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Ne w sle tte r of the Norb e rt Elia s Found a tion

EDITORS’ NOTES nFROM THE NORBERT ELIAS FOUNDATION • Our editorial policy is to promote the free discussion and use of the work of Norbert Second Norbert Elias Amalfi Prize Elias from every point of view. In this issue, Daniel Gordon contributes a summary of lectures he gave recently in Paris, in the context of red-in-tooth-and-claw French aca- The second Norbert Elias Amalfi Prize, for demic politics. In certain respects he revives criticisms which were current years ago, a distinguished first book in Sociology pub- before Elias’s writings were so well-known. But some readers may well find his re- lished in Europe by a European author, will marks on Elias in relation to anti-Semitism and to Max Weber reprehensible – respec- tively morally and intellectually reprehensible. We shall be willing to publish rejoin- be awarded for the second time in May ders in Figurations 14. 2001. Books published during the calendar • Since it has been alleged that Eliasians in France have now moved from being an out- years 1999–2000 qualify for nomination. sider group to being an establishment, it is good to have a report in Figurations 13 of the recent conference at the Université de Paris VII – Denis Diderot, and announce- A formal request for nominations, and de- ments of two others in France (in September at the Université de Metz, and in Octo- tails of how and where they are to be sub- ber at the Université de Haute Bretagne) – all fora in which some of the key problems mitted, will be sent out by the secretariat of relating to civilising and decivilising processes can be openly thrashed out. the Premio Europeo Amalfi towards the • Also highlighted in this issue of Figurations is the new edition and thoroughly revised end of 2000, and included in Figurations translation of The Civilising Process. We would modestly suggest that this supersedes 14. Readers are however, invited to begin the 1978, 1982 and 1994 texts, and that all libraries – private and institutional – giving some thought to the best first books therefore need it on their shelves. which appeared in 1999 and are still ap- • Congratulations to Eric Dunning, whose book Sport Matters (Routledge, 1999) was pearing in 2000. A formal letter of recom- voted the best book of the year in the field by the North American Society for the So- mendation in English must accompany ciology of Sport. Owing to editorial oversight (possibly occasioned by consumption each nomination. of alcohol at the book launch last year in Dublin), Sport Matters has not yet been re- viewed in Figurations. The omission will be rectified in the next issue. The prize is awarded ‘in commemoration of the sociologist Norbert Elias (1897- … AND NOTES ABOUT THE EDITORS 1990), whose writings, at once theoretical and empirical, boldly crossed disciplinary • And congratulations too to Aoife Rickard and William Diamond who are now the boundaries in the human sciences to de- proud parents of baby David, born on 17 May, weighing 7 pounds, 5 ounces. Both velop a long-term perspective on the pat- doing fine! terns of interdependence which human be- • Stephen Mennell has been appointed a member of the new Irish Research Council ings weave together’. The first winner was for the Humanities and Social Sciences, established by the government of Ireland at David Lepoutre, for his book Coeur de the beginning of 2000. The Council will fulfil the functions of the research councils banlieue, and the prize was presented at the found in most other European countries, but which Ireland has hitherto lacked. Premio Europeo Amalfi conference in May • Stephen Mennell has also been appointed founding Director of the new Institute for 1999. the Study of Social Change at the National University of Ireland, Dublin (aka UCD). Funding has been received from the Irish government and private donors to erect a The winning author will receive
1,000 and new building which will house the new National Social Science Data Archive – some- with his or her partner will also be invited to thing else that Ireland has hitherto lacked – and provide facilities for researchers in Amalfi at the expense of the Norbert Elias economics, political science, sociology and social policy, and work stations for 48 PhD Foundation for the prize-giving ceremony. students.

Issue No.13 June 2000 Figurations 1 Marbach Stipend

This year’s Norbert Elias Foundation Marbach Stipend has been awarded to Da- vid Rotman, of the Université de Paris X – Nanterre, who is working on what might be called a ‘network’ study to elucidate the least well-known period of Elias’s life, from his exile to Paris in 1933 through the first years in England, internment on the Isle of Man, teaching adult education classes and the founding of Group Analysis until his appointment to the Department of Sociology at Leicester in 1954. David will make an inventory of everyone with whom Elias corresponded in these years. n TWOINONE Hermann Korte’s valedictory lecture on Die Ballade vom Armen Jakoband its first staging in Wolfram Maria Märtig (piano), Michail Palewitz (speaker) and Hermann Korte Germany teachers – Helmut Schelsky’s Die skep- and biographical background of their pris- This spring, Hermann Korte retired from tische Generation (The Sceptical Genera- oners is shown in the remark of a camp his post as Professor of Sociology at the tion) and Norbert Elias’s Involvement and commander reported by Max F. Perutz: ‘I University of Hamburg. On 28 March, he Detachment – and describes the attitudes had no idea there were so many Jews gave his valedictory lecture, making it a which characterise Korte’s political and ac- among the Nazis’. very special event by organising the first ademic work. Written by friends, col- performance in Germany of The Ballad of leagues and former students, the Festschrift At Whitsun 1940, Elias was taken away Poor Jacob, a piece written by Norbert reflects his main areas of research: urban from his home in Cambridge, and Gál from Elias (lyrics) and Hans Gál (music) in the sociology, migration, figurational sociol- his in Edinburgh. Thus the composer and internment camp on the Isle of Man in ogy and socio-biographical research, cov- musicologist Hans Gál and the sociologist 1940. ering aspects of Korte’s life as well as re- Norbert Elias came to meet at the interim cent discussions and developments in these camp in Huyton near Liverpool, from The location matched the occasion. The fields. where, after a short stay, they were both farewell speech and performance took shipped to the Isle of Man. In this pre-war place in the main hall of the Literaturhaus in Hermann Korte’s lecture was entitled ‘Poor holiday resort, the boarding houses were Hamburg, whose director, Dr. Ursula Jacob. Poor Norbert. Poor Hans’. He began fenced in with barbed wire and crammed Keller, welcomed Hermann Korte and his by relating how his search for a topic for the with two people per bed. guests – among them Johan and Maria farewell lecture came to an end when he re- Goudsblom and Stephen Mennell from the ceived an unexpected phone call from Si- Drawing heavily on the diary of Hans Gál ‘Elias-community’, and former Mayor of mon Fox-Gál, a grandson of Hans Gál, in- and the autobiographical work of other ex- Hamburg Klaus von Dohnanyi, who knew forming him that he had found the musical iles, Korte’s lecture gave a vivid impression Elias and held him in high esteem – and ex- score of Der Ballade vom armen Jakob. of the everyday lives of the interned. He de- pressed her hope that Hermann would have Soon Korte was not only content with hav- scribed their fears for themselves and for a long and productive retirement and would ing found his topic, but also determined to their families, their anxious wait to be freed give many more of his interesting lectures organise a performance of the work. again, the bad hygienic conditions; but he in the Literaturhaus. also stressed their ability to make the best of In 1940, the British authorities decided in- their situation and to organise a busy camp Dr Keller’s welcome was followed by the discriminately to intern all Germans and life, creating an established community. presentation of the Festschrift entitled Austrians on their territory. Recognised ref- Gál notes in his diary that there was a legal Skepsis und Engagement (Scepticism and ugees from Nazi oppression – Jews, politi- branch, an accommodation office, a can- Involvement), edited in Professor Korte’s cians, journalists, trade unionists and others teen, a welfare office, and a ‘medical hard- honour by Gabriele Klein and Annette – found themselves ‘collared’ as enemy ships’ service. Camp life also included a 1 Treibel, who, when introducing the book, aliens alongside other Germans living in university and even a café with musicians. managed to give a survey of Korte’s Britain and sailors of the German merchant As early as the time in Huyton, academics, achievements in his academic career with- navy. The discomfort of this situation was artists and musicians had organised lec- out making the laudatory speech he had further enhanced by fears that they would tures, theatricals and concerts. Gál’s com- very vigorously opposed. The title of the be used as a bargaining chip in reaching a position named the ‘Huyton Suite’ for flute Festschrift both alludes to major publica- separate peace-treaty with Germany. How and two violins dates from that time: those tions by two of Korte’s most important little the guards knew about the historical were the only three instruments available.

