Simmel and 'the Social'

What is the social? The notion of the social lies at the core of sociology, yet the social is treated more often as a stable explanatory variable than as something that needs to be explained. This book engages in a critical reworking of the notion of the social by drawing on the work of the German sociologist and philosopher Georg Simmel. Instead of producing an exegesis of Simmel's work, the book renders Simmel's ideas in a new light by situating them in relation to contemporary social theory, in particular New Vitalism, the thought of the event and the work of Bruno Latour. The book draws attention to the centrality of Simmel's work to processualist and relationist emphases that are often thought of as much more than developments in social theory, and shows that with regard to these issues Simmel has still an enormous amount to contribute.