Figurations 43.Indd 1 18-08-15 13:10 Matt’S Thesis Was on ‘Exclusion, Show a Visit to Rome in 1938, with (London: Toccata Press, 2014)
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43 Newsletter of the Norbert Elias Foundation PEOPLE CONTENTS • On 20 October 2015, Joop Goudsblom and Hermann Korte will open a series of lectures People 1 at the University of Münster to mark the 50th anniversary of Norbert Elias’s arrival there in the From the Norbert Elias Foundation 2 role of Visiting Professor – the fi rst of many such appointments he was to hold in ensuing years. (For details of the lectures, see p.15 below.) In the media 2 • A conference on ‘Social character and historical Why Elias did not go to Rome 2 processes’ in honour of Stephen Mennell will be held in Dublin on 7–8 January 2016. Everyone is welcome. See further details on p.15 below. On the Isle of Man 2 • Dr Steven Cock, who in 2007 was the fi rst Good works in Leicester 3 winner of the Chester Norbert Elias Prize for his thesis on swimming (see Figurations 27) has been appointed to a permanent post as Lecturer Figurational Journals online 4 in Sport Education and Development in the Faculty of Health and Life Sciences at York St Other journals 4 John University (that is, York, England). • The recipient of the Chester Norbert Elias Prize Recent books and articles 5 in 2011, Dr Sharon Wheeler, has also been given a permanent post as Lecturer in Sport Education Bibliographical retrospect 12 and Development at York St John’s. Her thesis was entitled ‘The signifi cance of family culture for sports participation’ – we regret that this Obituary: Peter Freund 13 seems not to have been reported in Figurations at the time. CfP: Norbert Elias and Violence 13 • Gad Yair has been promoted to full Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology Recent conferences 14 at the Hebrew University Jerusalem. Lecture series: Gesellschaftsprozesse und individuelle Praxis 15 • Matt Clement (University of Winchester) is at last a doctor. He says John Lever’s reaction was ‘About bloody time!’ – but that’s unfair, because Forthcoming conferences 15 there used to be a well-established tradition of fi gurational sociologists taking their doctorates at what would now be considered an advanced age. Issue No.43 August 2015 Figurations 1 Figurations 43.indd 1 18-08-15 13:10 Matt’s thesis was on ‘Exclusion, show a visit to Rome in 1938, with (London: Toccata Press, 2014). 243 pp. Criminalisation and Riot: A city pictures of famous tourist sites and ISBN: 978 0 907689 75 1. case-study’. even a parade during Hitler’s state visit. Many readers of Figurations will be • Esteban Castro writes: ‘The next One of the pictures is labelled ‘View familiar with the name of Hans Gál as meeting of the network [on water of the Roman Forum from the Capitol, the composer who provided the music resources] I am coordinating will Rome, May 1938’ and another one ‘In for Norbert Elias’s satirical sketch have a ‘long-term’ approach: Palazzo Venezia, Rome, May 9th, 1938. ‘Die Ballade vom Armen Jakob’, first http://waterlat.org/meetings/public- Crowd watching parade for Hitler’, a performed as part of a revue by inmates meetings/waterlat-gobacit-2015/ . third ‘Interior view of the Coliseum of the British internment camp on the I hope it will produce an excellent Rome, showing the three rows of Isle of Man in 1940. Gál (1890–1987) debate. I am working with people seating accommodation, May 1938’. had been a prominent composer in from the university in Mexico Others show the Arch of Constantine, Weimar Germany, and Music Director that will host the event, and there the view from the the Duomo in Milan, in Mainz until he was summarily is much interest in long-term and Venice. sacked when the Nazis took power perspectives and a good dialogue Could it be that Elias was an eyewitness early in 1933. on Elias-related work. of the Führer’s visit to Mussolini? The answer is simple: No. This did not In 1940, after the fall of France and happen. Elias neither had the financial in the face of the threat of a German FROM THE NORBERT resources for such travel, nor was he invasion of Britain and in fear of ‘fifth ELIAS FOUNDATION foolish enough to travel as a stateless columnists’, the Churchill government At the end of the highly successful Jew through the fascist states of was panicked into giving the order to conference held in Leicester in June Germany and Italy. ‘Collar the lot’ – to intern all German 2014 to mark the completion of the citizens in Britain (see Gillman and publication of the Collected Works More pictures found in the papers Gillman, 2003). In consequence, Gál, of Norbert Elias, there was a popular show travels to Egypt 1937, the St. like Elias, found himself first in Camp demand for there to be a similar Stephanus Cathedral