2 Figurations Issue No.13 June 2000 The camp university had no library; all lec- satile (figurational) sociologist and writer. making corrections, and they proved to be tures and seminars were given from mem- rather more extensive than we originally in- ory, presenting the lecturers’ own ideas and Heike Hammer tended. In the event we did not merely cor- approaches. Elias was a leading figure in University of Hamburg rect the 1994 text, but undertook a thorough this university life, organising lectures and revision of the original English version. seminars, teaching sociology and social Translation is an imperfect art, and translat- psychology in English, as demanded by the 1. Gabriele Klein and Annette Treibel, eds, ing Norbert Elias’s German into English guards. A few years ago, Elias’s notes from Skepsis und Engagement: Festschrift für poses peculiar problems. They arise mainly the internment camp were rediscovered in Hermann Korte. Hamburg: Lit Verlag, 2000. from his attempt always to write in a 437 pp. ISBN: 3–8258–4638–5 England. They not only reveal that the con- processual way, minimising the use of 2. Norbert Elias: Die Ballade vom Armen ceptualisation of sociology which Elias Jakob. Mit Illustrationen von Karl-Georg static concepts, and also to avoid referring eventually published in What is Sociology? Hirsch und mit einem Nachwort von to ‘the individual’ in the singular and as in 1970 was clearly formed in his course Hermann Korte. Frankfurt am Main/Leipzig: something separate from other people – ‘Sociology I–III’ for the ‘Mona University Insel Verlag, 1996. ISBN: 3–458–19165–8. what Elias was later to call the homo College’ as it was called (Mona being an clausus image, prevalent in Western old name for the Isle of Man), but also show thought. Edmund Jephcott’s fine translation the wide range of topics covered by the of The Civilising Process, published in camp-university: modern mathematics, di- 1978 and 1982, was one of the earliest of alectical materialism, modern English po- nNEW ENGLISH Elias’s German writings to appear in Eng- etry, or Hegel’s philosophy figured next to EDITION OF THE lish, and since then there have been many topics like ‘cars’ or ‘colour photography’. CIVILISING PROCESS discussions among Elias scholars about the best ways of rendering his ideas. In addi- The Ballad of Poor Jacob2 formed part of a tion, Heike Hammer’s definitive scholarly camp show called What a life!, meant to edition of the German text of Über den represent the main aspects of camp life and Prozeß der Zivilisation, published by staged in September 1940. Elias wrote it for Suhrkamp in 1997, was extremely useful in the second series of performances. The bal- correcting the English text, especially in re- lad relates the story of the eternal Jew – lation to bibliographical details. ending up between the lines wherever he appears, with the fighting parties finally The book has been entirely restructured. reaching an agreement to his cost. Thus the Hitherto, it has been common for the two chorus recites: ‘Und dann schlugen alle im original volumes of the English translation Verein auf den armen Jakob ein’ (And then to be misperceived as two separate or only everyone ganged up together to beat up loosely-connected books. Many American poor Jacob). The ballad is written for a sociologists, in particular, have cited the speaker, chorus and piano, and it is a pecu- book they knew as The History of Manners liar mixture of prose and verse. Gál’s mu- without apparently being aware that it is sic, which distinctly reflects his qualities as only one half of a single book, without re- an opera composer, begins to play when ferring to the other half which centres on prose turns into verse and closes the period- state-formation processes, and (most seri- ically recurring episodes with formal inter- Norbert Elias, The Civilising Process.Re- ously) without reading what is perhaps the mezzi. vised edition, Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. most sustainedly brilliant part of the entire xviii + 567 pp. ISBN: 0–631–22160–3 work, the so-called Synopsis which shows The lecture led to the second highlight of (hardback), 0–631–22161–1 (paperback). how the ‘macro’ and ‘micro’ aspects of the the event: the impressive performance of overall process of development are inter- Die Ballade vom armen Jakob by Michail Blackwell’s need to reprint The Civilising woven with each other. The sequence of Paweletz (speaker) and Wolfram Maria Process afforded an opportunity to make contents in this revised one-volume edition Märtig (piano). The piece, directed by some revisions to the text. Although not has now been amended to make clear that Torsten Beyer and Hans-Jörg Kapp, was many people seem to have noticed, quite a this is indeed a single book, and to bring it video-recorded, thus preserving the perfor- number of serious errors had crept into the into line with the German edition. There are mance for posterity. 1994 one-volume edition, which was pro- now four parts: Part One on the concepts of duced by scanning the 1978/1982 two-vol- civilisation and culture; Part Two, to which With his valedictory lecture Korte, as one ume edition. Most notably, in the famous the original title ‘Civilisation as a Specific of the main driving forces of the develop- excerpts on behaviour at table from medi- Transformation of Human Behaviour’ is ment and recognition of the process and eval and early modern manners books, the now restored; Part Three, on feudalisation figurational sociology, further promoted running footnotes containing comparative and state-formation; and Part Four, the con- Elias’s work, this time rather stressing his texts had been hopelessly scrambled in with cluding ‘Synopsis’ or synthesis. The mis- qualities as a poet and combining it with his the main text. So the Board of the Norbert leading title ‘the history of manners’ disap- own deep interest in music. We all wish Elias Foundation suggested that the book pears completely, and the title ‘Changes in Hermann Korte, although formally retired, be reset, to which Blackwells readily the Behaviour of the Secular Upper Classes many more years of fruitful work as a ver- agreed. The three of us took on the task of in the West’ is restored to the original first

Issue No.13 June 2000 Figurations 3 volume (containing Parts One and Two). the end of his life, Elias also came to feel nTHE CANONISATION The long introduction which Elias wrote in strongly that exclusively masculine expres- OF ELIAS IN FRANCE: 1968, when Über den Prozeß der sions should be avoided where females as SOME CRITICAL Zivilisation was first reprinted, appears here well as males are being referred to; we have THOUGHTS as a Postscript – for that is what it is, the au- made appropriate amendments. On the thor’s afterthoughts thirty years after he other hand, Elias in the 1930s used a num- In Figurations 9, Roger Chartier defended wrote the book. For most new readers it ber of concepts such as ‘mechanism’, Elias against some critical remarks I made will perhaps make better sense after they ‘cause’ and ‘law’ of which he became criti- in a book dealing with the history of French have read the book itself; but readers who cal in the 1960s. In these cases, we have thought and manners in the early modern are looking for a general statement of generally left the original text unchanged, period (Citizens Without Sovereignty, Elias’s intellectual position (subsequently largely because Elias did not concern him- Princeton, 1994). As Chartier noted, Em- developed in the many other books he self at length with this issue in the 1968 manuel Le Roy Ladurie had given publicity wrote in the 1970s and 1980s) should turn Postscript. to my remarks in an article he published in first to the Postscript. Le Figaro in 1997, an article provocatively For those familiar with the 1978/1982 text, entitled ‘The Second Death of Norbert The whole text has been carefully com- one of the most striking differences is that Elias’. Chartier’s article in Figurations was pared line by line with the German original we have made extensive changes to the a response to Le Roy Ladurie’s effort to cir- and very extensively revised. Apart from tenses used in the text. In Über den Prozeß culate my criticism of Elias to a wider audi- correcting some major errors that had crept der Zivilisation, Elias wrote much of the ence. The controversy continues, for Le in, such as unscrambling the texts on be- time throughout the work in the historic Roy Ladurie has recently published a book haviour at table, we have made a number of present, which is (or was) more acceptable on the French court that is very critical of changes which we hope will clarify the text. in German than in English, where good Elias (Saint-Simon, ou le système de la For instance, writing in German in the style requires that it be used only sparingly cour, Fayard, 1997). Among other things, 1930s, Elias frequently used the term for rhetorical effect. Thus Elias’s historical this book contains an interesting chapter on Habitus, which in the 1970s and early narrative of French history in Part Three religiosity and asceticism among the 1980s was quite unfamiliar in English, and has now been changed mostly into the past courtly elite, a chapter that portrays the spir- was therefore generally translated by ex- tense; this should make it easier for the itual tensions and anxieties of the courtiers pressions such as ‘personality makeup’. reader to distinguish between when Elias is with considerably different nuances from Since then, particularly through the writ- providing narrative as empirical evidence the analysis found in Elias’s The Court So- ings of Pierre Bourdieu, the more precise (past tense) and when he is drawing general ciety. But even more, Le Roy Ladurie raises term ‘habitus’ has re-entered the vocabu- theoretical conclusions from the evidence questions about the idealisation of Elias in lary of anglophone social scientists, and (present tense). the French social-scientific community. He therefore we have restored it in the present shows very clearly (especially in his appen- text. Another example is the word ritterlich, Four of the plates from Das mittelalterliche dices and critical bibliography) that Elias is which we render literally as ‘knightly’ in Hausbuch, to which Elias refers in the sec- a key reference point for many prominent place of Jephcott’s ‘chivalrous’, since it tion entitled ‘Scenes from the Life of a French academics and he suggests that crit- most fundamentally connotes a rather vio- Knight’, are included in an appendix for the icism of Elias circulates much less in lent way of life. And we have in places re- first time in any edition in any language. France than in other countries. stored Elias’s use of Freudian terminology, We trust they will contribute greatly to I agree with Le Roy Ladurie that the French to help make a little clearer the influence of readers’ understanding of that part of the relationship to Elias is problematic. So I ac- Freud which Elias always acknowledged to book. cepted an invitation from him to give four have been strong. In this revised translation, lectures on Elias at the Collège de France in the word Trieb is translated as ‘drive’, not We hope that our efforts have resulted in a January, 2000. The lectures were moder- as ‘instinct’; Elias was one of the most im- clearer and more readable, as well as more ately well attended: 30–40 were present at portant contributors to what are now called accurate, text that will make this twenti- each talk. This was certainly not a major ac- ‘the sociology of emotions’ and ‘the sociol- eth-century sociological classic newly rele- ademic event in France. Nevertheless, the ogy of the body’, and nothing could be vant to a twenty-first-century audience. discussion following the talks was learned more misleading than to convey the im- and serious, and I tried to break a taboo that pression that his theory rests on essentialist Eric Dunning appears to exist in France against any criti- assumptions of the kind usually associated Johan Goudsblom cism of Elias while also explaining why this with the concept of instincts. We have also Stephen Mennell taboo exists and how it limits scholarly in- taken the opportunity to make corrections Leicester, Amsterdam and Dublin quiry. My intention here is to give only the to the text of Parts One, Two and Three cor- briefest of summaries of how I approached responding to those which Elias, in consul- these lectures. I hope to publish the work I tation with Johan Goudsblom, made in the [The above is extensively adapted from the presented in France and to indicate later to English translation of Part Four. In particu- Editors’ Note to the Revised Translation.] readers of Figurations where this work will lar, the 1939 German text contains many appear in print. examples of homo clausus expressions that Elias later rejected, for the sorts of reasons The main issues I raised in France were the that he sets out in the 1968 Postscript, and following: we have silently corrected these. Towards

