The sixth Norbert Elias Prize will be awarded in 2009. The Prize consists in a sum of €1,000 and it will be awarded to a significant first major book published between 1 January 2007 and 31 December 2008. First-time authors from any part of the world are eligible for the award.
The Prize is awarded ‘in commemoration of the sociologist Norbert Elias (1897–1990), whose writings, at once theoretical and empirical, boldly crossed disciplinary boundaries in the social sciences to develop a long-term perspective on the patterns of interdependence which human beings weave together’. This does not mean, however, that the prize-winning book will necessarily be directly inspired by Elias’s own work.
Previous winners of the Elias Prize have been:
- 1999 David Lepoutre, Coeur de banlieue: Codes, rites et langages (Paris: Odile Jacob, 1997)
- 2001 Wilbert van Vree, Meetings, Manners and Civilisation (London: University of Leicester Press, 1999)
- 2003 Nikola Tietze, Islamische Identitäten: Formen muslimischer Religiosität junger Männer in Deutschland und Frankreich (Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2001)
- 2005 Jason Hughes, Learning to Smoke: Tobacco Use in the West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003)
- 2007 Georgi Derlugian, Bourdieu’s Secret Admirer in the Caucasus: A World-System Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005).
For the 2009 prize, the jury will consist of three previous winners of the prize, under the chairmanship of Wilbert van Vree.
Nominations for the prize should be sent to Marianne Bernard, Secretary to the Norbert Elias Foundation, by 31 March 2009, either by post to J.J. Viottastraat 13, 1071 JM Amsterdam, The Netherlands, or by email to elias@kpnmail.