Richard Sennett Explained

Richard Sennett
Birth Date:1 January 1943
Birth Place:Chicago, Illinois, US
Fields:Sociology
Academic Advisors:David Riesman, Erik Erikson, Oscar Handlin
Known For:Studies of social ties in cities

Richard Sennett (born 1 January 1943) is the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and former University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. He is currently a Senior Fellow of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University.[1] Sennett has studied social ties in cities, and the effects of urban living on individuals in the modern world.

He has been a Fellow of The Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the founding director of the New York Institute for the Humanities.

Early life and education

Sennett grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago,[2] to a Jewish[3] family of Russian emigres. 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. When a hand injury and botched operation to fix it[4] put an end to his musical career, he entered academia. He studied under David Riesman, Erik Erikson, and Oscar Handlin at Harvard, graduating with his Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization[5] in 1969.[6] His intellectual life as an urbanist came into focus during the time he spent as a fellow of the Joint Center for Urban Studies of Harvard and MIT.[7]

Career

Sennett's scholarly writing centers on the development of cities, the nature of work in modern society, and the sociology of culture. Families Against the City, his earliest book, examines the relationship between family and work in 19th-century Chicago. A subsequent quartet of books explores urban life more largely: The Uses of Disorder, an essay on identity formation in cities; The Fall of Public Man, a history of public culture and public space, particularly in London, Paris, and New York in the 18th and 19th Centuries; The Conscience of the Eye, a study of how Renaissance urban design passed into modern city planning, and Flesh and Stone, an overview of the design of cities from ancient to modern times.

Another quartet of books is devoted to labor. The Hidden Injuries of Class is a study of class consciousness among working-class families in Boston; The Corrosion of Character explores how new forms of work are changing our communal and personal experience; Respect probes the relation of work and reforms of the welfare system; and The Culture of the New Capitalism provides an overview of these changes.Authority is an essay in political theory; it addresses the tools of interpretation by which we recast raw power into either legitimate or illegitimate authority.

Sennett is working on a project called 'Homo Faber,' exploring material ways of making culture. The first book in this series is The Craftsman, published in 2008; subsequent volumes are Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation, published in 2012, and Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City (2018) on the making of the urban environment.[8] [9]

In the public realm, Sennett founded, and directed for a decade, the New York Institute of the Humanities at New York University. Sennett then chaired a United Nations commission on urban development and design.[10] As president of the American Council on Work,[11] [12] [13] Sennett led a forum, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation, for researchers trying to understand the changing pattern of American labor. Most recently he helped create, and has chaired, the LSE Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. The Urban Age project also emerged as a product of the research and ideas by Sennett and others at LSE Cities. In 2006, he served as Chair of the jury of the Venice Biennale.

In 2024, Sennett published The Performer: Art, Life, Politics, which is intended as "the first in a trilogy of books on the fundamental DNA of human expression: performing, narrating, and imaging."[14] The Performer examines a wide range of human roles and interactions from nightclubs to political rallies throughout history to understand the role of performance in every human life.[15]

Personal life

Sennett has been married to sociologist Saskia Sassen since 1987.[2]

Awards

Selected works

Fiction

Literature on Richard Sennett

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Richard Sennett The Center on Capitalism and Society. capitalism.columbia.edu. en. 2018-01-29.
  2. Melissa Benn: "Inner-city scholar" in The Guardian, 3 February 2001
  3. News: Sales . Ben . 19 July 2019 . Senator's speech on 'cosmopolitan elites': Anti-Semitic dog whistle or poli-sci speak? . Jewish Telegraphic Agency . 26 July 2019 .
  4. News: Moore . Rowan . 2024-03-03 . The Performer: Art, Life, Politics by Richard Sennett review – all the world's a stage, for better or worse . 2024-03-03 . The Observer . en-GB . 0029-7712.
  5. Web site: Station . Elizabeth . Life in practice . The University of Chicago Magazine . 11 August 2011 . 14 August 2021.
  6. Web site: Past Centennial Medalists – The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences . Harvard University . 14 January 2019 . 14 August 2021.
  7. London School of Economics: "Professor Richard Sennett", retrieved 25 May 2013
  8. David Runciman: "Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation by Richard Sennett – review", in The Guardian, 3 February 2012
  9. Book: Building and Dwelling, Ethics for the City by Richard Sennett. www.penguin.co.uk. en. 2018-01-29.
  10. https://sap.mit.edu/article/standard/richard-sennett-comes-mit Richard Sennett Comes To Mit / Balzan Prize Finalist Will Relinquish Post at NYU
  11. Web site: Richard Sennett: An inferior Bill Clinton. Richard. Sennett. 11 May 2007. the Guardian. 10 July 2018.
  12. Web site: Richard Sennett – The Center on Capitalism and Society. capitalism.columbia.edu. 10 July 2018.
  13. Web site: How do architecture and society interrelate? – Ditchley Foundation. www.ditchley.co.uk. 10 July 2018.
  14. Web site: The Performer . 2024-03-03 . The Guardian Bookshop . en.
  15. News: Moore . Rowan . 2024-03-03 . The Performer: Art, Life, Politics by Richard Sennett review – all the world's a stage, for better or worse . 2024-03-03 . The Observer . en-GB . 0029-7712.
  16. LSE: "Richard Sennett wins prestigious Hegel Prize", 30 November 2006
  17. Web site: Gerda Henkel Stiftung. www.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de.
  18. Web site: Richard Sennett to receive the Heinrich Tessenow Medal. 24 August 2019.
  19. Charles Veillon Foundation: http://fondation-veillon.ch/index.php?tag/2016-richard-sennett, March 2016
  20. Web site: Record number of academics elected to British Academy British Academy. British Academy. en. 2018-07-22.

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