{{Short description|American sociologist}} {{Use dmy dates|date=October 2017}} {{Infobox scientist | name = Richard Sennett | honorific_suffix = {{postnominals|country=GBR|size=100%|OBE|FBA|FRSL}} | image = Richard Sennett, re-publica 2016 (cropped).JPG | alt = | caption = Sennett in 2016 | birth_date = {{birth date and age|1943|01|01|df=yes}} | birth_place = Chicago, Illinois, US | residence = | citizenship = | nationality = | fields = Sociology | workplaces = | alma_mater = | thesis_title = | thesis_url = | thesis_year = | doctoral_advisor = | academic_advisors = David Riesman, Erik Erikson, Oscar Handlin | doctoral_students = | notable_students = | known_for = Studies of social ties in cities | awards = | signature = <!--(filename only)--> | signature_alt = | website = | footnotes = | spouse = {{marriage|Saskia Sassen|1987}} }}
'''Richard Sennett''' (born 1 January 1943) is an American sociologist who is the Centennial Professor of Sociology at the London School of Economics and former University Professor of the Humanities at New York University. He is currently a Senior Fellow of the Center on Capitalism and Society at Columbia University.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://capitalism.columbia.edu/richard-sennett-0|title=Richard Sennett {{!}} The Center on Capitalism and Society|website=capitalism.columbia.edu|language=en|access-date=2018-01-29}}</ref> Sennett has studied 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 Sciences, of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the Royal Society of Literature. He is the founding director of the New York Institute for the Humanities.
== Early life and education == Sennett grew up in the Cabrini Green housing project in Chicago,<ref name="Guardian 2001">Melissa Benn: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2001/feb/03/books.guardianreview4 "Inner-city scholar"] in ''The Guardian'', 3 February 2001</ref> to a Jewish<ref>{{cite news |last=Sales |first=Ben |date=19 July 2019 |title=Senator's speech on 'cosmopolitan elites': Anti-Semitic dog whistle or poli-sci speak? |url=https://www.jta.org/2019/07/19/united-states/a-missouri-senator-gave-a-speech-opposing-a-powerful-upper-class-and-their-cosmopolitan-priorities-um |work=Jewish Telegraphic Agency |access-date=26 July 2019 }}</ref> family of Russian emigres. As a child he trained in music, studying the cello. When a hand injury and botched operation to fix it<ref name="Moore">{{Cite news |last=Moore |first=Rowan |date=2024-03-03 |title=The Performer: Art, Life, Politics by Richard Sennett review – all the world's a stage, for better or worse |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/mar/03/the-performer-art-life-politics-by-richard-sennett-review-all-the-worlds-a-stage-for-better-or-worse |access-date=2024-03-03 |work=The Observer |language=en-GB |issn=0029-7712}}</ref> ended his musical career, he entered academia. He studied under David Riesman, Erik Erikson, and Oscar Handlin at Harvard, graduating with his Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization<ref name="The University of Chicago Magazine 2011">{{cite web |last=Station |first=Elizabeth | title=Life in practice | website=The University of Chicago Magazine | date=11 August 2011 | url=https://mag.uchicago.edu/law-policy-society/life-practice | access-date=14 August 2021}}</ref> in 1969.<ref name="Harvard University 2019">{{cite web | title=Past Centennial Medalists – The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences | website=Harvard University | date=14 January 2019 | url=https://gsas.harvard.edu/alumni-association/alumni-awards | access-date=14 August 2021}}</ref> 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.<ref>London School of Economics: [http://www2.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/academic/sennett.aspx "Professor Richard Sennett"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130908092103/http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/academic/sennett.aspx |date=8 September 2013 }}, retrieved 25 May 2013</ref>
==Career== 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 relationship between family and work in 19th-century Chicago. A subsequent quartet of books explores urban life more largely: ''The Uses of Disorder'', an essay on 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.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}
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 our communal and personal experience; ''Respect'' probes the relation of work and reforms of the welfare system; and ''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 we recast raw power into either legitimate or illegitimate authority.{{citation needed|date=September 2021}}
Sennett is working on a project called "Homo Faber", exploring material ways of making culture. The first book in this series is ''The Craftsman'' (2008); subsequent volumes are ''Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation'' (2012) and ''Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City'' (2018), on the making of the urban environment.<ref>David Runciman: [https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/03/together-politics-cooperation-richard-sennett-review "Together: The Rituals, Pleasures and Politics of Co-operation by Richard Sennett – review"], in ''The Guardian'', 3 February 2012</ref><ref>{{Cite book|url=https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/55383/building-and-dwelling/|title=Building and Dwelling, Ethics for the City by Richard Sennett|via=www.penguin.co.uk|language=en|access-date=2018-01-29}}</ref>
In the public realm, Sennett founded, and for a decade directed, the New York Institute of the Humanities at New York University. He then chaired a United Nations commission on urban development and design.<ref>[https://sap.mit.edu/article/standard/richard-sennett-comes-mit Richard Sennett Comes To Mit / Balzan Prize Finalist Will Relinquish Post at NYU] – PLAN issue 62 published Oct, 2005</ref> As president of the American Council on Work,<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/may/12/comment.politics1|title=Richard Sennett: An inferior Bill Clinton|first=Richard|last=Sennett|date=11 May 2007|website=The Guardian|access-date=10 July 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://capitalism.columbia.edu/richard-sennett-0|title=Richard Sennett – The Center on Capitalism and Society|website=capitalism.columbia.edu|access-date=10 July 2018}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.ditchley.co.uk/conferences/past-programme/2000-2009/2009/architecture|title=How do architecture and society interrelate? – Ditchley Foundation|website=www.ditchley.co.uk|access-date=10 July 2018}}</ref> 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 chaired, the LSE Cities Programme at the London School of Economics. The Urban Age project also emerged as a product of the research and ideas by Sennett and others at LSE Cities. In 2006, he chaired the jury at the Venice Biennale.
