16/01/2014, LE de Botton, A. The 20-year battle to demolish Chicago’s notorious Cabrini-Green housing project, CityMetric, November 15. New York: Random House. However, it was loved by many readers looking to make sense of their experiences of city life at that point and of the changing cultures around them. In this case, when researching and writing The Craftsman he was ‘struck again and again by a particular social asset in doing practical work: cooperation’ (2008: ix). The book doesn’t have footnotes, a bibliography, or an index. ‘The city seems crooked in that asymmetry afflicts its cité and its ville’ (op. Yes, it has the same dives into history, sharp insights and observations, and links into his life and friendships – but given the scale and complexity of its subject matter and the peculiarities of ‘the city’ industry, this book moves well beyond the essay format. This is not a focused empirical study, nor does it have any ambition to engage fully with, or seek to develop, social, economic and political theory. Celebration of awareness: A call for institutional revolution. Managing short­-term relationships, and oneself, while migrating from task to task, job to job, place to place. Review of Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling, The Guardian Feb 24. “Since I wasn’t going to be able to perform, I sort of just moved into sociology.” (Benn 2001). (2003) The deserving poor, Daily Telegraph January 25. However, here we begin with the work of Hannah Arendt (1958; 2002). Richard Sennett's previous books include The Fall of Public Man, The Corrosion of Character, Flesh and Stone and Respect. Around seven months after Richard was born, his father returned to Spain and stayed on there, after hostilities ceased. : 214-226). Nothing bears witness to them after the brief moment in which they pass through the world like a breeze or a wind or a storm and shake the hearts of men. He was founder director of the New York Institute for the Humanities, and is now University Professor at New York University and Academic Governor and Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics. The first half of the book explores what he sees as a new puritanism – and its expression in identity, the myth of a purified community and in planning. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich | London: Penguin Classics. Moore, R. (2018). One was with Christian Mackauer, his Western Civilization teacher. It fell nicely in place beside the efforts of Paul Goodman, Ivan Illich and Jane Jacobs to change the way we view cities, institutions like schools and the formation of identities. New York: Knopf. Benn. But the lack of respect they experience occurs not simply because they are poor, old, or sick. Sennett, Richard and Calhoun, Craig (eds.) He then moves on to ‘everyday diplomacy’ and the heritage in ordinary life. In Defense of History. [https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n09/michel-foucault/sexuality-and-solitude?referrer=. Paris: Felix Alcan. Wright Mills: power, craftsmanship, and personal troubles and private issues’ The encyclopedia of pedagogy and informal education. (Sennett 2003: 9). It pointed to ways in which the discourses around urbanism could develop. Ten years later, it seems little had been learned in this area of the Academy – and the situation remains the same another fifty years on. From there Sennett looks to what cities could be like if they were more open. Mann, M. (2013). Cité is both the characteristics of a local way of life and a kind of consciousness. Crucially, what Sennett has also created is a text for people wanting to shape and develop their thinking about urbanism. As such, and in the way we have come to expect from Sennett, the book raises some interesting areas for exploration. In other words, the psychological motivation instilled by a class society is to heal a doubt about the self rather than create more power over things and other persons in the outer world. The ‘we’’ of ‘community’ can be seen as an act of self-protection; a defence expressed as a ‘rejection of immigrants or other outsiders’ (op. It is, too, far from clueless. Superficially pally. The final section returns to the essential crookedness of the city. Retrieved February 27, 2020]. highlighting some processes that create and sustain inequalities in respect. ‘He was a kindly man and very worldly, and he introduced me to Hannah Arendt,’ Sennett says. Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil. He studied under David Riesman, Erik Erikson, and Oscar Handlinat Harvard, graduating with his Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization in 1969. Conversation between Richard Sennett and Carles Muro, Public Space March 20. Vita activa oder Vom tätigen Leben. As a child he trained in music, studying the cello and conducting, working with Claus Adam of the Juilliard String Quartet and the conductor Pierre Monteux. Uses of Disorder takes the essay form that was also to be a characteristic of much of his work. Liquid Modernity. In 1960 Richard Sennett returned to Chicago to study with Frank Miller, principal cellist of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He had come to know David Riesman (1909-2002) – famous for his 1950 study The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character, written with Nathan Glazer, and Reuel Denney. [https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/20-year-battle-demolish-chicago-s-notorious-cabrini-green-housing-project-1575. Station, E. (2011). (1982). T here's a nice quote on the back of this book from a review by Jenny Turner which goes: "I like Richard Sennett in the way some people like Bob Dylan … He has such style and heart." ‘Prudence’, he comments’ was not a word you would attribute to her – everything was a categorical declaration’ (Interview with Alan Macfarlane 2009). New York: Knopf. The high-rise blocks were completed in 1957. : 46-50); technique and touch (op. (1999). : Princeton University Press. Erikson and Riesman were friends, or perhaps it’s better said that they were complicit; for different reasons both felt outsiders in that bastion of official thought. Richard Sennett: Class and the new capitalism, craftsmanship, cooperation and cities, infed.org. Key concepts. Il est fondateur du New York Institute for the Humanities. 2 — 3 July 2015 Debate The Open City Lecture by Richard Sennett - CANCELLED. New York, Free Press of Glencoe. All the emotional conditions we have explored in the workplace animate that desire: the uncertainties of flexibility; the absence of deeply rooted trust and commitment; the superficiality of teamwork; most of all, the spectre of failing to make something of oneself in the world, to “get a life” through one’s work. That said, there is little ongoing conversation with core concepts, and little attempt to build theory in the way that, for example, Jürgen Habermas, Pierre Bourdieu or Michel Foucault do. The 5 Truths that Define Millenials. Poussé vers la sociologie par Hannah Arendt, il reconnaît l'influence fondamentale de Michel Foucault sur son travail. The book examined ‘the conditions of family life for one group of middle-class people at the point in America, during the decades after the Civil War, when the massive cities took form’ (op. In these three books, we see Sennett the historian, Sennett the essayist, and Sennett the sociologist. He argues that an open ville is marked by five forms which allow the cité to become complex. Urbanism became, internally, a gated community’ (2018: 27). “It tries to understand social injustice and oppression by finding something positive that has been suppressed.” (Tonkin 2008). Personal identity and city life aimed to convince its readers that the ‘jungle of the city, its vastness and loneliness, has positive human value’ (Sennett 1970b: xvii). New York: Knopf. Sennett continues to play the cello – having had further corrective surgery – and plays in a small chamber group. As an observer of emerging social trends and the changing shape of modern society, he points to experiences and dynamics that need careful attention. 25/01/2014. Paris: Gallimard | New York: Vintage. He also played the piano. (op. What we lose in the separation of these into separate essays, is how these relate to each other – and, in particular, how we are to conceptualize power. This series of books started as an exploration of different aspects of material culture. The problem is that there is little concrete suggestion or discussion of current activity and practice. (op. Retrieved February 27, 2020]. They were to address the issue of technique as a ‘cultural issue rather than as a mindless procedure’ (Sennett 2008: 8). New Haven: Yale University Press. It is less a performance than a journey: ‘As a maker, you put one foot in front of the other and you own the journey’ (Korn 2015: 104). Bergson, H. (1907). cit. The final three chapters look at how cooperation can be repaired and strengthened. London: Macmillan. Feldman, D. et. As Alain de Botton, writing in the Daily Telegraph, notes Sennett ‘considers the inequalities of modern society from a distinctive angle. There was the possibility that as a social worker she would be drawn to deal with problems. It does so in two ways: first, by the images it projects of why people belong to high or low classes—class presented as the ultimate outcome of personal ability; second, by the definition the society makes of the actions to be taken by people of any class to validate their dignity—legitimizations of self which do not, cannot work and so reinforce the original anxiety. sociologue, professeur à la London School of Economics et à la New York University, Découvrez nos newsletters complémentaires, Albin Michel, 2019, LE Respect’s publication was accompanied by some very positive press reviews. Sennett has commented, ‘I would have been very happy to just study with him privately, but I would have been instantly drafted. Richard Sennett, né le 1 janvier 1943 à Chicago, est un sociologue et historien américain qui enseigne à la London School of Economics et à l'université de New York, également romancier et musicien. Popper, K. (1945 | 2011) The Open Society and its Enemies. ‘I write in order to change myself and in order not to think the same thing as before’ (2000: 240). He has received many awards and honors, most recently the 2006 