The Fall of Public Man

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Smith D., 1990, The Conceptual Practices of Power. A Feminist Sociology of Knowledge , Boston, Northeastern University Press.

Ginzburg C., 1980, « Signes, traces, pistes. Racines d’un paradigme de l’indice », Le Débat, 6, pp. 3-44. Furthermore, Sennett describes how interacting with others on an impersonal basis can lead to people becoming expressive and open, whereas when people come to need to interact on the basis of a personal connection, sectarianism and closed mindedness often result, as personal connections usually imply connections with the like minded. To demonstrate this, several sections of the book are devoted to comparing public life in London and Paris at different points in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Sennett favorably points to practices that existed to build an impersonal public sphere, such as forms of dress that drew attention from personal characteristics, that he claims lead to greater sociability than social practices that depend on emotional interconnectedness.He discusses the complexity and arbitrary nature of signifying acts and displays from contemporary and Victorian times, and how these may lead to neuroses in so many members of society who may attempt to live up to those codes. To say nothing of the damage to those who don't know, or understand, the code by which others are making these judgments. At this point he took a break from sociology, composing three novels: The Frog who Dared to Croak [1982], An Evening of Brahms [1984] and Palais Royal [1987]. He then returned to urban studies with two books, The Conscience of the Eye, [1990], a work focusing on urban design, and Flesh and Stone [1992], a general historical study of how bodily experience has been shaped by the evolution of cities.

A sweeping, farsighted study of the changing nature of public culture and urban society, The Fall of Public Man spans more than two centuries of Western sociopolitical evolution and investigates the causes of our declining involvement in political life. Richard Sennett’s insights into the danger of the cult of individualism remain thoroughly relevant to our world today. In a new epilogue, he extends his analysis to the new “public” realm of social media, questioning how public culture has fared since the digital revolution. The Fall of Public Man by Richard Sennett – eBook Details Gordon D., 1994, Citizens without Sovereignty. Equality and Sociability in French Thought (1670-1789) , Princeton, Princeton University PressPlusieurs comptes rendus notent avec ironie que les réflexions de R. Sennett reflètent son propre m (...)

Richard has the most astonishing ability to re-invent himself. He must be in about his fifth life by now," says the writer and old friend Marina Warner. However, on his private life, Sennett is guarded to a point of gracious stubbornness. He first married in 1968, the marriage being annulled later that year. He says only "I married very young and I divorced young." He was married again between 1974-78. He is more forthcoming on his present marriage to Saskia Sassen, 53, a formidable academic in her own right whom he met in New York in the early 80s and to whom he has been married for 14 years. Sassen, a specialist on the global economy, holds chairs in sociology at the University of Chicago and in political economy at the LSE. Sennett says "Saskia and I write about many of the same things. People imagine our pillow talk is all about the global economy. Well it isn't, well not much." Richard Rogers describes the couple as a "very interesting twosome, overlapping in their interests, but specialising in different areas. They are a powerhouse, but a very nice, humanist powerhouse." Castel R., 2010, « Individu par excès, individu par défaut », pp. 293-305, in : Le Bart C., Corcuff P., Singly F. de, dirs, L’Individu aujourd’hui : Débats sociologiques et contrepoints philosophiques, Rennes, Presses universitaires de Rennes. Accès : https://doi.org/10.4000/books.pur.13657 . The obsession with persons at the expense of more impersonal social relations is like a filter which discolors our rational understanding of society; it obscures the continuing importance of class in advanced industrial society; *it leads us to believe community is an act of mutual self-disclosure and to undervalue the community relations of strangers, particularly those which occur in cities.* Licoppe C., 2013, « Formes de la présence et circulations de l’expérience », Réseaux. Communication, technologie, société, 182, pp. 21-55. The Sennetts lived in two rooms with a bath, but were to some extent isolated from the wider "screaming, laughing, wailing, shouting life" of the housing projects. Playing the cello at six and composing at eight, living in a flat filled with books, the serious young boy could see a way out. "We had a tough time financially, but in the bohemian, radical milieu in which we lived, we were just another family," he says. "It had a curious class composition, this world. Most were Jewish, but it was a cultural milieu, not an ethnic one."Pour une analyse de la figure prétendument authentique de D. Trump comme processus de « dé-figurati (...)