Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology: Knowledge, Interdependence, Power, Process

Description

This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. This book explores the interplay between the making of Elias as a sociologist and the development of his core ideas relating to figurations, interdependence, and civilising processes. Focusing on the relevance of Elias's work for current debates within sociology, the authors centrally consider his contributions to the sociology of knowledge and methodology. Dunning and Hughes locate the work of Elias within a discussion of the crisis of sociology as a subject, and compare his figurational approach with the approaches of three major figures in modern sociology: Anthony Giddens, Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu. This highly readable and engaging book will be essential reading for students and scholars of sociological theory and methods.

Eric Dunning is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Sociology, University of Leicester. He is one of two people ever to have co-published with Norbert Elias, and the only one surviving to this day. A pioneer in the sociology of sport, his recent publications include Sport, Critical Concepts in Sociology, and Norbert Elias: Sage Masters of Modern Social Thought, both four volumes (2003). Jason Hughes is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology, and Deputy Head of the School of Social Sciences at Brunel University. His first book, Learning to Smoke (2003), was awarded the 2006 European Norbert Elias prize. His more recent publications include two four volume reference works, Visual Methods and Internet Research Methods (both 2012).

Dunning and Hughes have certainly done an important service in introducing those readers primarily familiar with Elias's classic essays to the breadth of Elias's work, drawing out the central social theory embedded within such prolific writing . . . Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology makes a strong and convincing case that Elias's larger historical-theoretical oeuvre and underlying sociological model deserves more sustained attention by both card-carrying sociologists and other scholars of the "human sciences". -- Paul A. Silverstein, Reed College * H-France Review *