In 2024, Sennett published ''The Performer: Art, Life, Politics,'' which is intended as "the first in a trilogy of books on the fundamental DNA of human expression: performing, narrating, and imaging."<ref>{{Cite web |title=The Performer |url=https://guardianbookshop.com/the-performer-9780241637647 |access-date=2024-03-03 |website=The Guardian Bookshop |language=en}}</ref> ''The Performer'' examines a wide range of human roles and interactions from nightclubs to political rallies throughout history to understand the role of performance in every human life.<ref name="Moore"/>
==Personal life== Sennett has been married to sociologist Saskia Sassen since 1987.<ref name="Guardian 2001"/>
==Awards== * 1999 – elected Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature<ref>{{Cite web |date=2023-09-01 |title=Sennett, Richard |url=https://rsliterature.org/fellows/richard-sennett/,%20https://rsliterature.org/fellows/richard-sennett/ |access-date=2025-06-27 |website=Royal Society of Literature |language=en-GB}}</ref> * 2006 – winner of the Hegel Prize awarded by the German city of Stuttgart,<ref>LSE: [http://www2.lse.ac.uk/newsAndMedia/news/archives/2006/RichardSennett_HegelPrize.aspx "Richard Sennett wins prestigious Hegel Prize"], 30 November 2006</ref> * 2008 – awarded the Gerda Henkel Prize, worth 100,000 Euros, by the Gerda Henkel Foundation of Düsseldorf, Germany,<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/index.php|title=Gerda Henkel Stiftung|website=www.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de}}</ref> * 2009 – awarded the Heinrich Tessenow Medal, an honour which, until then, had been reserved for architects and designers.<ref>{{cite web|title=Richard Sennett to receive the Heinrich Tessenow Medal|url=http://www.lse.ac.uk/website-archive/newsAndMedia/newsArchives/archives/2009/tessenowmedal.aspx?from_serp=1|access-date=24 August 2019}}</ref> *2013 awarded Honorary Doctorate Cambridge University * 2015 – awarded Premio Hemingway * 2016 – received the Prix Européen de l'Essai awarded by the Charles Veillon Foundation in Lausanne.<ref>Charles Veillon Foundation: [https://fondation-veillon.ch/index.php?tag/2016-richard-sennett], March 2016</ref> *2017 received the Presidential Medal of HarvardUniversity * 2018 – appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to design in the 2018 New Year Honours * 2018 – elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.britac.ac.uk/news/record-number-academics-elected-british-academy|title=Record number of academics elected to British Academy {{!}} British Academy|website=British Academy|language=en|access-date=2018-07-22}}</ref>
== Selected works == *''Nineteenth Century Cities: Essays in the New Urban History'', coauthor, Yale (1969) *''Classic Essays on the Culture of Cities'', editor (1969), {{ISBN|0-13-135194-X}} *''The Uses of Disorder: Personal Identity and City Life'' (1970), {{ISBN|0-393-30909-6}} *''Families Against the City: Middle Class Homes of Industrial Chicago, 1872–1890'', Harvard (1970), {{ISBN|0-674-29226-X}} *''The Hidden Injuries of Class'', with Jonathan Cobb, Knopf (1972), {{ISBN|0-393-31085-X}} *''The Fall of Public Man'', Knopf (1977), {{ISBN|0-14-100757-5}} *''Authority'' (1980), {{ISBN|0-571-16189-8}} *''The Conscience of the Eye: The design and social life of cities'', Faber and Faber (1991), {{ISBN|0-393-30878-2}} *''Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City In Western Civilization'', Norton (1994), {{ISBN|0-393-31391-3}} *''The Corrosion of Character, The Personal Consequences of Work in the New Capitalism'', Norton (1998), {{ISBN|0-393-31987-3}} *''Respect in a World of Inequality'', Penguin (2003), {{ISBN|0-393-32537-7}} *''The Culture of the New Capitalism'', Yale (2006), {{ISBN|0-300-11992-5}} *''The Craftsman'', Allen Lane (2008), {{ISBN|978-0-7139-9873-3}} *''The Foreigner: Two Essays on Exile'', Notting Hill (2011), {{ISBN|1-907903-08-9}} *''Together: The Rituals, Pleasures, and Politics of Cooperation'', Yale (2012), {{ISBN|0-300-11633-0}} *''Building and Dwelling: Ethics for the City'', Farrar, Straus and Giroux (2018), {{ISBN|978-0-374-20033-6}} *''The Quito Papers and the New Urban Agenda'', Routledge (2018), {{ISBN|978-0-8153-7929-4}} *''The Performer: Art, Life, Politics'', Penguin (2024), {{ISBN|978-0-2416-3764-7}}
