Twenty-five years on: Norbert Elias's intellectual legacy 1990-2015

Abstract

This paper is essentially a study in the sociology of science. In the natural sciences certainly, but also in the social sciences, the work of even very prominent researchers is often forgotten after their death. This has not happened in the case of Norbert Elias, whose influence has tended rather to increase since his death in 1990. For a school of thought to survive, it has often been noted, it is essential that it has a nucleus of advocates, and also an organisational framework. This essay traces in particular the work of the Norbert Elias Foundation, based in Amsterdam, as Elias’s executors, in promoting Elias’s ideas, and the impact of those ideas on the work of scholars in many parts of the world.

This paper also includes the following:

Appendix I: Collected Works of Norbert Elias: Essays and chapters not previously published in English.

Appendix II: List of Elias Conferences since 1990.

Appendix III: The Latin American Series of Conferences on Civilising Processes.