Excitement Processes

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-IX

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2. Introduction

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 1-1

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   2. Reconstructing Elias’s Work on Leisure, Sports and the Body

      • Dieter Reicher, Jan Haut, Raúl Sánchez García, Paddy Dolan

      Pages 3-20

3. Section 1: Leisure and Culture

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. Spontaneity and Self-consciousness

      • Norbert Elias

      Pages 23-76

   3. Notice on Spontaneity and Self-consciousness: Elias’s Early Approach to Leisure Activities

      • Dieter Reicher

      Pages 77-94

   4. Civilization, Happiness and the Thinking Millipede: A Commentary on Norbert Elias’s Spontaneity and Self-consciousness

      • Helmut Kuzmics

      Pages 95-117

4. Section 2: Sportisation and ‘Modernisation’

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 119-119

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   2. Fragments on Sportisation

      • Norbert Elias

      Pages 121-136

   3. Completing Sportisation: Elias on the Diffusion and Differentiation of Sport in ‘Modern’ Society

      • Jan Haut

      Pages 137-152

   4. Elias on the Development of Modern Sport: Empirical Error, Interpretive Insight and Conceptual Clarification

      • Dominic Malcolm

      Pages 153-169

5. Section 3: Sport, Violence and State Formation

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 171-171

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   2. Boxing and Duelling

      • Norbert Elias

      Pages 173-215

   3. Boxing and Duelling: Critical Remarks on Elias on Violence and State-Formation from a Historical Perspective

      • James Sharpe

      Pages 217-233

   4. Class Relations and the Development of Boxing: Norbert Elias on Sportisation Processes in England and France

      • Paddy Dolan

      Pages 235-254

   5. Revisiting Duelling and Fencing in the Sociology of Norbert Elias

      • Raúl Sánchez García

      Pages 255-273

6. Section 4: The Body

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 275-275

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   2. The ‘Rediscovery’ of the Body

      • Norbert Elias

      Pages 277-285

   3. Elias’s Contribution to the Sociology of the Body: The Rediscovery of the Hinge

      • Michael Atkinson

      Pages 287-303

7. Conclusion

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 305-305

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The book focuses on major aspects of Norbert Elias's social theory through research on supposed “minor” topics, such as manners, sports, leisure and cultural practices. While many of his publications became essential for scholars in the different disciplines concerned, the development of the figurational approach towards these fields was not always completed. The edited volume picks up some lose ends by including archive manuscripts by Elias on the genesis of sport, developments of cultural practices, and the sociology of the body, which are published here for the very first time. Based on critical reviews of these texts, international experts show how the new material adds up to Elias’s oeuvre and how it can be fruitfully applied to current research. 

• Figurational Sociology
• Leisure
• Cultural Sociology
• Sport History
• Sociology of the Body
• Social Theory

• Goethe-University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

  Jan Haut

• Dublin Institute of Technology, Dublin, Ireland

  Paddy Dolan

• Karl-Franzens-University of Graz, Graz, Austria

  Dieter Reicher

• Universidad Europea Madrid, Madrid, Spain

  Raúl Sánchez García

Dr. Jan Haut is researcher and lecturer at the Department of Sports Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany).
Dr. Paddy Dolan is a senior lecturer in the Department of Social Sciences, Dublin Institute of Technology (Ireland).
Dr. Dieter Reicher is associated professor at the University of Graz (Austria).
Dr. Raúl Sánchez García is lecturer of Sociology of Sport at the Universidad Europea in Madrid (Spain).

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