4 Figurations Issue No.13 June 2000 1. The canonisation of Elias in France. chooses to venerate. In a sense, the French this had a ‘disastrous’ effect on sociology. The reception of Elias in the early 1970s Left cannot afford to participate in the He also suggests that Weber never devel- was mixed. French scholars appreciated his scholarly study of Elias’s thought because oped intellectually beyond the level of a sociological imagination while also noting such study inevitably reveals the degree to child who sees the world from a exaggerations and omissions. The French which it has constructed Elias in its own self-centred point of view. (See What Is So- relationship to Elias changed when Pierre image. In the Paris lectures, I focused on ciology? for a sample of such remarks; but Bourdieu published Distinction in 1979 and Elias’s philosophy thesis and early writings similar remarks appear in other works as made it clear that Elias was a principal in- with this disjuncture in mind. well.) I am struck by the fact that the com- spiration for his vision of elitism in French munity of scholars working on or with society. At this point, Elias, whose political 2. Elias’s nationalism revisited. Elias’s thought has not fastened on this identity escapes easy classification, became In Citizens Without Sovereignty, I sug- anti-Weberianism. They suggest that Elias an icon of the academic Left in France. In gested that Elias’s analysis of French is not a reliable guide to the history of his the 1980s and early 1990s, Chartier further ‘civilisation’ and German ‘culture’ in the own discipline. In my opinion, they also re- contributed to the canonisation of Elias beginning of The Civilising Process owed flect Elias’s intense dislike of any form of through a series of prefaces he wrote to var- much to a tradition of anti-French discourse epistemological modesty. He considered ious French editions of Elias’s works. among conservative German academics. the concept of ideal types to be too ‘nomi- (Most of these have been reprinted in The point was not to claim that Elias was an nalist’ and he presented his own concept of Chartier’s On the Edge of the Cliff, Balti- active nationalist on the political scene but process as the ‘realist’ alternative. Elias’s more: John Hopkins University Press, that his sociological categories derived in opposition to relativism of any kind origi- 1997.) part from a nationalist intellectual tradition. nated in the inter-war period when Leftist Chartier considers it entirely implausible thinkers regarded relativism as a bourgeois Chartier portrays Elias as a great thinker in that Elias, a Jewish refugee, could be asso- form of political stalling. It is interesting to general, but he especially praises Elias for ciated in any way with nationalism. Yet we see, however, that traces of this anti-subjec- being a sophisticated postmodernist who should not underestimate the paradoxes of tivism survive in Elias’s later works. I also grasped the constitutive role of discourse early twentieth-century intellectual history believe that Elias’s doctoral thesis in phi- without entirely relinquishing his hold on in Germany and of Elias in particular. We losophy (Idee und Individuum, 1924), a social reality. In fact, On the Edge of the know from Peter Gay (Freud, Jews, and rarely consulted work, shows very clearly Cliff as a whole is about the dilemmas of Other Germans, New York, 1978) that that Elias made a decisive commitment to a being a postmodernist scholar, and Chartier German Jews could be not only nationalis- kind of Hegelian methodology – one in presents Elias as the thinker who best nego- tic but anti-Semitic. In Elias’s case, it is a which the researcher overcomes Kantian tiates these dilemmas. matter of understanding the tremendous subjectivism by discovering the objective identity tensions he experienced in the laws of history. And I believe this commit- My reaction to this French presentation of 1920s and how the old culture/civilisation ment helps to explain the rather inflexible Elias is to note a number of complications. and Germany/France dichotomies helped manner in which Elias formulated histori- First, Bourdieu relies uncritically on Elias’s him to resolve some of these tensions. In cal generalisations throughout his career. distinction between French ‘civilisation’ the Paris lectures, I placed special emphasis This is a far cry from the popular image in and German ‘culture’ – a particularly de- on Elias’s relationship to his two teachers, France of Elias as a postmodernist. batable aspect of Elias’s work (see below). Alfred Weber and Karl Mannheim. Weber Secondly, Chartier does not fully appreci- was an idealist who believed in the inde- 4. The informalisation debate. ate that his effort to postmodernise Elias is pendence of the spiritual realm. Mannheim In Citizens Without Sovereignty, I argued not consistent with Elias’s own outlook, was a materialist who argued that even cul- that Elias’s preoccupation with the court led which was considerably more deterministic ture was based on the pursuit of outer pres- him to ignore non-courtly forms of civility and reality-centred than any postmodernist tige and distinction. The insistence on a rad- in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century today would accept. A deeper way of for- ical difference between the German and France that emphasised informality and mulating these problems is that Elias wrote French traditions allowed Elias to preserve equality. Chartier admits that the forms of his most famous works in the 1930s, but he the ideas of both of his teachers. Essen- civility in early-modern Europe are more gained popularity in France (and else- tially, he gave Germany to Weber and diverse than Elias suggested, but he argues where) only in the 1970s. This chronologi- France to Mannheim. In this way, he cre- that courtly civility, with its emphasis on cal gap is responsible for a number of ated a synthesis, but he also sustained an self-discipline, was the ‘precondition’ for misreadings. Thus, while it is probably true old prejudice against France. This prejudice all other forms of civility. In short, Chartier that Elias, overall, was a man of the Left, it happens to appeal to French intellectuals has brought the informalisation argument is also true that the meaning of Left and seeking a critical perspective on their own (Elias’s claim that the relaxation of man- Right have changed considerably since the society – but it remains only a prejudice, ners in the 1960s was premised on a higher inter-war period. Methodological scepti- even though it has gained currency in the degree of self-discipline than before) back cism was associated with liberalism and the country against which it is directed. into the early modern period. This is a fasci- Right before the Second World War. The nating move because it creates the potential appropriation of radical scepticism by the 3. Elias against Weber. for early modern scholars such as Chartier French Left beginning in the 1960s has cre- A number of harsh remarks against Max and myself to interact with sociologists of ated a disjuncture between the French Left Weber appear in Elias’s writings. Among the post-war period. I believe, however, today and the early twentieth-century other things, Elias says that Weber had no that the critics of informalisation have had thinkers, such as Elias, that this Left sense of the social dimensions of reality and the better part of the argument and that it is

