ABSTRACT

The Routledge International Handbook of Simmel Studies documents the richness, variety, and creativity of contemporary international research on Georg Simmel’s work. Starting with the established role of Simmel as a classical author of sociology, and including the growing interest in his work in the domain of philosophy, this volume explores the research on Simmel in several further disciplines including art, social aesthetics, literature, theatre, essayism, and critical theory, as well as in the debates on cosmopolitanism, economic pathologies of life, freedom, modernity, religion, and nationalism. Bringing together contributions from leading specialists in research on Simmel, the book is thematically arranged in order to highlight the relevance of his oeuvre for different fields of recent research, with a further section tracing the most important paths that Simmel’s reception has taken in the world. As such, it will appeal to scholars across the social sciences and humanities, and to sociologists, philosophers, and social theorists in particular, with interest in Simmel’s thought.

chapter |14 pages

General introduction

part I|15 pages

Biography

chapter 1|13 pages

Simmel’s life

An unexplored continent

part II|60 pages

Sociology

chapter 3|14 pages

Relations, forms, and the representation of the social life

Georg Simmel and the challenge of relational sociology as Lebenssoziologie

chapter 4|18 pages

Boundaries as relations

Georg Simmel’s relational theory of boundaries

part III|61 pages

Philosophy

chapter 6|18 pages

Relativism

A theoretical and practical philosophical programme

chapter 7|11 pages

The art of complicating things

part IV|57 pages

Art and aesthetics

chapter 11|14 pages

Social aesthetics

chapter 12|12 pages

Philosophy of art

chapter 13|14 pages

Framing, painting, seeing

Simmel’s Rembrandt and the sense of modernity

part V|37 pages

Literature and theatre

chapter 16|9 pages

Simmel

The actor and his roles

part VI|27 pages

Essayism and critical theory

part VII|73 pages

Topics of debate

chapter 19|18 pages

Freedom

An open debate

chapter 21|11 pages

Georg Simmel

War, nation, and Europe

chapter 22|11 pages

Simmel’s cosmopolitanism

chapter 23|14 pages

Economic pathologies of life

part VIII|45 pages

Lines of reception

chapter 25|11 pages

Goffman, Schutz, and the ‘secret of the other’

On the American sociological reception of  Simmel’s ‘das Geheimnis des Anderen’ 1

chapter 26|13 pages

Traces of Simmel in Latin America

Modernity, nation, and memory 1