Stephen Mennell
Biographic Data
| ID | 114854 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stephen Mennell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stephen |
| FAMILY NAME | Mennell |
| SIGNATURE | MENNELL S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University College Dublin |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0207-5172 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 98 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 460 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 94 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 3 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1969 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 10 |
Appetite and Its Discontents
Civilisations, Civilising Processes and Modernity – A Debate
African Processes of Civilisation - on the Formation of Survival Units in Ghana
The Past and the Future of Historical Sociology
Civilisations, Civilising Processes and Modernity - a Debate
Some Political Implications of Sociology from an Eliasian Point of View
Elias, ultra-realism and double-binds
‘Ultra-realism’ has become an influential current in criminology, especially in the study of violence and explanations of trends in violent crime. Ultra-realist writers frequently make use of Norbert Elias’s theory of civilizing processes, while also often expressing reservations about his ideas. In this article, we argue that ultra-realists tend to make only partial and inaccurate use of Elias’s very extensive writings. Although he himself did n…
Keith Thomas, In Pursuit of Civility
T urner, F rederick J ackson
The American historian Frederick Jackson Turner's (1861–1932) fame rests principally on one great essay, “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” dating from 1893. The “Frontier Thesis” became for several decades the dominant view in the interpretation of American history. Its most celebrated proposition is that life on the frontier fostered a spirit of “rugged individualism.”
Classical Readings in Culture and Civilization
In recent times, especially under the influence of postmodernism, culture has often been construed as a critique of modernity. This wide-ranging and comprehensive collection of readings shows that such issues have always been at the centre of thought about the relationship between culture and civilization The readings are divided into three sections, linking the civilization debate to political theory, to the cultural debate and to the sociology …
Norbert Elias’s contribution to Andrew Linklater’s contribution to International Relations
Andrew Linklater’s projected trilogy of books for Cambridge University Press rests distinctively on the work of the sociologist Norbert Elias (1897–1990). Linklater is creating a powerful theoretical orientation for the field of International Relations by synthesising the ideas of Martin Wight and the ‘English School’ of IR with those of Elias. Though Elias is best known for his theory of civilising processes – on which Linklater draws most promi…
Reflections on American Religiosity from an Eliasian Point of View
From a European point of view, one of the most puzzling aspects of the contemporary USA is the large proportion of its citizens who assent to belief in the supernatural. In sociology, that has given rise to a debate about whether secularising Europe or the religious USA represents ‘normality’ and which is ‘exceptional’. In this essay, the work of Norbert Elias is used in an explanatory way to shed light on the peculiarities of America. Although E…
A Global Community of Self-Defense
Norbert Elias's Lost Research
Civilizing Processes
The theory of civilizing processes originated in the writings of Norbert Elias (1897–1990) and has been considerably developed by “figurational process sociologists” in the research tradition following in his footsteps. The concept of civilizing processes is widely misunderstood in sociology today. In this entry we explain the technical and actual meaning of the concept, as well as the theory of “established–outsiders relations,” which arose from…
Burke, Peter (1937–)
National Character, History of
Seeleute und Gentlemen
Sociogenesis and Psychogenesis
What is widely known as 'figurational sociology', or alternatively 'process sociology', is the research tradition stemming from the writings of Norbert Elias. The tradition extends beyond sociology to historians and many other branches of the social sciences. Elias's Collected Works run to 18 volumes, but the bedrock of his oeuvre is his early study On the Process of Civilisation, in which the interrelation of long-term sociogenetic processes lik…
What economists forgot (and what Wall Street and the City never learned)
The article presents a figurational sociological perspective on the recent history of the discipline of economics in the wake of the global financial crisis or ‘Great Recession’ that began in 2007–8. It is argued that the orthodox mainstream of economics has provided ideological cover for abstract individualism, for short-term greed, and for the denial of the wider social responsibilities of business and finance. The faith in ‘free markets’ has b…
Discussing Civilisation and Informalisation
Norbert Elias’s theory of civilising processes has been received only marginally in the USA, one of the obstacles being the absence of figurational or process studies of American society. In the first decade of this century this situation was changed by the publication of Stephen Mennell’s The American Civilizing Process (2007) and Cas Wouters’ Sex and Manners (2004) and Informalization (2007). By 2012, Randall Collins had reviewed the first and …
Norbert Elias
Handing over the Torch