Issue No.13 June 2000 Figurations 5 relatively easy to import their reservations Roger Chartier has sent us this description, ten and readable book implies a debt to into the discussion of the early modern pe- written by Daniel Gordon himself and cir- Norbert Elias’s pioneering discussion of the riod. But also, we should not forget the or- culated by e-mail to announce the lecture he European manners literature, which she der in which Elias’s thought developed. was to give at MIT on Tuesday, April 11 generously acknowledges at many points. 2000, suggesting that it may shed some She herself deals with a shorter period, First he wrote about the early modern pe- light on the Janus-faced character of mainly the sixteenth and seventeenth centu- riod, leaving out such things as egalitarian Gordon’s attitude to Elias: ries, and with only one country, England. In sociability, the critical Enlightenment, and consequence, she provides a more compre- the radicalism of the French Revolution. ‘In 1998, an international association of so- hensive discussion of English publications. Having excluded all liberal and democratic ciologists voted the most significant socio- Since the continental conduct literature was dynamics from his early conceptualisation logical writings of the twentieth century. also influential in England, however, read- of Western history, he had no choice, when The Civilising Process by Norbert Elias ers familiar with Elias are able to greet old confronting tangible informalisation in the (1897–1990) was ranked as the sixth most friends such as Erasmus, Cato, Galateo and 1960s, but to explain it with reference to the important work, coming ahead of all works Courtin. I particularly enjoyed the last of disciplinary structures that his sociology by Habermas, Parsons, Merton and many Bryson’s main chapters, ‘Anti-Civility: did contain. It seems to me that Chartier is other famous figures. In France, the reputa- Libertines and Rakes’ – a topic not much simply going in an unproductive Eliasian tion of Elias today is especially strong. The explored in The Civilising Process but circle when he tries to argue that all forms distinguished cultural historian, Roger which would have delighted Elias. of civility in early modern Europe stemmed Chartier, recently described himself and Pi- Apart from scholarly qualifications in mat- from the court. This is patently not so – there erre Bourdieu as Elias’s ‘champions’. In ters of detail, the picture Bryson paints is were forms of politeness in ancient and me- spite of this acclaim, Elias’s thought has not vastly different from Elias’s. All the dieval times, and the egalitarian sociability rarely been studied in a scholarly way. In same, Bryson’s book once again nicely that I focused on in Citizens Without Sover- the presentation, I will be summarising a demonstrates the differences in the profes- eignty is not chronologically posterior to the series of lectures on Elias that I gave at the sional eidos of British historians and British evolution of the court. Early modern history Collège de France in January, 2000. I will sociologists. Bryson mildly criticises Elias is more variegated than Elias’s linear con- be comparing Elias’s actual intellectual and – no doubt with some justice – for having ception of civilisation-stemming-from-the- sociological perspective with his reception paid, in his pursuit of the big picture, insuf- court allows one to see. in France since the 1970s. While stressing ficient attention to locating particular texts Elias’s contribution to cultural sociology, in particular social contexts. There is some In sum, Elias’s position on informalisation his fine analysis of the royal court and the implication that Elias was not so bad as since the 1960s strikes me as very awk- history of manners, and other achieve- most sociologists in that respect. Yet, in re- ward. And instead of applying it to the early ments, I hope to shed some light on little turn, one can point out that historians often modern period as Chartier does, we should known elements of nationalism, fail to see the relevance of reading other try to appreciate how the position he estab- anti-Semitism, and methodological inflexi- works of sociologists like Elias, works lished on the meaning of the 1960s was bility in his thought. The French have dealing neither with the early modern pe- conditioned by his incomplete representa- canonised Norbert Elias, but it is time to riod nor with manners, for the sake of gain- tion of the early modern period. have a serious debate about him.’ ing a more sophisticated grasp of a pattern of theoretical and conceptual reasoning. It goes without saying that Elias is a major Thus only The Civilising Process and The historical sociologist with a fascinating Court Society are cited by Bryson. She does agenda of problems and a provocative set not seem to have made much even of the fi- of hypotheses. My aim is not to negate his nal section of The Civilising Process, where stature but to promote a debate in which it is she could have found ideas useful to an in- possible even for his admirers to acknowl- terpretation of her material like the trend to- edge some important limits to his contribu- wards diminishing contrasts and increasing tion. The German, American, and British varieties, and towards more even, more admirers of Elias seem to be open to such ‘all-round’ and more automatic discussion. But in France, it appears that self-constraints. And, for instance, in The Elias is currently being treated the way nRECENT BOOKS AND Germans she could have found the useful Heidegger was in earlier decades – as a ARTICLES concepts of the formality–informality span thinker who is sacred ground. When and formality–informality gradient, as well Chartier claims (as he did in Figurations 9) as material relevant to the short passage in that it is inherently absurd to regard Elias as which she refers to duelling – but The Ger- a vector of nationalist ideas, or that Elias did mans is concerned neither with her period not exaggerate at all the role of the court, he Anna Bryson, From Courtesy to Civility nor her geographical area. is promoting a kind of orthodoxy that will Changing Codes of Conduct in Early Mod- ultimately do more harm than good to the ern England. Oxford: Clarendon Press, Lacking this wider understanding of Elias’s appreciation of Elias. 1998. 311 pp. ISBN: 0–19–821765–X. work, Bryson says that Elias’s view of £46.60. changing manners is linear and progres- Daniel Gordon sive; she is aware that he made important University of Massachusetts The very title of Anna Bryson’s well-writ- qualifications to this view, but does not

6 Figurations Issue No.13 June 2000 seem very sure what they were. In one re- wealth of historical material is ordered in verges on recklessness; but its saving fea- spect at least, Bryson is more linear and the context of a theory. In its scope this the- ture may lie in the loose manner in which ethnocentric than Elias ever was. She ory is not confined to any particular area: it the word ‘determine’ is being used here. writes: is, in tune with humanity’s current self-un- derstanding, global. In the actual analysis Collins uses a All societies at all times have had ‘man- three-tiered form of explanation, focusing ners’ in its broad and now rather If this programme may sound overly ambi- on the internal dynamics of philosophers’ old-fashioned sense of customs. … Yet tious, Collins convincingly proves that it is networks, and moving from there to the or- only Western society, or part of it, has feasible. He has been working on the book ganisational structures of these networks evolved ‘manners’ in the more restricted for more than twenty-five years. His learn- such as patronage systems or universities, sense of ‘good manners’. (p. 6) ing is almost unequalled in its breadth and and then to the larger political and eco- profundity. And most importantly, he is nomic settings of those structures. The ar- I write this review, of course, as a specialist able to command this huge field by virtue gument is bolstered by a few additional in the work of Elias. Bryson’s book is not of the methodological procedures and the concepts and principles, such as ‘emotional about Elias, though he features prominently theoretical perspective which he has devel- energy’, ‘cultural capital’, and ‘the law of in it. It is about early modern English man- oped. small numbers’. As a secular dynamic in ners, and it is essential reading for anyone the entire development of philosophies who wishes to gain a deeper knowledge of Still, the field is huge. It comprises more Collins points to the trend toward greater that literature. than 2,500 years of philosophical writing, abstraction and reflexivity. in cultures as far apart in time and space as SJM ancient Greece and Rome, China, India, Ja- Collins’s book, with its highly original, pan, the Muslim world, and modern Europe wide ranging and irreverent sociological and America. The amount of literature pro- approach to philosophy, is bound to arouse duced in those traditions is of course over- criticism and controversy. It deserves atten- whelming. But Collins has found an inge- tion and discussion for some time to come, nious principle that serves as a criterion of as an important and timely contribution to Randall Collins, The Sociology of Philoso- selection. ‘The total number of philoso- intellectual life which, according to Collins, phies: A Global Theory of Intellectual phers who are significant in world history is ‘is first of all conflict and disagreement. ... Change. Cambridge, MA: The Belknap approximately 135 to 500 persons; ... if we The heartland of disagreement is difficult to Press of Harvard University Press, 1998. xii add the minor figures ..., the total is still avoid; to deny it is to exemplify it’. + 1098 pp. ISBN: 0–674–81647–1 only 2,700’. Readers of Figurations are likely to find How can I review The Sociology of Philos- This low number allows Collins to refrain The Sociology of Philosophies fascinating ophies in 500 words, as I was requested to even from drawing a sample. He can survey and congenial. Apart from its substantive do? This is a book of 1100 pages, all packed the total population of philosophers who tenor, the book also bears a peculiar stylistic with ideas and information. It is awesome are ‘significant’ in the sense of having similarity to Elias’s writings. Collins shares in its erudition, and truly path-breaking and achieved long-term fame. These are the with Elias a problem-oriented approach. He daring in its approach. persons who form the starting point for his does not start with a survey of ‘the state of empirical investigations and theoretical re- the art’. He raises a highly interesting and The title and the subtitle already speak vol- flections. important question, and then proceeds to umes. There are plenty of books about ‘the seek an answer by assembling evidence and philosophy of the social sciences’. Those Yet, although Collins’s characteristics of applying theoretical reasoning. The notes at books assign to philosophy the role of a sin- individual philosophers are often striking the end contain all the references and, occa- gular arbiter capable of putting the plurality and revealing, they are not the true foci of sionally, the polemics. of the social sciences each into their proper the argument, for ‘it is not individuals ... places. In Collins’s book the tables are that produce ideas, but the flow of networks The Sociology of Philosophies is not an im- turned, and sociology (in the singular) gets through individuals.’. This thoroughly so- mediately inviting book. Its sheer size looks pride of place over the plurality of ‘philoso- ciological viewpoint pervades the whole forbidding; and its substantive contents do phies’. This is very refreshing, and very book. There is no room here for Elias’s bête not always make for easy reading. The much in the spirit of Norbert Elias (who, I noire in philosophy, the ghost of homo writing is always clear, however. For those must add, is never mentioned by Collins.) clausus which has been haunting modern who prefer to start dabbling, the eighty Western philosophy for several centuries. pages of notes may provide a tantalising be- According to its subtitle, Collins’s book Instead, the emphasis is entirely on net- ginning. presents ‘a global theory of intellectual works. change’. Each of the four terms in this sub- title has a programmatic thrust. Philosophy Networks, as Collins states in his preface, Johan Goudsblom is presented as an intellectual enterprise, ‘are the actors on the intellectual stage’. He University of Amsterdam which has been continuously subject to even argues that ‘if one can understand the change. Change has not been haphazard but principles that determine intellectual net- structured and explicable, and therefore the works, one has a causal explanation of presentation is more than descriptive: the ideas and their changes’. This contention

