Interviews and Autobiographical Reflections: (The Collected Works of Norbert Elias)

Vol. 17 of the Collected Works can serve as an excellent introduction to Elias's thinking overall. In the last decade of his life, Elias gave many interviews in which he discussed aspects of his work, rebutting many common misunderstandings of his thinking and further developing ideas sketched out in his writings. Besides a selection of these 'academic' interviews (many of them not previously published in English, or not published at all), the book contains his essay in intellectual autobiography and a long interview in which he talks about his own life.

Table of Contents:
Norbert Elias, 1897-1990: Note on the text; AN AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY: Notes on a lifetime; INTERVIEWS: Norbert Elias's story of his life (1984), interview with Arend-Jan Heerma Van Voss and Bram Van Stolk; 'Sociology ... done in the right way' (1984-5), interview with Johan Heilbron; An interview in Amsterdam (1969), interview with Johan Goudsblom; 'On the Process of Civilisation' revisited (1974), interview with Stanislas Fontaine; Sociology as the history of manners (1978), interview with Heiko Ernst; 'I use historical studies to clarify certain universal human problems' (1981) , interview with Didier Eribon; Knowledge and power (1984); interview with Peter Ludes; The Janus face of states (1982), interview with Norbert Elias by Peter Ludes, Frank Adler and Paul Piccone; 'We are the late barbarians' (1988), interview with Nikolaus Von Festenberg and Marion Schreiber; 11 'We need more empathy for the human difficulties of the process of civilisation' (1989), interview with Ulfried Geuter; 'Perhaps I have had something to say that will have a future' (1989), interview with Wolfgang Engler; A 'Jewish Portrait' (1989), interview with Herlinde Koelbl;; APPENDICES I Selected poems; II On re-reading my doctoral dissertation; III Editorial note on Erich Kallius and the Gumbel Case; IV List of Interviews and conversations with Norbert Elias; Bibliography; Index

About the Author :
NORBERT ELIAS (1897-1990) was one of the greatest sociologists of the twentieth century. He studied in Breslau and Heidelberg and served as Karl Mannheim's assistant in Frankfurt. In exile after 1933, first in France and then in Britain, he wrote his magnum opus On the Process of Civilisation. His whole oeuvre is now appearing in new scholarly editions in the Collected Works in English. EDITORS Edmund Jephcott has translated a large proportion of Elias's work; Stephen Mennell is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, University College Dublin, and General Editor of the Collected Works; Richard Kilminster is chair of the Editorial Advisory Board; Katie Liston teaches sociology of sport at the University of Ulster.