Norbert Elias and Eric Dunning Sources

1) Elias lecture in Pontypool, Free Press (Pontypool), 21.1.49   2) Naturalization notice, Daily Telegraph, 22.2.51 3) Elias and Harold Nicholson, Leicester Mercury, 21.1.55 4) Elias letter supporting anti-racism protestors, Leicester Mercury, 1959

In May 1963, the St. Louis American published two articles by Eric on race discrimination. May 2, 1963: May 9: On May 30, the paper published Ellen's account of the Aldermaston CND march: In August 1963, Ellen's mother visited them in London: The edition of December 5, 1963, includes Ellen's account of their response to the death of JFK: In the summer of 1964, Eric got a job teaching in New York but was apart from Ellen for most of the term, which may have been a strain for them. Eric gave a chilling account of an encounter with a racist Harlem police officer (August 13): The last "Excerpts From Ellen" column I have located was dated November 19, 1964, and is Ellen's account (quoting the Leicester Mercury) of how she was excluded from a Leicester pub due to a colour bar: This is the Leicester Mercury piece:

This post considers the political context of Sociology at Leicester in 1959-65 through the prism of protests against racial discrimination and racist ideology. Eric Dunning noted that this was an era in which young people were deeply apprehensive about the threat of nuclear war (Dunning was a member of the Campaign For Nuclear Disarmament) and that "Elias was steadfastly committed to building up a store of practically useful sociological knowledge" that could be used in future political action in that period of ideological conflict (Rojek, 2004). This concurred with Elias's view of involvement and detachment; Leicester's role, in his view, was to practice "‘detours via detachment’ followed by ‘secondary involvement’ as the only secure way of augmenting the stock of reliable knowledge, the existence of which is a vital precondition for human survival and comfort" (Dunning and Hughes, 2013). This did not preclude activity in one's personal political involv...

On July 27, 1962, Eric Dunning married Ellen Sweets in St. Louis, an event captured by her father's newspaper , the St. Louis American, from which all the sources in this post are taken: Eric and Ellen had met delegates from Ghana at the CME Conference on May 20, 1962 (St Louis American, May 24, 1962) In July, 1962, Eric wrote a series of articles on his experiences in the USA for the newspaper's We're Telling column. The first is here:                                                        Dunning had arranged to link up with Alvin Gouldner in St. Louis because the latter's books had impressed him and because Neustadt knew Gouldner. He was still living with his parents, who almost failed to leave the ship, The Mauretania, before it departed Southampton. Eric notes in this first piece the different US inhibitions about usin...

1) His father, Hermann Elias Hermann died on 22.11.40 in Breslau. His death is documented on the page scanned here: Taken from: Citation information Detail Landesarchiv Berlin; Berlin, Deutschland; Personenstandsregister 1876-1945; laufendenummer: 7567 Source information Title Eastern Prussian Provinces, Germany [Poland], Selected Civil Vitals, 1874-1945 Author Ancestry.com Publisher Ancestry.com Operations, Inc. Publisher date 2016 Publisher location Provo, UT, USA Repository information Name Ancestry.com 2) His mother, Sophie Elias: Background: 513 persons from Breslau were sent to the transit camp Riebnig in November 1941, where they were held before deportation to "the East". 1000 other Jews were deported to Kaunas (Kovno] on 25.11.41 and murdered on arrival, as documented here . She appears on this deportation list from Breslau to Theresienstadt 31.8.42 (as No. 472) Source: She was murdered in Treblinka on 29.9.42, as shown here: https://www.holocaust.cz/en/database-of-v...