in Budapest, Huyton near Liverpool and then on the conference every two years. The Zagreb, Mount Rigi in Switzerland, the Isle of Man. Foundation is therefore pleased to Heldenhalle in Munich, rural England, announce and to support the conference Canterbury cathedral, and even exotic Gal wrote a highly readable diary on ‘Changing power relations …’ on places like Aden and Colombo. of his time in internment, which 8–10 September 2016 at the University So, the question is: Where did all these was published in German in 2003. of Münster. For further details and the photographs come from? The most This translation by his daughter and call for papers, see under Forthcoming important clue is the handwriting on the son-in-law is also an interesting read Conferences pp.15-16 below. back of them. It was definitely not the as a whole. But for our purposes, handwriting of Norbert Elias. I went to the references to Elias are especially Before the meeting of the Board of the Marbach in November and December significant; indeed Hermann Korte Norbert Elias Foundation in Amsterdam and compared it with the handwritings has already drawn attention to them in in January, John Goodwin and Jason of his friends and social environment. lectures on ‘Armen Jakob’ (see Korte, Hughes gave a seminar to a small It resembles to the handwriting of Ilse 2013). invited audience about the study they Glücksmann. So maybe she was the have been making of John L. Scotson’s one labelling the photos, and if she was, On p. 71, Gál writes MA thesis, which formed the basis of she was either the person who took the the subsequent book The Established pictures or at least knew enough about ‘I have been approached repeatedly to and the Outsiders. It is hoped that their their origin to identify the places. give talks in the camp university that findings will be published eventually. is now beginning to get under way [in Ilse Glücksmann came to England Camp Huyton]. But I’m so unwilling Human Figurations: Redirection of in November 1938. Maybe she had to talk about music when I am not able communication to the journal them in her luggage. Maybe Elias to give examples on an instrument. I Please note that in future, all obtained them from someone else. But will rather become a student myself communications to the journal should it is impossible that he made all these and go to lectures. Two excellent be sent to the following email address: journeys himself. people interest me especially: Dr Elias, [email protected] Adrian Jitschin a sociologist, and Dr Liebeschütz, an historian.’ WHY ELIAS DID NOT GO ON THE ISLE OF MAN On p. 76, Gal recounts the decision TO ROME to relocate internees to the Isle of Some of the photos found in the papers Hans Gál, Music behind Barbed Man; besides himself, the first party of Norbert Elias (see Figurations 42) Wire: A Diary of Summer 1940, to be transferred included ‘most of the seemed spectacular: they apparently trans. Anthony Fox and Eva Fox-Gál professors of the Camp University, 2 Figurations Issue No.43 August 2015 Figurations 43.indd 2 18-08-15 13:10 among them … Dr Elias … and many include a whole volume of translations of their students’. of Elias’s German poetry in the English Collected Works. Unexpectedly, to me By p. 158, Gál is telling the story of at least, the recording of ‘Die Ballade’ the revue ‘What a Life!’, of which ‘Die is of the English translation, not Elias’s Ballade vom Armen Jakob’ formed original German. part: The book is also fascinating for its ‘Professor Elias, the sociologist, who, extensive dramatis personae besides it now appears, also has a literary Gál himself and Elias. Names that side to him, came with a very unusual caught my eye included the art historian and extremely interesting work, half Sir Ernst Gombrich, the musicologist in prose, half in verse, which is to be Otto Deutsch (famous for his catalogue performed with music and illustrated of the works of Schubert), and the with some kind of living pictures, physicist Klaus Fuchs, notorious for ‘The Ballad of Poor Jacob’. The having ‘betrayed’ the secrets of the Youth Group are to do this. I fought atom bomb to the USSR. tooth and nail against any demand for a melodrama, as I basically hate the Hans Gál was fortunate in having been genre. But I was half won-over when I befriended on his arrival in Britain by saw the first pages of the poem (which the musicologist Sir Donald Tovey, who is extensive, and will take at least a invited him to teach at the University of 1 for the translation of a special issue quarter of an hour), and I believe I have Edinburgh, to which he returned after of the Transylvanian Society journal found a form which avoids everything his internment and where he stayed for on the work of Norbert Elias (Erdélyi that I find intolerable about melodrama.