Richard Sennett is the Centennial
ProfessorA professor is a scholarly teacher; the precise meaning of the term varies by country. Literally, professor derives from Latin as a "person who professes" being usually an expert in arts or sciences; a teacher of high rank...
of
SociologySociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
at the
London School of EconomicsThe London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
and University Professor of the
HumanitiesThe humanities are academic disciplines that study the human condition, using methods that are primarily analytical, critical, or speculative, as distinguished from the mainly empirical approaches of the natural sciences....
at
New York UniversityNew York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
. Sennett is probably best known for his studies of 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 SciencesThe Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences is an American interdisciplinary research body in Stanford, California focusing on the social sciences and humanities . Fellows are elected in a closed process, to spend a period of residence at the Center, released from other duties...
, of the
American Academy of Arts and SciencesThe American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an independent policy research center that conducts multidisciplinary studies of complex and emerging problems. The Academy’s elected members are leaders in the academic disciplines, the arts, business, and public affairs.James Bowdoin, John Adams, and...
, and of the
Royal Society of LiteratureThe Royal Society of Literature is the "senior literary organisation in Britain". It was founded in 1820 by George IV, in order to "reward literary merit and excite literary talent". The Society's first president was Thomas Burgess, who later became the Bishop of Salisbury...
. He is the founding director of the
New York Institute for the HumanitiesThe New York Institute for the Humanities is an academic organisation affiliated with New York University, founded by Richard Sennett in 1976 to promote the exchange of ideas between academics, professionals and the general public. The NYIH regularly holds seminars open to the public, as well as...
. In 2006 Sennett was the winner of the Hegel Prize awarded by the German city of
StuttgartStuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....
, and in 2008 was awarded the Gerda Henkel Prize, worth 100,000 Euros, by the Gerda Henkel Foundation of
DüsseldorfDüsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...
,
GermanyGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
.
He is married to sociologist
Saskia SassenSaskia Sassen is a Dutch sociologist noted for her analyses of globalization and international human migration. She is currently Robert S. Lynd Professor of Sociology at Columbia University and Centennial visiting Professor at the London School of Economics. Sassen coined the term global city...
.
Brief Biography
Richard Sennett grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago, coming from a family of Russian emigres. As a child he trained in music, studying the cello and conducting, working with Claus Adam of the
Juilliard String QuartetThe Juilliard String Quartet is a classical music string quartet founded in 1946 at the Juilliard School in New York. The original members were violinists Robert Mann and Robert Koff, violist Raphael Hillyer, and cellist Arthur Winograd; Current members are Joseph Lin and Ronald Copes violinists,...
and the conductor
Pierre MonteuxPierre Monteux was an orchestra conductor. Born in Paris, France, Monteux later became an American citizen.-Life and career:Monteux was born in Paris in 1875. His family was descended from Sephardi Jews who came to France in the wake of the Spanish Inquisition. He studied violin from an early age,...
. When a hand injury put an end to his musical career, he entered academic life. He trained with
David RiesmanDavid Riesman , was a sociologist, attorney, and educator....
,
Erik EriksonErik Erikson was a Danish-German-American developmental psychologist and psychoanalyst known for his theory on social development of human beings. He may be most famous for coining the phrase identity crisis. His son, Kai T...
, and
Oscar HandlinOscar Handlin was an American historian. As a professor of history at Harvard University for over 50 years, he directed 80 PhD dissertations and helped promote social and ethnic history...
at Harvard, graduating with his Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization in 1969. 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.
Mr. 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 relation between family and work in 19th Century Chicago. A subsequent quartet of books explores urban life more largely:
The Uses of Disorder, an essay about 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 people's communal and personal experience;
Respect probes the relation of work and reforms of the welfare system.
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 people recast raw power into either legitimate or illegitimate authority.
Mr. Sennett currently 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, to be published in 2012, and a future volume on the making of the urban environment.
In the public realm, Mr. Sennett founded, and directed for a decade, the New York Institute of the Humanities at New York University. Mr. Sennett then chaired a United Nations commission on urban development and design. As president of the
American Council on Work, Mr. 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 Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. In 2006 he served as Chair of the jury of the Venice Biennale.
Mr. Sennett's literary "hobby" is writing about music, including novels with musical themes.
Selected works
- Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation, Yale (2012), ISBN 0300116330
- The Foreigner: Two Essays on Exile, Notting Hill (2011), ISBN 1907903089
- The Craftsman, Allen Lane (2008), ISBN 978-0713998733
- The Culture of the New Capitalism
The Culture of the New Capitalism is a book on the current economic situation by Richard Sennett which covers politics, economics, sociology and psychology.-Chapters:*"Bureaucracy"*"Talent and the Specter of Uselessness"*"Consuming Politics"...
, Yale (2006), ISBN 0300119925
- Respect in a World of Inequality, Penguin (2003), ISBN 0393325377
- The Corrosion of Character, The Personal Consequences Of Work In the New Capitalism, Norton (1998), ISBN 0393319873
- Flesh and Stone: The Body And The City In Western Civilization, Norton (1994), ISBN 0393313913
- The Conscience of the Eye: The design and social life of cities, Faber and Faber (1991), ISBN 0393308782
- Authority (1980), ISBN 0571161898
- The Fall of Public Man, Knopf (1977), ISBN 0141007575
- The Hidden Injuries of Class, with Jonathan Cobb, Knopf (1972), ISBN 039331085X
- The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity & City Life (1970), ISBN 0393309096
- Families Against the City: Middle Class Homes of Industrial Chicago, 1872-1890, Harvard (1970), ISBN 067429226X
- Classic Essays On The Culture Of Cities, editor (1969), ISBN 013135194X
- Nineteenth Century Cities: Essays In The New Urban History, coauthor, Yale (1969)
Fiction
- Palais-Royal (1986), ISBN 0393312518
- An Evening of Brahms (1984)
- The Frog Who Dared to Croak (1982), ISBN 0374158843
External links