'''Fiction''' *''The Frog Who Dared to Croak'' (1982), {{ISBN|0-374-15884-3}} *''An Evening of Brahms'' (1984) *''Palais-Royal'' (1986), {{ISBN|0-393-31251-8}}
'''Literature on Richard Sennett''' *''Dominik Skala: Urbanität als Humanität. Anthropologie und Sozialethik im Stadtdenken Richard Sennetts''. Paderborn: Schoeningh (2015), {{ISBN|978-3-506-78394-3}} * ''Igor Pelgreffi'': "Soggetto, tecnica, scrittura. Su ''How I write: Sociology as Literature'' di Richard Sennett ", in M. Iofrida (Eds) Officine Filosofiche, 2, Mucchi, Modena 2015, pp. 95–108 {{ISBN|978-88-7000-653-7}} * ''Igor Pelgreffi'': "Qualità artigianale del lavoro. Elementi per un'antropologia filosofica in Richard Sennett", in M. Iofrida (Eds) Officine Filosofiche, 3, Mucchi, Modena 2016, pp. 95–108 {{ISBN|978-88-7000-707-7}}
==References== {{reflist}}
== External links == * {{Official website|https://www.richardsennett.com}} *[http://www2.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/academic/sennett.aspx LSE faculty profile] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130908092103/http://www.lse.ac.uk/sociology/whoswho/academic/sennett.aspx |date=8 September 2013 }} *[https://www.theguardian.com/saturday_review/story/0,3605,432557,00.html ''Guardian'': Richard Sennett] *[http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/article/519/ Article (09/2005)] *[https://mondediplo.com/2001/02/16cities Article (02/2001)] *[https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2006/jan/14/politicsphilosophyandsociety.books Interview (01/2006)] *[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20060118.shtml BBC (01/2006)] *[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2007/aug/21/highereducation.uk1 Guantánamo in Germany] (with Saskia Sassen) in The Guardian, 21 August 2007 (concerning arrest of German sociologist Andrej Holm suspected of links to the Militante gruppe (mg)) *[http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/thinkingallowed/thinkingallowed_20080206.shtml Discussion on Craft and skills] *[https://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/06/books/review/Hyde-t.html?_r=1&8bu&emc=bua2&oref=slogin New York Times Book Review (6 April 2008)] * [https://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1130356 Interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 3 and 24 April 2009 (video)] *[http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/documentaries/2009/08/090817_forum_160809.shtml Audio: Richard Sennett in conversation on the BBC World Service discussion show] ''The Forum'' * Richard Sennett, [https://wilfingarchitettura.blogspot.it/2013/01/richard-sennett-no-one-likes-city-thats.html No one likes a city that's too smart], 4 December 2012 * Audio: [http://www.lisa.gerda-henkel-stiftung.de/content.php?nav_id=4434&language=en ''We have lost the balance between cooperation and competition''], L.I.S.A.interview 12 July 2012
{{Authority control}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Sennett, Richard}} Category:1943 births Category:Academics of the London School of Economics Category:American people of Russian-Jewish descent Category:American sociologists Category:Jewish American sociologists Category:Fellows of the Royal Society of Literature Category:Officers of the Order of the British Empire Category:Living people Category:Jewish American philosophers Category:Urban sociologists Category:Urban theorists Category:New York University faculty Category:Family sociologists Category:Harvard University alumni Category:Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences fellows Category:Honorary Fellows of the London School of Economics Category:American philosophers of technology Category:Fellows of the British Academy Category:21st-century American Jews