Hegel Prize for … Mills, C. Wright (1960) Listen Yankee: The revolution in Cuba. Before becoming a sociologist, he studied music professionally. Many value collective action and networks, are influenced by peers and are more likely to be activists (see, for example, The Case Foundation [2019]). Sennett, Richard (2011). Goodman, P., & Goodman, P. (1960a). Born in Chicago in 1943, Richard Sennett’s mother was active in the labour movement, and his father (and uncle) fought in the Spanish Civil War, ‘first against the fascists, and then against the communists’ (Benn 2001). [https://www.eurozine.com/the-fight-for-the-city/. They were members of the Communist Party although it seems likely that his mother left the party after the Hitler-Stalin pact. Sennett’s exploration of cooperation emphasizes the need to make it more open. This then became the focus of the second book in the series – Cooperation (2008). cit). INTERVIEW @THE SCHOOL OF LIFE: Richard Sennett wonders how we can repair the social divides that separates us. Turner, J. Retrieved February 27, 2020]. It does not explore in meaningful ways how economic and political forces impact on our disposition or capacities to cooperate (Maravelias 2012). Retrieved April 8, 2020]. It makes use of type-forms in its building to create an urban version of theme and variations in music. Foucault’s concern with power, for example inevitably took him towards this territory and his later political engagement fed through into work such as Surveiller et punir. Chicago Ill.: University of Chicago Press. (2003: 59). He might not have liked it, but Richard Sennett went on to earn a history degree and formed important relationships. It is revolutionary, to start with, regarding the semantic field in which we habitually (again, since Weber) locate the concept of authority: authority is legitimate power. [https://infed.org/mobi/c-wright-mills-power-craftsmanship-and-private-troubles-and-public-issues/. He attended military and then public schools (Sennett 1972: 8). (2018). Melissa Benn (2001) has commented that on his private life Richard Sennett is ‘guarded to a point of gracious stubbornness’. It sparkles – but how far does it take us forward? Guttenplan, D. D. (2008). The first is ‘how people bring with them into their social lives all sorts of secret doubts and painful questions to do with pride, love for others and self-worth’. New York: Harper & Row. Palais-Royal. They were members of the Communist Party although it seems likely that his mother left the party after the Hitler-Stalin pact. It was also the title of a novel by Max Frisch (1911-91) in which his central character Walter Faber ‘considers life a technical problem that can be solved through skill and rational methods’ (Koepke 1991: 70). New York: Simon and Schuster. Goodman, P. (1964). Prime Panier. Ein Bericht.Frankfurt: Suhrkamp Verlag. The other concerns the significance of ‘formality, structure, authority in the social arena’. The Lonely Crowd: A Study of the Changing American Character. One element has been their ‘insatiable appetite for collaboration and always-on connection to the web, and that is a private online community’ (Gopinath 2015). Hannah Arendt (1906-75) – who, as have seen, was something of a mentor to Richard Sennett – famously argued that modernity involved a victory of animal laborans over Homo faber. New York: Harper and Row. Saskia Sassen is the Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia Universityco-chairs its Committee on Global Thought. Korn, P. (2015). Sassen, S. (1988). It started as a companion volume on welfare but changed: Welfare clients often complain of being treated without respect. New York University Archives (2019) Guide to the Records of The New York Institute for the Humanities RG.37.4, New York University Archives. All these beliefs fit well with the view of authority and willing obedience as, essentially, the matter of reason and rational judgement. Their diverse nature, he suggests, also requires an open society based on liberal values (after Popper 1945). More importantly in some ways, it is a thought-provoking text and would make for a great series of undergraduate lectures. Born in Chicago in 1943, Richard Sennett’s mother was active in the labour movement, and his father (and uncle) fought in the Spanish Civil War, ‘first against the fascists, and then against the communists’ (Benn 2001). (2/5): les misères du travail flexible, LE Richard Sennett is professor of sociology at New York University and at The London School of Economics. M. Bullock. Koepke, W. (1991). His approach remains the same but where he says he writes ‘within a long-standing tradition, that of American pragmatism’ in The Craftsman (2008: 13), as a philosopher in Together, here he is the flaneur, planner and teacher. Né en 1943, Richard Sennett a enseigné les sciences sociales à l'université de New York. Erikson pondered to himself when he lectured; Riesman suggested twenty books you might read, and ten people whom you should telephone, to pursue whatever it was you were pursuing. R. J. To understand them you have to view them as a whole. The Corrosion of Character: The personal consequences of work in