Elias Canetti and Social Theory: The Bond of Creation

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 Powercan, in fact, be interpreted as a study and a critiqueof the mono-dimensionality and the obsessiveness of power. In Canetti’s 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 Theoryargues 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.

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 Kärrholm, and author of The Ambiguous Multiplicities (2014) and Visibility in Social Theory and Social Research (2010).