This collection of essays is designed to show how the various concepts of Norbert Elias's writings fit together in an overall vision for sociology, and how this has come to inspire the wide-ranging and interdisciplinary research tradition of 'figurational' sociology. In this introduction, we focus on a somewhat neglected aspect of Elias's work, the concept of generation. We explore his role as a teacher, passing the torch to a first generation of…
Quelques observations en guise de conclusion
A partir d’une experience clinique d’intervenant en institutions specialisees confrontees a des adolescents violents, je tente de proposer un systeme d’intelligibilite aux reverberations et aux bouclages interactifs que ces sujets suscitent. Dans cette perspective, je developpe les trois propositions suivantes : – ces sujets utilisent le site institutionnel pour deployer une scene archaique de deliaison incorporee qui duplique la pathologie et l’…
L'histoire, le caractère national et la civilisation américaine
Les États-Unis sont un pays aux paradoxes familiers. Une agréable civilité prévaut habituellement dans la plupart des relations quotidiennes entre les personnes (pourtant les États-Unis forment une société extrêmement inégalitaire). Dans la plus grande partie du pays, la loi et les conventions sociales dissuadent fortement les individus de nuire à eux-mêmes et aux autres en fumant (pourtant la loi et les conventions sociales dissuadent seulement …
All manners of food
Decivilising Processes
Decivilising processes are what happens when civilising processes go into reverse; both terms are used here in a specific technical sense derived from the work of Norbert Elias ( The Civilising Process, 2 vols., 1978/1982, orig. 1939). The first part of the paper briefly sketches aspects of the theory of civilising processes necessary for identifying symptoms of their reversal. It is inferred that true decivilising processes would be marked by br…
The American Civilizing Process
On the Civilizing of Appetite
Norbert Elias, the Civilizing Process
Norbert Elias's The Civilizing Process, which was published in German in 1939 and first translated into English in two volumes in 1978 and 1982, is now widely regarded as one of the great works of twentieth-century sociology. This work attempted to explain how Europeans came to think of themselves as more "civilized" than their forebears and neighboring societies. By analyzing books about manners that had been published between the thirteenth and…
Elias on Germany, Nazism and the Holocaust
Eric Dunning, Stephen Mennell, Elias on Germany, Nazism and the Holocaust: On the Balance between 'Civilizing' and 'Decivilizing' Trends in the Social Development of Western Europe, The British Journal of Sociology, Vol. 49, No. 3 (Sep., 1998), pp. 339-357
Norbert Elias
Norbert Elias
The Globalization of Human Society as a Very Long-term Social Process
Macmillan Student Encyclopedia of Sociology
The Macmillan Student Encyclopedia of Sociology is a major comprehensive encyclopedia aimed at all students of social science. The book explains all the important sociological terms, theories, concept
Ill Met in Ghana
In recent years, Sir Jack Goody has published a series of essays (2002, 2003, 2004, 2006: 154-79) criticizing Norbert Elias's theory of 'civilizing processes'. In all of them, Goody - himself a West African specialist - makes clear that his disagreement with Elias dates back to their acquaintance in Ghana. The date is highly significant for it is unlikely that Goody's opinions of Elias's ideas were initially formed by his reading of Elias's publi…
Civilizing Processes-Myth or Reality? A Comment on Duerr's Critique of Elias
It is a great tribute to the late Norbert Elias that Hans-Peter Duerr has embarked upon a four-volume critique, Der Mythos vom Zivilisationsprozess, of Elias's original two volumes of The Civilizing Process (recently reissued in a single-volume edition). Duerr's volumes may initiate a major intellectual debate and thus lead to the wider recognition of the importance of Elias-whom Duerr himself rates as 'perhaps the most influential and stimulatin…
Knowledge and Belief in Politics
Sociological Theory
Ethnomethodology and the new Methodenstreit
Ethnomethodology should not be mistaken for just one more variety of microsociology. It is much more: it represents a comprehensive challenge to some of sociology's most general assumptions. In the past, the superficial similarity of the ethnomethodologists' interest in small scale interaction has led to comparisons with the work of Goffman and the symbolic interactionists (Gouldner 1971, Denzin 1971, Gidlow 1972), but ethnomethodologists have ve…
What economists forgot (and what Wall Street and the City never learned)
The article presents a figurational sociological perspective on the recent history of the discipline of economics in the wake of the global financial crisis or ‘Great Recession’ that began in 2007–8. It is argued that the orthodox mainstream of economics has provided ideological cover for abstract individualism, for short-term greed, and for the denial of the wider social responsibilities of business and finance. The faith in ‘free markets’ has b…
Handing over the Torch
This collection of essays is designed to show how the various concepts of Norbert Elias's writings fit together in an overall vision for sociology, and how this has come to inspire the wide-ranging and interdisciplinary research tradition of 'figurational' sociology. In this introduction, we focus on a somewhat neglected aspect of Elias's work, the concept of generation. We explore his role as a teacher, passing the torch to a first generation of…
The Contribution of Eric Dunning to the Sociology of Sport
Eric Dunning and Norbert Elias were both keen sportsmen from their respective youths, but it was their meeting at the University of Leicester that arguably turned both of them into sociologists of sport. This essay recounts the beginning of their contributions to the field, stressing the indissoluble links between their writings on sport, the theory of civilizing processes, and what came to be know as 'figurational sociology'. It concludes by emp…
