city

graffiti

nationality

American

occupation / innovator as

historian

sociologist

literary critic

university teacher

British

scientific organization

Royal Society of Literature

American Academy of Arts and Sciences

musician

Academia Europaea

innovator in the field of

sociology

Academia Europea

is characterized not by overstimulation but by understimultation. That is, the dissolution of the public sphere has resulted in the loss of opportunities for strangers to encounter one another in unique ways.

Over the last 30 years or so, Richard Sennett (1970, 1974, 1990, 1994) has beenthe urbanist to defend most emphatically the notion of public space as crucial forbroader notions of democracy, urban civility and the public sphere. A great admirerof Arendt, he has drawn on her writings to argue that the public realm can becharacterised by an idea of the richer types of relationships that are possibleamongst strangers. Upturning the trope of the family and the private realm as thesite of intimate and fulfilling relationships away from the anonymity of the city,a dominant (conservative) political discourse, Sennett (1990, 2000) argues that ifan idea of the complexity and richness of impartial relations in public is lost, therealm of politics becomes that of assumed intimacy and the cult of personality.Similarly if the open and unpredictable spaces of the city are lost, the potential forsociality in the city is lost also. In contrast to Sims.el, then, under-stimulation, notover-stimulation, bas mobilised a retreat rrom the city.

My Archive

is a way to leave a trace of oneself, to record one's story, in a city that belongs to no one.

In a city that belongs to no one, people are constantly seeking to leave a trace of themselves, a record of their story.Richard Sennett on graffiti

Richard SennettThinkers

Richard Sennett