Distributed for University College Dublin Press
Interviews and Autobiographical Reflections
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