Elias and the counter-ego
Norbert Elias (1897-1990) achieved international recognition as a major sociologist only towards the end of his long life. As a German Jewish refugee in England, he did not even gain a secure academic post (at the University of Leicester) until he was 57. Apart from his magnum opus, Über den Prozess der Zivilisation [The Civilizing Process], which was published obscurely in 1939, all his other books and most of his essays were published after his…
Norbert Elias's Lost Research
Human History and Social Processes
Sociogenesis and Psychogenesis
What is widely known as 'figurational sociology', or alternatively 'process sociology', is the research tradition stemming from the writings of Norbert Elias. The tradition extends beyond sociology to historians and many other branches of the social sciences. Elias's Collected Works run to 18 volumes, but the bedrock of his oeuvre is his early study On the Process of Civilisation, in which the interrelation of long-term sociogenetic processes lik…
An Exceptional Civilizing Process
The claim to a nation's 'exceptionalism' can only be assessed in relation to a specific theory. This article discusses the history of the USA in the light of Norbert Elias's theory of civilizing (and decivilizing) processes. Although, unlike many Western European countries, the USA never had a single monopoly 'model-setting elite' and had no nobility, it did have several competing aristocracies. The Northern Bildungsbürgertum dominates perception…
Civilizing Processes
Norbert Elias
Journal Article Norbert Elias: Civilization and the Human Self-image by Stephen Mennell. New York: Basil Blackwell, 1989, xi + 319 pp. $49.95 Get access Donald A. Nielsen Donald A. Nielsen State University of New York, Oneonta Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Sociology of Religion, Volume 51, Issue 2, Summer 1990, Pages 227–229, https://doi.org/10.2307/3710821 Published: 01 July 1990
Constituency Labour Parties in Britain
Television Politics
Capitalist Society and Modern Sociology
The Abstract Society
Ideology and Social Knowledge
Talcott Parsons et la Sociologie Americaine
Official Statistics and Social Interaction
THE USE OF OFFICIAL STATISTICS IN SOCIOLOGY , by Barry Hindess UNDERSTANDING EVERYDAY LIFE , edited by Jack D. Douglas ETHNOMETHODOLOGY , edited by Roy Turner ON THE BEGINNING OF SOCIAL INQUIRY by P. McHugh, S. Raffel, D. C. Foss and A. F. Blum
Knowledge and Belief in Politics
Sociological Theory
Ethnomethodology and the new Methodenstreit
Ethnomethodology should not be mistaken for just one more variety of microsociology. It is much more: it represents a comprehensive challenge to some of sociology's most general assumptions. In the past, the superficial similarity of the ethnomethodologists' interest in small scale interaction has led to comparisons with the work of Goffman and the symbolic interactionists (Gouldner 1971, Denzin 1971, Gidlow 1972), but ethnomethodologists have ve…
Cultural Needs and Municipal Initiative
Sociology Theory
Sociology in Action
Figurational Sociology
Zygmunt Bauman's review essay ( Sociology , 13 (1), January 1979, pp. 117-25) is a noteworthy and in many ways accurate attempt to assess the general relevance of Norbert Elias's work for contemporary sociology. In his judgment of The Civilizing Process as a chef d oeuvre and recognition that, in attempting to unravel the intrinsic dynamics of social figurations, Elias has sought to develop an 'explanatory device better geared to the needs of soc…
Theoretical Considerations on the Study of Cultural 'Needs
In discussions of cultural police, a great deal hinges on how cultural 'needs', or 'wants' or 'aspirations' are to be conceptualized, and on how they are to be empirically discovered and studied through social research. By analogy with Steven Lukes's discussion of power, three views of 'cultural needs' are examined. A 'one-dimensional' view is implicit in the methods commonly used by many public authorities in making policy: consultation with exi…
Cultural Policy and Models of Society
This paper expresses some reservations about the notion of “cultural policy” as the term has been used in international discussions over the last decade. Especially when it is linked with the over-general objective of “cultural democracy”, it is difficult to view the cultural domain as a sphere of policy separate from many other fields of public policy. The Council of Europe's Fourteen Towns Project and other studies point to the existence of lim…
Alexis de Tocqueville
Macmillan Student Encyclopedia of Sociology
The Macmillan Student Encyclopedia of Sociology is a major comprehensive encyclopedia aimed at all students of social science. The book explains all the important sociological terms, theories, concept
Sociological Theory
Über die Zivilisierung der Eßlust
Dieser Aufsatz diskutiert Wandlungen in den Mustern der Kontrolle des Appetits in der europäischen Gesellschaft seit dem Mittelalter. Offenbar hat sich diese Kontrolle in einer spezifischen Richtung verändert - ähnlich wie jene über die Körperfunktionen und den Gebrauch von Gewalt, die Norbert Elias in Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation untersucht hat - nämlich in Richtung auf gleichmäßigere und zugleich umfassendere Kontrollen. Im Mittelalter herr…
All manners of food
Comment on Haferkamp
The Pleasure of Your Company
On the Civilizing of Appetite
The Foul and the Fragrant
Sociology (62 works) · Philosophy (51 works) · Epistemology (39 works) · Political science (38 works) · Sociology and Norbert Elias (36 works) · Law (31 works) · Social science (30 works) · Philosophy (28 works) · History (23 works) · Psychology (20 works)