the new capitalism. However, it placed a very strong influence on helping the children to achieve. Il vit actuellement à Londres où il est professeur à la London School of Economics. Bakhtin, M. (2004). Together: The rituals, pleasures, and politics of cooperation. (2012: 278). Princeton NJ. : 18). As he recognizes, the scale of change and responses required rather mean that the small, incremental processes favoured by Jane Jacobs and, previously, Sennett himself have to be added to. Last Updated on September 22, 2020 by infed.org, Jane Elizabeth Senior and work with girls and young women, new: Ruth Kotinsky on education and lifelong learning, new capitalism and the emotional bonds of modern society, homo faber: craftsmanship, cooperation and building and dwelling, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/026327648200100216, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/feb/03/books.guardianreview4, https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/4729746/The-deserving-poor.html, https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/arendt/, http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/obituaries/articles/2011/09/22/oscar_handlin_historian_led_us_immigration_study, http://www.themillennialimpact.com/sites/default/files/images/2018/MIR-10-Years-Looking-Back.pdf, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v03/n09/michel-foucault/sexuality-and-solitude?referrer=, https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2016-08/5_truths_that_define_Millennials.pdf, [https://www.citymetric.com/skylines/20-year-battle-demolish-chicago-s-notorious-cabrini-green-housing-project-1575, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/bergson/, https://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1130356?format=mpeg4&quality=360p, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/24/building-and-dwelling-richard-sennett-review, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/feb/19/building-and-dwelling-by-richard-sennett-book-review-architecture-rowan-moore, http://dlib.nyu.edu/findingaids/html/archives/nyih/bioghist.html, https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/episteme-techne/, https://www.eurozine.com/the-fight-for-the-city/, https://www.publicspace.org/lectures/-/event/the-narratives-of-homo-faber, https://infed.org/mobi/c-wright-mills-power-craftsmanship-and-private-troubles-and-public-issues/, https://infed.org/mobi/haltung-pedagogy-and-informal-education/, https://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/life-practice#, https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/richard-sennett-back-to-the-bench-779345.html, https://www.theguardian.com/books/2003/jan/25/featuresreviews.guardianreview2, https://www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v34/n06/jenny-turner/superficially-pally, https://brickmag.com/an-interview-with-richard-sennett/, https://infed.org/mobi/richard-sennett-class-the-new-capitalism-craftsmanship-cooperation-and-cities/, Social action, social change and social reform. Richard Sennett the sociologist does not engage with social theory in a sustained way nor does he construct worked-through analytical or conceptual frameworks. Mills, C. Wright (1963, 1967) Power, Politics and People. Retrieved February 29, 2020]. Here, we have Sennett the urbanist – and in many senses, this is his home territory. al. Toutes nos … cit.). That said, it did chime with the growing concern among social historians to focus on the experiences and lives of ‘ordinary people’. Retrieved: March 31, 2020]. Bauman, Z. Sennett explores cooperation as a craft. In addition to these three, Sennett had also been supervised by the historian Oscar Handlin (1915-2011) (Feeney 2011) and was appreciative of the support and encouragement he had been given (Sennett 1970a: viii). Here Sennett returns to Homo faber and the need to practise a certain kind of modesty as urbanists: … living one among many, engaged by a world which does not mirror oneself. cit. He also explores issues arising from the gap between the lived and the built. New York: The Free Press. New York: Knopf. He argues that the system of power inherent in modem forms of flexi­bility consists of three elements: ‘discontinuous reinvention of institutions; flexible specialization of production; and concen­tration of without centralization of power’ (1998: 47). Foucault, Michel (1975 | 1979). Macfarlane, A. In the first of these, for example, he argues that the full flowering of public life could be found in eighteenth-century London and Paris – and that we are now oriented to narcissistic forms of intimacy and self-absorption that undermine participation in public life. [https://infed.org/mobi/haltung-pedagogy-and-informal-education/. New York: Knopf. Under these conditions, character corrodes; the question “Who needs me?” has no immediate answer’ (op. [https://theatrum-mundi.org/about/. (2012: 339). It was through learning an art that I began to leave others behind. New York: Oxford University Press. cit. Second, it could well be that cooperation arises from the act of doing (praxis) rather than (or as well as) making (poiêsis). New York: Oxford University