The Anthem Companion to Henri Lefebvre
Edited by Tilman Schwarze and Matt Dawson
Reassesses Henri Lefebvre’s enduring relevance to sociology, examining themes from Marxism to urban life and proposing new directions for Lefebvrian research on rhythm, embodiment and utopian thought.
Henri Lefebvre’s work, particularly his theory of the production of space, has been remarkably influential historically within geographical research. While this extensive research has shown the continuing relevance of Lefebvre’s oeuvre for urban geographical research, Lefebvre’s contributions to sociology have been less explored. This is surprising and a missed opportunity, not least because Lefebvre’s writings on the urban, space and everyday life were fundamentally informed by and connected to his sociology. This volume responds to this lacuna in sociological engagements with Lefebvre’s work, bringing together leading scholars on Lefebvre’s sociological work who discuss elements from across his sociological oeuvre. This includes topics for which Lefebvre is well known such as space, rhythm-analysis and Marxism, through to lesser-known topics such as the rural, autogestion, the state and violence and finally to studies which push Lefebvre into new areas such as time, phenomenology and the environment. Therefore, this volume not only achieves a breadth of coverage but also provides fresh insights for those familiar with Lefebvre and new points of interest for those encountering his sociology for the first time. Our volume makes a critical addition to the long list of established and influential Anthem Companions to Sociology by adding a new volume on one of the most influential Marxist sociologists and philosophers of the twentieth century. An engagement with the work of Henri Lefebvre remains indispensable for sociology as this volume shows.
Contents
Introduction
Chapter One-The Beginnings of Lefebvre’s Career in Sociology (1940s and 1950s) - Dylan Simon
Chapter Two-Henri Lefebvre: A Sociology for Action - Simon Le Roulley
Chapter Three-The Alienated Subject and Violence in Everyday Life - James A. Tyner
Chapter Four-Henri Lefebvre’s Sociology of Time - Patrick Gamsby
Chapter Five-Henri Lefebvre’s Critical Sociology and the Question of ‘Nature’: An Ecological Perspective Against-the Accumulation Society - Francesco Biagi
Chapter Six-Lefebvrian Rhythm analysis is the Most Accessible and Concrete Materialist Ontology - Krzysztof Z. Jankowski
Chapter Seven-Survivals of the Absolute: Lefebvre on Sedimentation and Abstraction - Key MacFarlane
Chapter Eight-Space and the (Re)production of Social Difference: A Critical Phenomenological Reading of Lefebvre - Eden Kinkaid
Chapter Nine-Abstract Space and the Sociology of Abstraction - Japhy Wilson
Chapter Ten-Henri Lefebvre, Jean-Luc Nancy and an Urban Sociology of Encountering the City - Tilman Schwarze
Chapter Eleven-‘Transform the World’: The Critique of Everyday Life, Autogestion and the ‘Withering Away’ of the-State in the Sociology of Henri Lefebvre - Matt Dawson
Chapter Twelve-Henri Lefebvre’s Territorial Autogestion: Space with Time - Neil Gray
Chapter Thirteen-Lefebvre’s Utopianism: Everyday Life, Space and the Possible–Impossible - David Pinder
Index