Issue No.13 June 2000 Figurations 7 ISBN 0 7619 5623 9. 213 pp. meaning after-modernity, and therefore Back in 1967, Nash’s ground-breaking synonymous with post-Fordism (and post- Wilderness and the American Mind charted ‘post-war’). Sarah Colwell, ‘Feminisms and Figura- successive transformations in the cultural tional Sociology: Contributions to Under- and psychological relationship between There are a number of problems with this standings of Sports, Physical Education and New World landscape and American soci- kind of theoretical architecture. The mod- Sex/Gender.’ European Physical Educa- ety. Since then, culturally-embedded un- ern/post-modern binary implies changes in tion Review, 5 (3) 1999: 219–40. derstandings of the relationship between the last quarter of the twentieth century that nature and humanity have become a central were greater in scale, scope and signifi- This paper seeks to examine the relation- concern for historians (see for instance cance than comparable processes of trans- ship between various sports feminisms and Keith Thomas’s Man and the Natural formation during other periods. To estab- figurational sociology. A number of femi- World, 1983), as well as a smaller number lish such a watershed would require pain- nist and figurational contributions to under- of sociologists whose horizons extend be- staking primary research, or at the very standings of sports, physical education and yond the long present. Building on Leach’s least a comprehensive reworking of exist- sex/gender are discussed, and their relative injunction that animals are ‘good to think ing documentary evidence. However adequacy considered. The key differences with’, Franklin argues that human–animal Franklin’s theoretical claims rest, to a great between feminist and figurational ap- relations have been transformed during the extent, on a resonance with the generalities proaches are highlighted, particularly in re- course of the twentieth century and that of the secondary literature in relation to lation to the role of values in sociology. such changes can be traced back to much post-modernity and post-Fordism. There Particular attention is paid to the work of broader processes of social change. If noth- are frequent assertions that during the Scraton on physical education, and ing else, this book provides a useful and 1970s the ‘modernising project … broke Hargreaves’s criticisms of figurational so- concise review of the literature, bringing to- down’, and that the ‘moral dimension of ciology are also addressed. Finally, the dif- gether within a single analytical framework modernity evaporated … [giving way to] a ficulties raised when attempts are made to debates in such disparate areas the sociol- culture dominated by economic rational- synthesise these approaches are considered, ogy of nature, and the history and social an- ism, selfish individualism, ethnic conflict, via a critical examination of Maguire and thropology of animal–human relations. The consumerism and New Right politics fo- Mansfield’s preliminary attempt at a syn- author presents a lucid and compelling ac- cused specifically on destroying the jewel thesis of feminism and figurational sociol- count of the reshaping of animal–human re- of modernity: welfarism’ (pp. 35–6). And it ogy. [Journal Abstract] lations during the twentieth century in areas is specifically in this context that we should such as the operation and rationale of zoos understand the closing emotional and onto- and wildlife preservation, pet keeping, the logical gap between animals and humans. moral and legal regulation of hunting and But was it not in a similar context that the angling, the emergence of animal rights, socialist reformer Henry Salt articulated his Sabine Delzescaux, La Theorie du lien social and the position of animals within agricul- argument for Animal Rights, as far back as selon l’œuvre de Norbert Elias [The Theory ture and wider culture and economy of 1892? And was not a similar aversion to of the Social Bond in the Work of Norbert food. cruelty linked for Byron and the Romantic Elias]. Unpublished PhD thesis, Université de poets, to a wider critique of the utilitarian Paris VII – Denis Diderot, 2000. However Franklin’s analytical ambitions rationalism of the satanic mills? Modernity Sabine Delzescaux succesfully defended extend beyond simply servicing a broad as a social and economic formation has her thesis on 3 May, 2000, before a jury and disparate literature. He has a theoretical been unfolding over hundreds of years and chaired by Simonetta Tabboni. The first point to make, which is that the transforma- is certainly not synonymous with Fordism chapter is entitled ‘From philosophy to so- tions in human–animal relations bear out (vide p. 34). And as Nash and Thomas ciology’, and deals with with Elias’s cri- the fashionable interpretative schema, cen- demonstrate, it is possible to chart the con- tique of the Western philosophical concep- tring on the idea of a transformation from stantly changing relationship between hu- tion of the individual. Chapter 2 discusses modernity to post-modernity. Predictably man culture and embedded understandings the sociogenetic approach to social change, he rounds up the usual suspects (Beck, of nature and animals, without a priori chapter 3 is headed ‘From state formation Giddens, Harvey, Lash & Urry) before privileging any particular historical junc- to the formation of a civilised habitus’, elaborating his central thesis: ‘that some- ture. As Franklin himself points out the while the final substantial chapter deals thing in the twentieth century did change movement to include animals into the hu- with the problem of the civilised habitus the sentiments expressed towards animals, man moral universe is at least two hundred and decivilising processes. The thesis was namely that a number of social processes years old and there has been an evolving supervised by Eugène Enriquez and Pierre associated with post-modernity further social pressure in this direction ever since Ansart. eroded the social distance between humans (for example the RSPCA was established in and an increasing number of animal catego- 1824; the British Union for the Abolition of ries’ (p.194). These processes relate to in- Vivisection in 1898; the League Against creasing ‘ontological insecurity’; a general- Cruel Sports in 1824; the Vegetarian Soci- ised misanthropy and ecologism in oppo- ety in 1847; and so on). But as Elias noted, sition to modernist narratives of progress; ‘Nothing is more fruitless, when dealing Adrian Franklin, Animals and modern and growing risk-reflexivity. Like many with long-term processes, than to attempt to cultures: A sociology of human-animal re- sociologists, Franklin’s understanding of locate an absolute beginning’. lations in Modernity London: Sage, 1999. the prefix ‘post’ is literal: post-modernity

8 Figurations Issue No.13 June 2000 In short, Franklin’s own schematic review disidentification and compartmentalisation problematics. First, overcoming the cen- of the existing literature suggests more should help to describe and explain these trality attributed to economic concerns, drawn out and uneven processes of change ‘dyscivilising’ processes in their complex they rooted the Western civilising process than can be captured by the temporal relations to processes of civilisation. [Jour- in the long-term attempt to harness the vio- tram-lines of Fordism and its aftermath. nal Abstract] lence that was escalated by the emergence Specific interpretative problems not with- and then collapse of the Roman Empire. standing (pp.11–23), Thomas’s Second, they emphasised the crucial impor- quasi-Eliasian approach seems to provide a tance of periods of transition that follow an less intrusive, and ultimately more useful overall dissolution of order and stamp the theoretical platform, which can do better Arpad Szakolczai, Reflexive Historical possible future course of events. justice to such long term, sedimentary pro- Sociology, London, Routledge, 2000 cesses of change. However, theoretical xxii+281 pp. (ISBN/ISSN: 0–415–19051–7). gripes aside, Franklin’s book does offer a nAUTHORS’ useful, and for the most part well-written The book Reflexive Historical Sociology is ANNOUNCEMENTS introduction to the debate. a follow-up to Szakolczai’s earlier mono- graph, Max Weber and Michel Foucault: Dennis Smith and Sue Wright, eds., Steve Quilley Parallel Life Works (Routledge, 1998 – see Whose Europe? The Turn Towards De- University College Dublin Figurations 11). It brings together the writ- mocracy. Oxford: Blackwell, 1999. x ings of a series of major contemporary +321pp. ISBN: 0 631 21918 8. £12.99 References: thinkers whose works so far have remained Nash, R. (1967) Wilderness and the American disconnected. It is argued that, taken to- Whose Europe? is a Sociological Review Mind. New Haven and London: Yale Univer - gether, the work of such thinkers as Elias, Monograph edited by Dennis Smith and sity Press Voegelin, Borkenau and Mumford, in con Thomas, Keith (1983) Man and the Natural - Sue Wright. Whose Europe? explores the World: Changing Attitudes in England junction with the work of Weber and barriers and bridges to greater democratic 1500–1800. London: Allen Lane Foucault, lays the ground for a coherent participation and accountability within Eu- Salt, H.S. (1892) Animal Rights Considered in field called ‘reflexive historical sociology’. rope. This is timely, in view of the revolt by relation to Social Progress. London: George The book consists of two main parts. The Europe’s parliamentarians against the Bell and Son. first reconstructs the themes and dynamics Commission in 1999, whose reverberations of the life-works of Elias, Voegelin, are still being felt. As the introduction puts Borkenau and Mumford using the method it, ‘A spectre is haunting Europe – the spec- developed by Szakolczai for the under- tre of democracy.’ standing of authors and already applied for Abram de Swaan, Dyscivilatie, massaver- the life-works of Weber and Foucault. The One way of posing the question contained nietiging en de staat [Dyscivilization, Mass method is based on the works of Victor in the title is to ask: on whose behalf is the Extermination, and the State]. Amsterdams Turner, Pierre Hadot, and also Foucault and European Union being run? Alternatively, Sociologisch Tijdschrift, 26 (3) 1999: Voegelin. The second part explores the ‘vi- one might ask: what identities and expecta- 289–301. sions’ of modernity contained in their best tions are fuelling the politics and planning known works, and those of Weber and that shape the complementary processes of Is massive violence and destruction a mani- Foucault. It is argued that these visions and Europeanisation and devolution? Who are festation of ‘modernity’, even its very es- interpretations of modernity can be brought ‘we’ with our three-tier identities: Welsh– sence, or rather its total opposite: ‘a break- together in the concept of ‘permanent British–European, Catalan–Spanish–Euro- down of civilisation’? Although ostensibly liminality’, which the author offers as a new pean, Flemish–Belgian–European, and so Norbert Elias mainly occupied himself with diagnosis of the modern condition. on? What do ‘we’ hope to gain from the the civilising process, he was always – European project? though mostly implicitly so – preoccupied with its complement and counterpart: vio- Readers of Figurations will probably be lence, regression and anomie. In recent drawn first to the last section of the book years, a number of his students have re- Arpad Szakolczai, ‘Norbert Elias and entitled ‘Processes’. In this section, Dennis turned to these themes. Whether they Franz Borkenau: Intertwined Life-Works’, Smith, Pablo Jáuregui and Harald Wydra wanted to or not, they were drawn into a de- Theory, Culture and Society 17 (2) 2000: all draw upon aspects of the work of bate that in this century has never subsided 45–69. Norbert Elias. for long. This paper argues for a position that transcends this opposition between This paper argues that the life-works of Dennis Smith looks at the part played by ‘modernisation’, and ‘regression’: at the Norbert Elias and Franz Borkenau can be the United States during the 1940s and core of the civilising process, another con- best understood together, as they were de- 1950s in pacifying the European nations trary current may manifest itself, allowing veloped in close interaction during the and imposing a framework of rules for the extreme violence on a mass scale to be per- 1930s. Deriving inspiration from Freud, conduct of their economic and diplomatic petrated towards specific categories of peo- they took up the project formulated by affairs. He argues that as states in Western ple, while civilised relations and modes of Weber at the end of his ‘Anticritical Last Europe have been increasingly locked into expression are maintained in other sections Word’. However, in two significant re- tight bonds of interdependence, this move- of society. The concepts of identification, spects they went beyond the Weberian ment is complemented by the disembed-

