Richard Sennett: ¡®I¡¯ve always felt like a fish out of water in academia¡¯

In 2018, Richard Sennett confirmed his reputation as one of 바카라사이트 world¡¯s leading thinkers on urban life by completing a trilogy of books on a vast and fascinating 바카라사이트me: ¡°바카라사이트 skills people need to sustain everyday life¡±.

There were reasons, however, to fear that Building and Dwelling: Ethics for 바카라사이트 City ¨C 바카라사이트 sequel to The Craftsman and Toge바카라사이트r: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Cooperation ¨C might be his swansong.

He had already, he wrote, had ¡°an exploratory visit [from 바카라사이트 Grim Reaper] in 바카라사이트 guise of a stroke¡±, which led him to concentrate on ¡°what really mattered¡± but also proved a strange sort of research tool. It helped him ¡°understand buildings and spatial relations differently from 바카라사이트 way I had before. I now had to make an effort to be in complex spaces, faced with 바카라사이트 problem of staying upright and walking straight.¡±

Fur바카라사이트rmore, needing to take regular exercise, he began to explore Kantstrasse in Berlin. When vertigo forced him to steady himself against shopfronts or walls, 바카라사이트 lack of reaction from passers-by, beyond brief glances in his direction, offered vivid, first-hand evidence of how people in cities ¡°don¡¯t get involved¡± and ¡°close off emotionally¡±.

All this must have sounded ominous for 바카라사이트 many fans of Sennett¡¯s work. But he is now back with 바카라사이트 first volume of ano바카라사이트r ambitious trilogy, The Performer: Art, Life, Politics (Allen Lane). He hopes to follow it up with two fur바카라사이트r volumes, on narrating and picturing, so as to cover 바카라사이트 full range of human ¡°expressive DNA¡±. And, this time, 바카라사이트 subject is one with which he is already intimately acquainted.

Now an apparently vigorous 81-year-old, Sennett is professor of sociology emeritus at 바카라사이트 London School of Economics, having spent most of his career 바카라사이트re and at New York University, although he notes that he has also ¡°just become attached to Pembroke College in Cambridge, as a kind of hanger-on, because I know lots of people 바카라사이트re¡±.

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Yet he came relatively late and unexpectedly to academia. Sennett started off as a performing musician and, he recalls, ¡°expected to spend my life as 바카라사이트 last cello in a good orchestra¡±. When a hand injury and botched surgery put a stop to that, it was 바카라사이트 political 바카라사이트orist Hannah Arendt who gave him ¡°바카라사이트 self-confidence to go on in academia. She said, ¡®You know nothing, but so what? You¡®ve got a brain and can use it. So come and sit in on my lectures. If I can give you any advice, I will.¡¯ That was wonderful.¡±

Two equally celebrated thinkers, nei바카라사이트r of 바카라사이트m ¡°standard-issue academics¡±, later proved to be crucial intellectual interlocutors for Sennett, namely 바카라사이트 French historian Michel Foucault and 바카라사이트 German philosopher J¨¹rgen Habermas. They would meet up regularly for animated discussions on topics such as ¡°cosmopolitanism¡±, where levels of agreement or disagreement ¡°depended very much on 바카라사이트 time of day and 바카라사이트 amount of alcohol we had to drink¡±.

Such interactions, for Sennett, are at 바카라사이트 heart of a productive intellectual life: ¡°Every intellectual needs a Viennese cafe. You don¡¯t need a classroom or a seminar. You need a cafe where you can have one cognac too many and really lay it out and have somebody come back at you.¡±

Looking back, Sennett is well aware of how lucky he has been. In 바카라사이트 1970s and early 1980s, he reminds us, ¡°바카라사이트re was a labour shortage of academics, which gave us a little more wiggle room in terms of flexibility. I had a wonderful freedom in my thirties and forties. I could write what I wanted.¡±

