Gallery

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.

Lecture held on April 6th 2018 in Leeds.
Marc Joly (*1976) is a French Sociologist and former Norbert Elias Stipend. He is employed at the Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines.
The video starts with an introduction by Stephen Mennell (until 5:52), then follows the lecture, and finally Question & Answering (beginning at 47:53 ).

Ademir Gebara (*1946) is a Brazilian Professor. He studied at the Universidade de São Paulo and the London School of Economics, where he graduated in 1984 with a doctoral degree. He was a Professor for 23 years at the Universidade Estadual de Campinas and a Professor for 14 years at the UNIMEP.
Ademir Gebara has promoted the theory of Norbert Elias in Brazil and has fruitfully applied the method to studies. He has been conducive in organising Elias conferences on the South American continent for two decades and has interceded to the translation of Elias into the Spanish and Portuguese languages. In the interview, we speak about his route towards Norbert Elias theory. Ademir recollects his biographical experience by saying "In a dictatorship, you have to make moments where you are alive." The analysis of society by Elias was an epiphany for him in a dark period of his life. We speak about his biography and educational career, his way of analysing society with the method of Elias, how he conveyed Elias into his teaching activities and how he coined generations of students in this method. Ademir explains to me how, since the 1990s, a larger community emerged that applied Elias for its research approaches. Today, Eliasian theory and practice is used by Brazilian researchers across the country, and the method has supported a wide range of different academic subjects, like sports science, physiology, social history and, of course, sociology.
The interview took place on October 18th in Londrina, Brazil.

From October 16 to 19, 2018 the Elias community met in Londrina, Brazil. The report The report summarizes the topics of the conference and shows moving pictures of the event.

Congress homepage : http://www.simposioelias2018.com.br

Filmed and spoken by A Jitschin
Cut by J Tucker

Nico Wilterdink (*1946) is an emeritus professor in Cultural Sociology. His research covers a wide range of topics; outstanding is his work on long-term trends in socioeconomic (class) inequality as indicated by wealth and income distribution, globalization processes and global inequalities. In 1992 he was appointed Norbert Elias professor in the study of long-term social processes at the University of Utrecht. From 1998 till 2001 he was vice director of the Amsterdam School for Social Science Research. He was one of the editors of the 16 volumes Gesammelte Schriften (Collected Works) by Norbert Elias in German.
In the interview, Wilterdink embarks on Norbert Elias’s influence on Amsterdam social sciences, on ‘good’ and ‘bad’ sociology, and the value of the figurational approach.

Oliver Carsten is the son of Francis Carsten (1911-1998), a famous historian and long-time friend of Norbert Elias. Oliver knew him since his early childhood in the 1950s, when Elias was a regular visitor at his father’s house. Only later, when he grew up, Carsten learned about the sociological work of Elias. What bewildered him especially was his expertise in sports. Now he found out that the old family friend was a leading researcher and theorist of sports and leisure. The last time Oliver saw Elias was when he was invited to his 80th birthday party in 1977.
The interview gives a glimpse to the private life of Norbert Elias and how contemporaries perceived him.

Andrew Linklater (*1949) is a professor in International Politics. After receiving his Bachelor in Oxford, his Master at Aberdeen and a PhD at the London School of Economics and Political Science, he began a scientific career that took him around the globe. Finally, back in the UK, he received professorships in Keele (1993-1999) and Aberystwyth (ever since). In 2000, he was featured as one of the fifty thinkers in Martin Griffith's Fifty Key Thinkers in International Relations. Only late in his academic career, he discovered Norbert Elias.
In the interview, he explains why Elias’s theory is valuable and a great stimulus for the sociology of International Relations, and how the approach can be made fruitful for this field of research.

Eric Dunning on the Sociology of sport.
This is a recording of the famous sports sociologist Eric Dunning from the 1990s. It was recorded by Stephen Mennell, who helped Eric out when Eric was not able to leave his house because of a broken leg. So they recorded his lectures and Stephen brought the VHS tapes to the students. This is an excerpt from central parts of a much longer video.
Eric Dunning was a master student and later co-author and close friend of Norbert Elias. They collaborated on several studies on the sociology of sport, like 'Quest for excitement' (Blackwell, 1986). Eric Dunning reflected on his work with Norbert Elias for more than three decades in his 2012 book 'Norbert Elias and Modern Sociology' . This book was co-authored by our Foundation board member Jason Hughes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Dunning