Issue No.13 June 2000 Figurations 9 ding of regions and large businesses from to the analysis of the competitive process food, the diminishing need for movement their close ties to the national state. Brussels and the transformations of firms. I analyse in daily life and the necessity in service so- has become Europe’s Versailles, a place the rise of industrial competition, the ways cieties to have a socially approved appear- where the courtier’s skills are employed by in which it affects different kinds of entre- ance. This combination exerts pressure on the modern lobbyist. preneurs and firms and the monopolisation individuals to control more conscious then that results from their competition. Elias’s used to be the case the intake of food and For his part, Pablo Jáuregui questions the ideas on monopolisation, as developed in the shape of their body. New firms arise to suggestion that the development of the Eu- The Civilising Process, combine very well assist with these new needs for self control. ropean Union means Europe is entering a with the ideas of the economist and sociolo- Another example concerns the tolerance for ‘post-nationalist’ era. Jáuregui does not be- gist Joseph Schumpeter about economic forms of cultural expression, produced by lieve that nationalism and Europeanism are life as an evolutionary process. According the entertainment industry, that used to be mutually incompatible. However, he to Schumpeter, firms in capitalist societies considered vulgar and despicable. emphasises that they may be related in a va- have to compete in order to survive. Their riety of ways. For example, in Britain, the most important way of competing is by in- I hope to find a publisher who could make it idea of going into Europe was associated troducing innovations that give them – if possible to translate this book in English. with a decline in national status and the successful – monopolistic advantages over For more information on the book, please ‘loss of world power’. By contrast, for their competitors. The conclusion is that the do e-mail me. Spain entering Europe meant a consider- behaviour of firms in capitalist societies has able enhancement of national prestige fol- to be explained by their attempts to gain Ruud Stokvis lowing the collapse of a ‘backward dicta- monopolistic advantages. The result of this University of Amsterdam torship’. behaviour is a tendency towards monopo- e-mail: [email protected] listic relations in the different branches of Finally, Harald Wydra turns to Eastern economic life. I analyse the relations of Europe and challenges the vision of East firms with the state, their activities in the ‘Elias and Organisations’ forthcoming is- and West as two isolated blocs that gradu- fields of technical innovation, marketing sue of Organisation, 8 (1) 2001. ally converged. He sees the rise of democ- and organisation from the viewpoint of racy in Eastern Europe as a long-term social their fundamental need to gain monopolis- The February 2001 issue of the journal Or- process interwoven with the collapse of tic advantages. ganisation will contain a special ‘thematic communism. Wydra argues that dissident In the two chapters that follow I analyse the symposium’ on ‘Elias and Organisations’, movements created a ‘second reality’, un- consequences of this industrial competition edited by Tim Newton (and published by dermining communism’s official for the societies in which the enterprises are Sage Publications, London). myths. Dissidents took their standards and embedded. One chapter is devoted to dem- The symposium explores the relevance of aspirations from Western experience but onstrating how in capitalist societies tech- Elias to social/organisation theory and anal- found themselves largely ignored by the nological change itself, the material aspect ysis and contains by papers by Tim New- West. Since 1989, the influence of western of civilising processes, is dependent on the ton; Ad van Iterson, Willem Mastenbroek models and standards has increased but, competition between firms. Not only the and Joseph Soeters; Dennis Smith; and Sue ironically, there has also been a breakdown development of technology, but during the Dopson. of self-restraint and an upsurge of violence. second half of the twentieth century, also the development of science have become Tim Newton’s paper considers a range of dependent on this competition. The last Elias’s argument within, and beyond, his Ruud Stokvis: Concurrentie en Bescha- chapter deals more in detail with the com- studies of court society. Attention is paid to ving: Ondernemingen en het commercieel mercial civilising process. This process has the way in which an Eliasian perspective beschavingsproces (Competition and Civ- to be comprehended as resulting from the reframes existing organisational theory, in- ilisation: Enterprises and the commercial interaction of the innovations of entrepre- cluding Foucauldian theory, labour process civilising process). Amsterdam: Boom, neurs and the resistance of the people on theory, and actor network theory. In addi- 1999. which they depend to implement their inno- tion, consideration is given to the relevance vations. It is a civilising process in so far as of Elias to current fields of organisational I wrote this book to draw the attention of it can be observed that these changes force analysis such as organisational strategy and sociologists and economists to the impor- people to adopt new forms of self control. change, globalization, emotion in organisa- tant role of enterprises in modern societies. Innovations in the technical methods of tions, the management of knowledge, busi- The central proposition of the book is that production and their organisation have re- ness history, industrial relations, and or- in capitalist societies entrepreneurs, in com- sulted in changes in industrial and class re- ganisations and the natural environment. peting with other firms, have to transform lations and in new forms of self control in Certain limitations of Eliasian argument are their enterprises and these transformations the enactment of these relations. Innova- also discussed. have a deep impact on the societies in tions in products and services have created which they are embedded. the possibilities for new lifestyles and new Ad van Iterson, Willem Mastenbroek and forms of social organisation. This is en- Joseph Soeters explore the interrelation be- To analyse the competitive process and its couraged by developments in the field of tween changes in identity and the formation consequences I used the concepts of mo- marketing, especially advertising. One ex- of nation states, and their monopolisation of nopolisation and the commercial civilising ample of new social pressures for self con- violence and taxation. These arguments are process. The first three chapters are devoted trol is the combination of an abundance of then applied to social and organisational

10 Figurations Issue No.13 June 2000 analysis, including the relation of Kultur world, but in any processual investigation we failed to mention this book directly in and civilisation to European industrialis- of music and human behaviour.’ (Extract earlier issues of Figurations (although we ation, the relation between industrial or- from Introduction, by Ann Buckley). have cited Pieter Spierenburg’s chapter in ganisation and discipline and restraint, and it). The flavour of the book is captured by the significance of informalisation pro- Contents: the editors, who write: cesses for organisational processes and for • Ann Buckley (Cambridge): Organised organisational structuring, differentiation sound and tonal art in long-term perspec- ‘Some of the essays in this collection may and integration. tive seem to be inattentive to customary social • Cajsa S. Lund (Akarp): What is wrong theory. Where are the classical social think- Dennis Smith challenges Elias’s emphasis with music archaeology? A critical essay ers who address the centuries-long transfor- upon the ‘civilising’ direction of human from a Scandinavian perspective, in- mations of the West? Durkheim, Weber, history. Smith argues that we have wit- cluding a report about a new find of a and Marx are underplayed, as is even nessed a ‘humiliation’ process as much as a bullroarer Michel Foucault. Instead, a shadowy fig- ‘civilising’ process, illustrating his argu- • Catherine Homo-Lechner (Brno): False. ure, Norbert Elias, appears, his presence an- ment through reference to human rights, the Authentic. False authenticity. Contribu- nounced by the English historian James salience of shame, and the retreat from tions and failures of experimental ar- Sharpe’s reference to the ‘civilising pro- older forms of bondage based on patriar- chaeology as applied to music instru- cess’, in the first chapter. Starting from dif- chy, feudalism and colonialism toward the ments fering (if traditional) theoretical perspec- bureaucratisation and marketisation of so- • Inge Skog (Lund): North Borneo gongs tives, a large number of historians of crime cial relationships. and the Javanese gamelan: a new histori- have become interested in Elias because his He uses a case study of a British university cal perspective work better describes what they have found to further explore the significance of humil- • Kenneth J. DeWoskin (Ann Arbor, than has that of other social thinkers. Even iation as a key aspect of human habitus. Michigan): Symbol and Sound: Reading if all of the contributors to this volume do early Chinese instruments not explicitly see their work as grounded in Sue Dopson’s paper draws on her Eliasian • Reis Flora (Monash): Music-archaeo- the theories of Elias, almost all of them, al- study of the UK National Health Service. It logical data for culture contact between though they study different societies and examines the relevance of a number of Sumer and the greater Indus area: an in- come to their work from a variety of intel- Eliasian concepts to organisational analy- troductory study lectual perspectives and national back- sis, including interdependency, interweav- • Jane M. Snyder (Ohio): Sappho and grounds, have discovered that their empiri- ing, and the use of game models as a means other women musicians in Attic vase cal finding do not fit with customary social of exploring figurations. Dopson’s paper painting theorising.’ (p. 2) particularly focuses on the significance of • Jon Solomon (Tucson, Arizona): The Elias to our thinking about processes of or- representation of musicians on Greek ganisational change. She explores the sig- Geometric pottery: musicians as decora- SJM nificance of unplanned change, and as with tive symbols the papers by Newton, and Ad van Iterson • Daniel Delattre (CNRS/Paris-Sorbonne): et al, and Smith, she stresses the need to The dialogue of Greece and Rome about view organisations from within a long-term music and ethics in Philodemus of Gadara nWORK IN PROGRESS social and historical context. Orders: 1500 BEF + p&p to: Emmanuel Thomas J. Scheff, Individualism and Delye Université de Liège – Archéologie Alienation in Popular Love Songs, Ann Buckley (ed.), Hearing the Past: Es- Préhistorique, Place du XX Août, 7, bât. A1 1930–99 says in Historical Ethnomusicology B-4000 Liège Belgium and the Archaeology of Sound, Études et Tél.: (00) 32 4 366 52 99 This essay applies a theory of social inte- Recherches Archéologiques de l’Université Fax.: (00) 32 4 366 55 51 gration to one type of collective representa- de Liège 86 (Liège, 2000). Email : [email protected] tion, popular love songs. Since modern Credit card payments acceptable Western societies focus on individuals ‘These essays represent one set of explora- rather than relationships, we would expect tions concerning the role of music and hu- the same in US popular songs. Romance manly-organised sound in long-term hu- words in all titles in the US Top 40 for the man history. They demonstrate the riches nBIBLIOGRAPHICAL seventy-year period are counted, and the of interdisciplinary collaboration, of RETROSPECT lyrics of romantic songs for one sample cross-cultural surveys which are also year in each of six decades analysed. There cross-temporal, and of the value of this sub- Eric A. Johnson and Eric H. Monk- are three main types: heartbreak, infatua- ject in elucidating any number of questions konen, eds, The Civilisation of Crime: Vio- tion and love. These types are fairly stable concerning social processes and mentalities lence in Town and Country since the Mid- despite massive changes in popular songs based on a wide range of evidential types. dle Ages. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois between 1930–59 and 1970–99. Most of They are offered as a collection of ideas and Press, 1996. ISBN: 0–252–02242–4 (hard- the romance lyrics are highly individualis- observations which will hopefully be tested back); 0–252–06546–8 (paper). tic, entirely concerned with individual de- and further developed in the future, not just sire, rather than mutuality between two per- with respect to prehistory and the Ancient By another of our too-frequent oversights, sons. Heartbreak and infatuation lyrics are

