Gallery

Jason Hughes gave this very personal speech at the funeral of Eric Dunning.
We have provided English and Spanish subtitles.

The lecture took place at The Norbert Elias Conference in Brussels (Université Saint-Louis) on December 6th 2018.
In his lecture, Joop summarises the most important findings of his sociology of the cultural history of fire. He explains how he came up with the inspiration for his famous book on fire, how an audience accepted the book, and what reactions he experienced. Finally, he looks back on how he changed his perspective on this important subject over time.

In the interview, Stephen speaks about his approach of an Eliasian method and how he himself transformed from being a student of Economics to become finally a valued Professor of Sociology.
He speaks about his personal trouble of funding himself, how he began as a tutor and how he later became able to finance himself.
He speaks about his research on topics as Islamism and terror and how he was able to apply theoretical work of Norbert Elias at very current aspects.

This is a follow-up video to Richard Kilminster's presentation about his life on his 75th birthday. See here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCe3ilpEaHc

In the lecture celebrating his 75th birthday, Richard Kilminster reflected on his life and his intellectual development.
He talks about his studies in Essex, as a student of Norbert Elias in Leicester and most recently his long career at the University of Leeds. He summarises the main focuses of his work and his contribution to the exploration and interpretation of Norbert Elias's sociology.

The video shows the memorial service for Eric Dunning (1936-2019), which took place on Friday 1st March at Great Glen Crematorium.
The film quality is unfortunately not very good. We hope that nonetheless, those who could not be present in person will be able to pick up the touching atmosphere.

Order of Service: ↓

Celebrant Jacqui Tillyard
Opening Music: Fantasia On A Theme
Reading by nephew Nick Dunning: Excerpt from "Under Milk Wood"
Musical Interlude: Strange Meadow Lark
For the text of the tributes by Ivan Waddington, Stephen Mennell, Jason Hughes and Andrew Linklater see http://norbert-elias.com/about-elias-foundation/in-memoriam/#1552662704268-e815dd07-db7e
Reflection Music: Softly, William, Softly
Closing Music: Take Five

Eric's Owl Limerick:
Habits most foul and unsavoury,
Kept the Bishop of Ely in slavery,
Midst chuckles and howls,
He'd deflower little owls,
Which he kept in an underground aviary!

The laudation was held on the celebration of Richard's 75th birthday. It reflects on Richard's life, academic career and successes.
The central focus is on the personal relation Stephen and Richard shared and the concepts, conference presentations and publications, which Richard has produced in a long Eliasian career.

Elias describes that the central task of Sociology is to get a certain level of understanding of the universe surrounding human beings. Sociologists should try to get more knowledge about problems, which are vital for our living together.

This video is part of a longer documentary on Norbert Elias, which has aired on Dutch Television in the 1970s.

Gina Kuper (*1954) works at the Centre for Theoretical and Multidisciplinary Studies in Social Sciences of the National University of Mexico.
Gina came in touch with Eliasian sociology back in the 1980s by her academic teacher José María Pérez Gay, who taught a lot about Max Weber. He assigned her to work on Norbert Elias first. She graduated with a doctoral thesis including a chapter on Norbert Elias.
She was involved in making Eliasian works available in the Spanish language and thereby has been inspired by his work in her own research. Gina is recognised for research on women in economic decision-making positions and social movement in Mexico.
She considers the approach of informalisation as an important contribution of Norbert Elias to understand the social situation in Latin America. Middle urban classes form figurations of distinction, which can be analysed by the Eliasian method.
She is the author of fifteen books and about one-hundred articles, many of them following a theoretical approach of Norbert Elias.
Her publications include "Norbert Elias y los problemas actuales de la sociología", " La Escuela de Frankfurt y la crítica a la modernidad" and "Patrimonialismo y modernización. Poder y dominación en la sociología del Oriente de Max Weber".

"There is no greater task than to find out how we can arrange our lives in such a way that we do not constantly hurt ourselves and also gain as much pleasurable excitement and satisfaction, as we can."
This excerpt from a Dutch television production shows Norbert Elias in his early eighties. He summarises the important task of sociology.