Press. The new development was at first seen as a welcome change. al. As might be expected pinning down what is meant here by respect is difficult: It can involve recognizing and honouring another; it certainly entails dignity. I now had to make an effort to be in complex spaces, faced with the problem of staying upright and walking straight, and also with the neurological short-circuit that in crowds disorients those affected by strokes. In turn, topics of broad import, but which are difficult to treat exactly or quantitatively, are no longer considered within the purview of the discipline. Now he adds to this profession of lightly-worn faith an intellectual calling-card: “I am a pragmatist. Sennett, Richard (1994). Zorbaugh, H. W. (1929) The Gold Coast and the Slum: A Sociological Study of Chicago’s Near North Side. Sennett was brought up by his mother, Dorothy. 344 – 349. It takes an interesting idea – here that many people become stuck in perpetual adolescence – and then asks if the diversity and anarchy of city life can be adapted to foster creative disorder. I will look humbly at the past and say, despite them all: It really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self-critical, find out how it did and reach some tenable conclusions about what it all meant. cit.). Sennett loved music and began playing the cello around the age of five. The first and the last are separated by 23 years and the first and second are interrupted by three novels and The Conscience of the Eye (on the design and social life of cities) (1991) and Flesh and Stone: The body and the city in western civilization (1994). Princeton NJ. The Latin term Homo faber is often translated as ‘humans as makers’ (fabricators and craftsmen). S/he conducts a dialogue between concrete practices and thinking and this ‘evolves into sustaining habits, and these habits establish a rhythm between problem-solving and problem finding’. : 18). Lukes, S. (2005). It can be understood as ‘a life-long attempt to come to terms with his radical heritage, to both honour the idealism of an old left and re-mould it in the light of contemporary realities’. They ‘were two older teachers that I really found to be wonderful supports’ (op. Gopinath, M. (2015). We can learn a lot about the direction and nature of Richard Sennett’s subsequent writing and thinking from the first three books that appeared after he completed his PhD. David Riesman had taught at the University of Chicago up to 1958 and was now at Harvard and collaborating with Christopher Jencks on what was to be another classic study, this time of higher education: The Academic Revolution. New York: Oxford University Press. Retrieved March 19, 2020]. To find out why people obey, one should study the ways in which they legitimise the right to command. Foucault was, in his own words, an ‘experimenter’. Richard Sennett, né en 1943, est un historien et sociologue américain, professeur de sociologie à la London School of Economics et à la New York University. Sennett, Richard (1980). [https://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/books/features/richard-sennett-back-to-the-bench-779345.html. Sennett, Richard (2008). Richard Sennett: Back to the bench, The Independent February 8. Episteme and Techne, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta (ed.). Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) provided him with, among other things, a space to explore and argue about ideas; a model of great courage; and an overarching theme – Homo faber – for his trilogy of books on craftsmanship, cooperation and building and dwelling (Sennett 2008, 2012, 2018). Illich, I. Central to the approach is the distinction made between ville and cité (2018: 12). London: Granta. Previously, we looked at Sennett the historian, Sennett the sociologist, and Sennett the public intellectual. New Haven: Yale University Press. Riesman, D., Glazer, N. and Denney, R. (1950). The Dialogic Imagination, trans. d’Entreves, M. P. (2019). Homo Faber. 2017 Centennial Medalist Citations. cit.). cit. New York: Cambridge University Press. 04/10/2019, Réécouter Démocratie, inégalités, mixité : des défis urbains, Démocratie, inégalités, mixité : des défis urbains, LE The concern of the discipline focuses on the development of a formal body of technical theory, which seeks to specify precise variables and to formulate rigorously testable hypotheses. New York: The New Press. [https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2019/entries/arendt/. And it casts a shadow of doubt on the identification of ‘legitimation crisis’ with the disintegration of power systems. ‘We had a tough time financially, but in the bohemian, radical milieu in which we lived, we were just another family,’ he has said. Not unexpectedly, various criticisms were thrown at it: women’s experience was not a focus, not how things were played out within different social groupings; and nor did it conform to conventions around what might constitute a scholarly text in this area. Review of Richard Sennett’s Building and Dwelling, The Guardian Feb 19. As Rowan Moore (2018) has pointed out, he doesn’t ‘propose much by way of what these larger plans might be’.