Issue No.13 June 2000 Figurations 11 dominated by the lover’s suffering or im- very different approaches in sociology – in pairment, treating the loved one abstractly. This conference was organised and directed Europe and France – to confront each other Since there are exceptional romance songs by Professor Simonetta Tabboni for the in an extremely intense way. from the earlier period implying joy and Centre de Sociologie des Pratiques et des mutuality, the overall trend suggests in- Représentations of the University Paris VII creasing alienation. [Tom adds that this – Denis Diderot, and divided in three ses- nFORTHCOMING study demonstrates the utility of Elias’s sions: Modernity and Civilisation; The CONFERENCES concept of homo clausus.–SJM.] Theory of Established–Outsiders Rela- tions; and Norbert Elias and Contemporary International Conference: Norbert Elias and So- Norman Gabriel, ‘Children in communi- Sociology. After an introduction by cial Anthropology ties: Cross-cultural comparisons in learning Simonetta Tabboni, the conference was 20–22 September 2000 processes’. (Abstract of paper accepted for opened by Professor Hermann Korte (Uni- University of Metz (France) the conference on Norbert Elias and Social versity of Hamburg) with a paper entitled Anthropology, Metz, 20–22 September ‘Perspectives on a Long Life: Norbert Elias Organised by the University of Metz, the 2000.) and the Civilising Process’ in which some French Society of Ethnology, and the interesting circumstances in Elias’s life Norbert Elias Foundation. In the past ten years or more there has been were recalled and linked to his preferred The work of Norbert Elias has attracted the a growth in the social studies of children fo themes of research. Professor Carlo - attention of historians, political scientists cusing on how they experience their own Mongardini (University of Rome), who and sociologists. At a time of renewed in- cultural worlds. Although academics work- had conferred the Amalfi European Prize terest in Elias’s researches, we would like ing within areas like developmental psy for Sociology on Elias in May 1988, dis- - to examine how his ‘cross-disciplinary’ chology have made important contributions cussed the ‘Two figures of the individual thought illuminates the anthropological ap- to our understanding of childhood, they subject in Elias’s oeuvre’. proach. have usually adopted culturally-specific theories to explain the universal stages of The session was closed by Michel Wie- Programme child growth. Social constructivists have viorka (EHESS) with a paper called ‘What responded to these theories of Norbert Elias means by violence: Is his par- Wednesday 20 September, morning and ‘developmentalism’ by incorporating the adigm adequate to answer the questions of afternoon wider social contexts in which different in- contemporary violence?’ A long and lively ‘Norbert Elias’s anthropology : Theoretical dividual childhoods are produced, but have debate followed. The afternoon session implications and new directions a tendency to make assumptions which un- opened with Simonetta Tabboni’s paper for enquiry’ dermine an important value of scientific re- ‘Sociological ambivalence: from the theory A. Burguière (France), J.Goody (UK), H. search – the distinction between participant of civilising processes to the theory of the Korte (Germany), S. J. Mennell (Ireland), J. and observer. Established and the Outsiders’, followed by Duindam (Netherlands), E. Dunning (UK), Professor Danilo Martucelli (University of J. Goudsblom (Netherlands), P.Neubauer This paper will argue that Elias’s theoreti- Lille) who discussed ‘A pattern for exclu- (D), P.Nixon (UK), and L. Petzoldt (Aus- cal framework on long-term changes sion: a critique’, and by Professor Gerard tria). within societies can make an important Namer who spoke about ‘Some doubts on contribution to the debate about the genera- the adequacy of the Winston Parva pattern’. Evening: Round table on ‘Civilisation and tion of knowledge in social anthropology. After a debate on these contributions, the Schooling’ Rather than artificially constructing a false papers of Dr Sabine Delzesco, ‘The Estab- N. Gabriel (UK), N. Murard (France), E. dichotomy between the ‘natural’ and ‘cul- lished and the Outsiders: from a case study Prairat (France), and D. Reed-Danahay tural’ world as if there existed two inde- to an empirical paradigm’, and of Dr Marie (USA) pendent entities, what is required are com- Gaille, ‘Winston Parva and the question of parisons which help us to understand how the exclusion’, were presented and dis- Thursday 21st September, morning and ‘separate’ cultures may be connected cussed. Professor Hans Peter Müller (Uni- afternoon: ‘Elias’s cultural approach through specific directional stages in hu- versity of Berlin) closed the session with a tested in the field’ man history. In order to avoid the trap of very interesting paper on ‘The Established A. Blok (Netherlands), S. Chevalier (France), cultural relativism, examples from different and the Outsiders as a social mechanism’. W. Kaschuba (Germany), F. Raphael and G. cultures will be made compared to show On Saturday four papers were presented: Herberich-Marx (France), G. Sanga (Italy), how children use a social fund of knowl- ‘How to become a classic’, by Professor J.H. Dechaux (France), D. Guillet (USA), P. edge to become members of their commu- Alain Garrigou (University of Paris X – Jauregui (Spain), A. Luse (Latvia), E. Timm nities. Nanterre), ‘The theme of Power in Elias’s (Germany), J.Y. Trepos (France). oeuvre’ by Professor Bernard Lacroix (University of Paris X – Nanterre) and Evening : Round table on ‘The potential nRECENT ‘Some misunderstanding about Elias’s impact of Elias on social anthropology’ thought’ by Professor Nathalie Heinich. CONFERENCES R. Chartier (France), D.Fabre (France) and N. Heinich (France) Norbert Elias: A Non-Normative The conference was particularly interesting because, through the studies of Norbert Sociology 22–23 October, 1999 Friday 22nd September, morning and af- Université de Paris VII – Denis Diderot Elias’s work, it allowed representatives of ternoon: ‘Adopting and adapting Elias’s

