Norbert Elias

Norbert Elias (born June 22, 1897 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland); died August 1, 1990 in Amsterdam) was a German sociologist whose work focused on the relationship between power, behavior, emotion, and knowledge over time. He influenced the Figurational Sociology or Process Sociology research traditions within sociology.

Related Topics:
June 22 - 1897 - Breslau - Germany - Wroclaw - Poland - August 1 - 1990 - Amsterdam - German - Sociologist - Emotion - Figurational Sociology - Process Sociology

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His great book, which marked his emergence as a major figure in sociology, was the republication in paperback of The Civilizing Process (Über den Prozess der Zivilisation, published in 1939 but virtually ignored, republished in the 1960s when it was also translated into English). The first volume traced the historical developments of the European habitus, or "second nature," the particular individual psychic structures molded by social attitudes. Elias traced how post-medieval European standards applied to violence, sexual behaviour, bodily functions, table manners and forms of speech were transformed by increasing thresholds of shame and repugnance, working outward from a nucleus in court etiquette. The internalized "self-restraint" imposed by increasingly complex networks of social connections developed the "psychological" self-perceptions that Freud recognized as the "super-ego." The second volume of The Civilizing Process looked into the causes of these processes and found them in the increasingly centralized Early Modern state and the increasingly differentiated and interconnected web of society.

Related Topics:
The Civilizing Process - 1939 - 1960s - Europe - Etiquette - Freud - Super-ego

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Ironically, Elias' work was published in 1939, the year that the entire structure he described collapsed in a paroxysm of barbarism. When Elias' work found a larger audience in the 1960s, at first his analysis of the process was misunderstood as an extension of discredited "social Darwinism," the idea of upward "progress" and was dismissed by reading it as consecutive history rather than a metaphysic for a social process.

Related Topics:
Barbarism - Social Darwinism

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The Quest for excitement, written by Norbert Elias with Eric Dunning, and published in 1986 has proved a seminal work for the sociology of sport, and of football in particular. The Centre for the sociology of sport at the University of Leicester, England is host to a number of important sociologists who work on the Elias and Dunning tradition.

Related Topics:
Eric Dunning - Sociology - Sport - Football - University of Leicester

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