. Hard copy is accepted PhD with only minor amendments alike. reluctantly. Photographs should be in August of 2012. By this time, she submitted in JPEG format. had already developed a publications record that rivalled that of some Jason Hughes © 2013, Norbert Elias Stichting, senior members of academic staff. Brunel University, London, UK J.J. Viottastraat 13, 1071 JM Alongside articles in prominent Mandy’s PhD supervisor, colleague and Amsterdam, Netherlands. sociological journals, numerous book friend. chapters, and a number of international Graphic Design and DTP: Annette van conference presentations, she had de Sluis. Printed by MultiCopy, already co-edited a special issue Weesperstraat 65, Amsterdam, of the journal Crime, Media and Netherlands. Culture, and had co-edited a book on moral panics entitled Moral Panics Figurations is distributed free of in the Contemporary World, which charge on request to researchers, is to be published by Bloomsbury institutes or libraries. To be added to Academic in 2013. She had numerous the mailing list, please write to the other projects in development. The Secretary, Norbert Elias Stichting, J. J. list of her achievements goes on: it Viottastraat 13, 1071 JM Amsterdam, includes the establishment of a BSA Netherlands (email: [email protected]) study group on moral panics, and
20 Figurations Issue No.38 January 2013