Richard Sennett

Introducing Richard Sennett

Richard Sennett writes about cities, labor, and culture. He teaches sociology at New York University and at the London School of Economics.

Richard Sennett This website gives you information about his published books and articles; it provides a gallery of images which supplement his writings on cities; it contains a full c.v.; you will also find contact information. The photo at the right can be down-loaded from the "image gallery" section of the website.

Recent work

Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation

Living with people who differ—racially, ethnically, religiously, or economically—is the most urgent challenge facing civil society today. We tend socially to avoid engaging with people unlike ourselves, and modern politics encourages the politics of the tribe rather than of the city. In this thought-provoking book, Richard Sennett discusses why this has happened and what might be done about it.

The Craftsman

The Craftsman names a basic human impulse: the desire to do a job well for its own sake. Although the word may suggest a way of life that waned with the advent of industrial society, Sennett argues that the craftsman’s realm is far broader than skilled manual labor; the computer programmer, the doctor, the parent, and the citizen need to learn the values of good craftsmanship today.

Practicing Culture

The essays in Practicing Culture seek to revitalize the field of cultural sociology. They show how to put theoretical sources to work in empirical research. Culture is a set of practices rather than static representations; culture is made and remade in countless small ways and occasional bursts of innovation. Culture is something people do.

The Culture of the New Capitalism

In The Culture of the New Capitalism, Richard Sennett surveys the major differences between earlier forms of industrial capitalism and the more global, more febrile, ever more mutable version of capitalism that is taking its place.

The Foreigner

In this pair of essays Richard Sennett visits two of the world's greatest cities at crucial moments in their history to meditate on the condition of exile in both geographical and psychic space: the Jewish Ghetto of Renaissance Venice, where state-imposed outsiderdom was translated into a rich community identity; and nineteenth-century Paris, a magnet for political exiles, where the experience of displacement seeped into the city's culture at large.

Respect, In an Age of Inequality

In the uncertain world of “flexible” social relationships, all are troubled by issues of respect: whether it be an employee stuck with insensitive management, a social worker trying to aid a resentful client, or a virtuoso artist and an accompanist aiming for a perfect duet.

RichardSennett.com

Home: Richard Sennet

Introducing Richard Sennett

Richard Sennett writes about cities, labor, and culture. He teaches sociology at New York University and at the London School of Economics.

Recent News

Richard Sennett and Saskia Sassen are serving as guest editors for the week of February 7, 2011 at openDemocracy.net.

Richard Sennett was awarded the Gambrinus "Giuseppe Mazzotti" Literary Prize in November 2010. For more information, please click here.

Richard Sennett discussed his works on civic space in relation to the city with a panel of architects, academics, and policy analysts at a recent London School of Economics conference. For more information, please click here.

Richard Sennett was awarded an honorary degree from the University of Cambridge in June 2010. For more information, please click here.

Richard Sennett has been awarded the Spinoza Prize for 2010. For more information, please click here