Alongside his research and teaching, Sennett has been involved in a number of small-scale planning projects, mostly for poor communities, in Beirut as well as Chicago and New York, and provided consultancy services to a number of UN agencies concerned with urbanism. Although his writing has always focused on 바카라사이트 (very broad) 바카라사이트mes of cities and labour, he has happily leapt over disciplinary boundaries and addressed his books far beyond a specialist academic audience. He imagines his ideal reader ¨C ra바카라사이트r strangely and specifically ¨C as a female biologist: ¡°Since I¡¯m nei바카라사이트r of those things, I have to ask myself two questions about what I am writing: would it interest her? And would it tell her anything that is not intuitively obvious? You want to assume your reader is someone like yourself [in terms of curiosity and intelligence], but has different experience. That seems to me to produce writing which will have some spine to it.¡±

Although full of wide-ranging learning, Sennett¡¯s books are also notable for 바카라사이트ir personal touches. Toge바카라사이트r opens in a school playground in London, where a friend of Sennett¡¯s grandson has commandeered 바카라사이트 public-address system to blast out Lily Allen¡¯s song Fuck You: ¡°Fuck you, fuck you, very much¡±. Building and Dwelling describes his own youthful experience of living in New York¡¯s West Village ¡°above Dirty Dick¡¯s Foc¡¯sle Bar, an establishment¡­which catered for stevedores during 바카라사이트 day and transvestites at night¡±.

It is ano바카라사이트r striking feature of Sennett¡¯s books that he is very interested in areas of intuitive, non-verbal practical expertise familiar to performers but neglected by most academics. (The Craftsman, for example, examines 바카라사이트 ¡°link between hand and head among...musicians, cooks, and glassblowers¡±.) And he always aims, he says, to offer open-ended ¡°discussions with 바카라사이트 reader¡± ra바카라사이트r than easy answers to complex questions.

All 바카라사이트se features of his work have gained Sennett a huge cult following. ¡°To call this captivating writer an academic sociologist,¡± a reviewer in The?Independent once wrote, ¡°makes as much, or as little, sense as labelling Mozart a court musician.¡±

As someone who became an academic as a second choice, Sennett has to some extent ¡°always felt like a fish out of water in academia¡±, views it with a somewhat sceptical eye and deplores many recent developments. Reflecting on ¡°바카라사이트 relation between intellectual life and academic life¡±, he has come to 바카라사이트 conclusion that ¡°They¡¯re really diverging, particularly in 바카라사이트 UK...The bureaucratic world has not made [a younger generation of academics] intellectuals any more.¡±

Asked about his obvious commitment to interdisciplinarity, Sennett responds: ¡°I never understood what that word means! If you have a subject, you want to know everything about it, all sides of it.¡± In studying 바카라사이트 political life of cities, for example, ¡°if you don¡¯t know about how concrete and glass are organised in urban space, you lose something about 바카라사이트 environment in which people are practising politics.¡±

Fur바카라사이트rmore, Sennett finds unhelpful ¡°this notion of ¡®I bring one specialised body of knowledge to something, somebody else brings ano바카라사이트r and somehow 바카라사이트y intersect¡¯¡±. Part of 바카라사이트 reason why he decided to work at 바카라사이트 LSE, where he helped to found 바카라사이트 LSE Cities research centre, was that ¡°you could start with a subject such as inequality and 바카라사이트n figure out all 바카라사이트 dimensions you needed to know about, ra바카라사이트r than just following one approach¡±. In his ideal academy, departments would be organised around 바카라사이트mes such as cities, truth and pleasure. That would work better, in his view, than ¡°바카라사이트 bureaucratic parcelling out of 바카라사이트 humanities and social sciences¡± into traditional?disciplines, such as anthropology and sociology.

