Notice on spontaneity and self-consciousness
Elias's early approach to leisure activities
pp. 77-94
in: Jan Haut, Paddy Dolan, Dieter Reicher, Raul Sánchez García (eds), Excitement processes, Berlin, Springer, 2018Abstract
The article addresses four different aspects related to Spontaneity. The first section discusses the problem of dating the manuscript. On the base of evidences it will be argued that Elias finished the article somewhere between the years 1963 and 1966. In the second section the content of Spontaneity will be summarised. There will be a brief discussion about the sources used by Elias. The next section section includes a discussion about the intellectual context and the influences upon Elias by writing Spontaneity. It will be argued that there are implicitly three different strains of discussions coming together in Spontaneity. First, Elias is referring heavily on Freud and the Frankfurt School writings about art and leisure productions. Second, Elias is implicitly also dealing with arguments developed by German interwar Cultural Sociology. Third, Spontaneity includes modified arguments outlined by Elias itself in the 1930s. The fourth section is discussing two remarkable theoretical innovations that Elias developed in Spontaneity.
