Elias Canetti and Social Theory: The Bond of Creation

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Elias Canetti is a key thinker in the trend towards the renewal of social theory for the 21st century. He is increasingly being recognised in the social and political sciences for the seminal text, Crowds and Power (1960). While this work can sometimes be criticised for its alleged anti-historicity, anti-modernism, fixation on death, and a dark vision of humankind, Crowds and Power can, in fact, be interpreted as a study and a critique of the mono-dimensionality and the obsessiveness of power. In Canettis own words, it is an attempt to find the weak spot of power and, ultimately, an invitation to recognise and explore the endless richness of human transformations. Elias Canetti and Social Theory argues that the alleged anti-modernism of Canetti actually makes him more contemporary than many contemporary social-political thinkers. It deals with key concepts within socio-political theory including: commands, increase, resistance, and commonality. Each of these ideas is connected with real, lived social realities making this book a compelling argument for Canetti's crucial relevance today.

Reviews

In this commanding and demanding book, Andrea Brighenti prolongs Elias Canettis dark reflections on the human condition in brutal times with a wide-ranging study of the elementary forms of power, command and crowds. Canetti is only a pre-text to return to Freud, Durkheim, Tarde and Deleuze to prepare the ground for new forms of collective resistance and individual survival in the twenty-first century. * Frederic Vandenberghe, Professor of Sociology, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil *
This deeply original book offers a most fascinatingaccount of Elias Canettis relevance for contemporary social theory. Brighenti brilliantly shows that, though Canetti is widely disregarded by social theorists, this is undeserved, as his work offers a fresh perspective on power, resistance, and the social bond. A truly important intervention. * Christian Borch, Professor of Sociology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark *
This book is an original and thought-provoking interpretation of Canetti, and a significant addition to the far too scarce attempts at a theoretical reading of his work. * Johann P. Arnason, Emeritus professor of sociology, La Trobe University, Australia *

Author Bio

Andrea Mubi Brighenti is Professor of Social Theory and Space & Culture at the Department of Sociology, University of Trento, Italy. He is co-author of Animated Lands: Studies in Territoriology (2020), with Mattias Krrholm, and author of The Ambiguous Multiplicities (2014) and Visibility in Social Theory and Social Research (2010).