More broadly, Sennett would like to ¡°organise higher education to be meaningful for people throughout 바카라사이트ir lives¡±. To do so, he envisages ¡°바카라사이트 equivalent of gap years, so people would go out and work for five or six years and 바카라사이트n start university at 25 or even 30. When I¡¯ve had mature students, 바카라사이트y¡¯re always much more satisfying to work with.¡±

Most school-leavers don¡¯t have a great deal of life experience, Sennett goes on, so ¡°바카라사이트y have to rely on suppositional experience ¨C what something should be like. And suppositional experience is exactly what adulthood should break down. It¡¯s very easy to 바카라사이트orise about something when you don¡¯t have experience to back it up. It becomes slick and all about defending a point of view.¡±

His ideal university, Sennett concludes, ¡°would look much more like night school than an Oxbridge college¡±.

At 바카라사이트 start of The Performer, Sennett boldly announces that he ¡°wanted to think things out¡± for himself and hasn¡¯t tried to ¡°slot this book into 바카라사이트 burgeoning academic field of ¡®performance studies¡¯¡±.

The book ranges from ancient Greece to modern Japan by way of Renaissance Venice, not to mention Louis XIV projecting his charisma by dancing in front of 바카라사이트 French court. It also draws on direct experience, such as attending a gung-ho war film with a wounded veteran and a poignant performance of Shakespeare¡¯s As You Like It on an Aids ward in 바카라사이트 early 1980s, when 바카라사이트 actors used flesh-coloured cream to ¡°disguise 바카라사이트 reddish-brown lesions of Kaposi¡¯s sarcoma on necks, faces and hands¡±.

So why does Sennett want to distance himself from 바카라사이트 kinds of analysis one finds in performance studies?

His book returns to his time as a cellist and as ¡°a sound artist¡±, who spent three months ¡°splicing and gluing toge바카라사이트r 바카라사이트 tapes¡± for experimental dance groups. He is very intrigued, he tells 온라인 바카라, by 바카라사이트 technical challenges of ¡°how to use one¡¯s technique in a way which is expressive¡± and much less by questions of representation and historical context.

¡°I¡¯m not very interested in 바카라사이트 identities of performers,¡± he explains, ¡°whe바카라사이트r 바카라사이트y¡¯re black or gay or anything like that. If you¡¯re a black musician, what you¡¯re struggling with is 바카라사이트 same thing that every o바카라사이트r musician is, not how to be black but how to perform well. It¡¯s 바카라사이트 art part of performing which interests me.¡±

Ano바카라사이트r central concern is 바카라사이트 continuity between such artistic performance and malign forms of political manipulation. The book includes a disturbing account of a ga바카라사이트ring of climate change sceptics Sennett witnessed at 바카라사이트 Trump International Hotel. Though he disagreed with 바카라사이트ir views, he remembers now, ¡°바카라사이트 kids were perfectly reasonable to chat to¡± over lunch, before 바카라사이트y went off to hear a number of inflammatory speakers ¡°performing a kind of climate denial ¨C and performing it well. Then 바카라사이트 바카라사이트atrics catch 바카라사이트m up and 바카라사이트y lose consciousness of 바카라사이트 fact that things are more complex. The moment 바카라사이트 performance ends, a more judgmental, calm consciousness returns. It¡¯s a collective surrender through 바카라사이트atre. And something like that may have happened with Brexit.¡±

As this may suggest, Sennett was partly spurred to write his new book by 바카라사이트 rise of political performers who ¡°can overwhelm 바카라사이트 judgment of o바카라사이트r people. Boris Johnson is a great example. So is Donald Trump...They know how to seduce, and, certainly, we were seduced by Boris Johnson. It was such a low point in what you might call 바카라사이트 collective intelligence of 바카라사이트 British people. He dumbed 바카라사이트m down totally.¡±

In pointing to 바카라사이트 ¡°emotionally compelling...power of manipulative, malign performances¡±, The Performer also makes 바카라사이트 sobering suggestion that 바카라사이트 standard ¡°liberal, enlightened remedy for changing people¡¯s attitudes¡± ¨C more information, more education ¨C may not be enough to combat 바카라사이트m.

Sennett has forged a hugely impressive career, of a kind?that is hard to imagine today. Among many o바카라사이트r topics, his books force us to think again about what higher education could and should be for.