12 Figurations Issue No.13 June 2000 concepts’ • the persistence or institutionalisation of fourteenth in Montreal in 1998. At the final J.P. Callede (France), F. Eckardt (Ger- ‘decivilising processes’ in ghettos session in Montreal, it was resolved that for many), E. Leyton (Canada), R. Maier (Nor- • the disruption of social bonds in the the next Congress, in Brisbane in 2002, we way), A. Perulli (Italy), J.M. Leveratto sphere of employment should seek to climb one further step up the (France), J. Malerba (Brazil), R. Petzoldt • possible reversals or deviations in ISA’s hierarchy of entities, from Ad Hoc to (Germany), J.M. Privat (France) long-term patterns of state-formation – Thematic Group. The effect of this is to put in matters of changes in identities, au- the figurational presence at the sociological 17.00: Closing Session: Overview of the thority, socialisation, and the connec- olympiads on a somewhat more formal and Conference tions between politics and everyday ci- permanent footing, and to make it a little vility. easier for us to organise activities within the Details may be obtained from the confer- • genocides and large-scale massacres ISA between Congresses. In addition, we ence secretariat : Christiane Neumann, • the ‘foreign policy’ of civilisation: how are applying to the ISA for approval to or- e-mail: [email protected] ‘civilised’ states have treated the popula- ganise a separate Ad Hoc Group at Bris- Tel : +33 3 87315903 tions they regarded as ‘barbarians’. bane on the comparative historical sociol- ogy of empires. Theme II: The Rise of Informality: Rever- The official languages of the conference sal of civilising processes or more sophisti- will be: French, German and English (with Thematic Group on Figurational Sociology cated self-constraints? translation) The upgrading of our status to that of The- Elias noted in the late 1930s how the trend matic Group is being masterminded by of ‘bathing manners’ appeared to defy in - Robert van Krieken (University of Syd- International Norbert Elias Colloquium - Issues terpretation in terms of increasing ney), who has secured the necessary num- in the Theory of Civilising Processes, 13-14 Octo- self-constraints and emotional reserve ber of signatories from among fully paid-up among ‘civilised’ people. The ‘liberation of ber 2000 individual members of the ISA. In his ap- manners’, the airing of private and intimate Université de Haute Bretagne – Rennes II plication to establish the Thematic Group, problems in public (particularly via televi- Robert has written: sion and radio chat shows), the prevalent ‘The activities planned for the 2002 ISA Call for Papers discourse of authenticity and openness – do Congress revolve around both building on The work of Norbert Elias is more and these trends invalidate an excessively linear … the research activities of scholars pursu- more recognised as one of the major twenti- and Victorian conception of the civilising ing figurational sociology, and strengthen- eth-century contributions to the develop- process? Or can they be read, as Elias and ing the linkages between the different ment of the social sciences. But, at the same then Wouters suggested, in terms of an groups working in this field in different time, it has provoked important controver- informalising process, a ‘highly controlled parts of the world. There has been a surge sies, notably about whether the Holocaust decontrolling of emotional controls’, of a of interest in figurational sociology in a of the European Jews and other great geno- faurther mastery over affects – as suggested number of language areas, particularly cides can be reconciled with the theory of by the work of J.-C. Kauffman on ‘policing France and South America, and in an ex- civilising processes, about how the the gaze’ in relation to naked female bodies panding range of topic areas. The Thematic ‘informalising’ trends of recent decades on the beach? And do these developments Group would provide a forum for these may best be interpreted, about the existence reflect a trend towards what Elias called new developments. … The group believes of a long-term trend of increasing social functional democratisation: are there actual that an important element of the unique and constraint towards self-constraint over im- tendencies towards relatively more equal distinctive appeal of a figurational approach pulses and emotions (especially with regard power ratios between sexes, generations is its interdisciplinary character, drawing on to the body and sexuality), and about and classes, or are the disparities persisting? all the social sciences – history, anthropol- whether other contemporary trends can be ogy, politics, and social psychology as well regarded as decivilising processes. Offers of papers should be sent to, and fur - as sociology – so as to develop a synthesis- ther details may be obtained from the Col- ing approach which constitutes a genuine The Rennes Colloquium will be organised loquium organiser: ‘human science’ or Mensenwissenschaft. around these issues. Papers are particularly Yves Bonny … Figurational sociology generally, and invited on two themes: Université de Haute Bretagne – Rennes II research into the changing dynamics of 6 avenue Gaston Berger civilising and decivilising processes in par- Theme I: Civilisation, Barbarism, Violence F–35043 RENNES Cedex ticular, have not been a theme in any of the Can the theory of civilising processes take France other ISA Research Committees or Groups account of the twentieth-century geno- e-mail: [email protected] …’ cides? And do recent developments contra- dict a vision of the diminution of violence International Sociological Association: XV World in social relations and the idea of a growing Ad Hoc Group: The Comparative Histori- Congress of Sociology, Brisbane, Australia, 8–12 level of ‘mutual identification’ among hu- cal Sociology of Empires man beings? July 2002 The initiative for this group has been taken by Johann Arnason (La Trobe University, Papers under this theme could confront the Highly successful sessions of an Ad Hoc Australia), who has submitted the follow- Eliasian theory with: Group on Figurational Sociology were or- ing proposal to the ISA: • current trends in urban violence and inci- ganised at the thirteenth World Congress of ‘The problematic of imperial formations is vility Sociology in Bielefeld in 1994 and the a strikingly underdeveloped area of histori-

Issue No.13 June 2000 Figurations 13 cal sociology. Since the publication of S.N. trated many books; an updated treatment of Eisenstadt’s The Political Systems of Em- the concerns of her doctoral thesis was fi- pires in 1963, there has been no large-scale nally published in English as Photography comparative survey of the field. Historians and Society in 1980. and sociologists have, however, produced a large body of work on specific cases; much less has been done to link the results to new developments in social theory.’ nCONTRIBUTIONS TO The workshop to be organised in Brisbane FIGURATIONS would focus on four main topics: • the specific problematic of imperial power structures in the context of theo- ries of state formation; The next issue of Figurations will be • the ‘developmental’ dimension of em- mailed in November 2000. News and pires, i.e. the question of their contribu- notes should be sent to the Editors by 1 tion to the growth of social power (raised October 2000. in Michael Mann’s The Sources of So- cial Power, volume 1, but not much dis- Editor: Stephen Mennell cussed since then. Assistant Editor: Aoife Rickard • the role of empires in early modern his- Freund’s photograph of Norbert Elias Editorial Address: Department of Sociol- tory – an issue closely linked to the un- ogy, University College Dublin, Belfield, folding debate on ‘early modernities’. Dublin 4, Ireland. • the question of imperial crises and recon- Elias’s tasks as Mannheim’s assistant in- Tel. +353-1-706 8504; Fax: +353-1-706 structions in the twentieth century, per- cluded doing much of the donkey work of 1125. supervising students’ thesis, and in her con haps with particular reference to the tra- - E-mail: [email protected] jectories of Communism in East and tribution to the Festschrift Human Figura- West. tions presented to Elias on his eightieth Contributions should preferably be birthday in 1977, she related how it was he Given the specific research interests of e-mailed to the Editor, or sent on a disk those involved in the project, it is likely that who suggested to her that she write a doc- (formatted for PC-DOS, not Apple there would be a strong emphasis on the toral thesis about her hobby, photography. Mackintosh); WordPerfect (up to 5.1), They both fled to Paris in 1933, and contin historical empires which survived into the - Microsoft Word (up to 7), Rich Text and twentieth century, especially the Habsburg, ued to discuss her doctoral thesis, although plain text files can all be handled. Do not Ottoman, Russian and Chines empires, but it was presented not to the University of use embedded footnotes. Hard copy is Frankfurt but to the Sorbonne. Anyone fa other cases would also be taken into ac- - accepted reluctantly. count. miliar with Elias’s ideas – including the es- say ‘Kitsch und Kitschzeitalter’ which he © 1999, Norbert Elias Stichting, J.J. Membership and Participation wrote in Paris in 1935 – will be able to de- Viottastraat 13, 1071 JM Amsterdam, tect his influence on the thesis, which was We expect to be able to report the outcome Netherlands. of these two application to the ISA in Figu- published as La Sociologie de la photogra- phie. It has often been thought to be heavily rations 14. The Brisbane Congress is of Figurations is printed and mailed by influenced by Walter Benjamin, particu course still more than two years away, and - SISWO: The Netherlands Universities formal calls for papers will be published in larly in the light of his most famous essay, Institute for Co-ordination of Research in ‘The Work of Art in an Age of Mechanical Figurations and elsewhere in due course. In the Social Sciences. Reproduction’. Indeed, Gisèle saw the meantime, we would urge readers to Graphic Design and Desktop Publishing: pay the modest subscription to join the ISA Benjamin regularly, but did not talk about Cobie Rensen (SISWO). the thesis with him. Her dramatic photo as individual members, and thus be ready to - graph of Elias in Paris is reproduced from sign up for Brisbane, the Thematic Group, Researchers, institutes or libraries who and the Ad Hoc Group. Further details of Elias’s own copy – she said that she sadly would like to receive this newsletter had to dispose of many others. She was ISA membership may be obtained by should write to the Figurations address present at the celebrations of Norbert’s 90th e-mailing [email protected]. file manager: Cobie Rensen, SISWO, birthday in Amsterdam in 1987. Plantage Muidergracht 4, 1018 TV Am- sterdam, The Netherlands. Fax: nOBITUARY Unlike Elias, Gisèle Freund remained in +31-20-6229430. France, fleeing south to join the Resistance E-mail: [email protected] when Paris was occupied. She was then in Gisèle Freund, photographer, sociologist of - Figurations will be sent to them free of vited to Argentina, where she worked for photography, student and friend of Norbert charge. Elias, died on 31 March 2000. the Free French propaganda agency and from 1947 to 1954 covered the whole of She was born in Berlin on 19 December Latin America for the celebrated Magnum 1908, and enrolled for her doctorate in soci- ology with Karl Mannheim in Frankfurt. agency. Returning to Paris, she continued to work as a freelance and wrote and illus-

14 Figurations Issue No.13 June 2000