Simmel Studies

Simmel’s Philosophy of Life and Somaesthetics: A Conversation with Richard Shusterman

Stefano Marino — 2026-07-17

In this conversation, Stefano Marino engages Richard Shusterman in a wide-ranging dialogue on the contemporary philosophical significance of Georg Simmel. Drawing on Shusterman’s recent work on the relationship between Simmel, pragmatism, and somaesthetics, the interview reassesses Simmel’s place within twentieth- and twenty-first-century philosophy, moving beyond his conventional reception as primarily a sociologist. Through Marino’s carefully structured questions, the discussion explores the intersections between Simmel’s philosophy of life and somaesthetics, focusing on embodiment, sensory experience, self-cultivation, fashion, culture, and the art of living. At the same time, the dialogue highlights important theoretical divergences, particularly concerning the role of the body, the senses, and the relation between subjective and objective culture. The interview also addresses broader issues, including Simmel’s philosophical reception in the Anglo-American world, his complex relationship with pragmatism, and the significance of his Jewish background for understanding concepts such as distance, identity, and the stranger. Rather than presenting Simmel simply as a precursor of contemporary thought, the conversation offers a nuanced philosophical engagement that underscores both the enduring relevance and the unresolved tensions of his work for current debates in aesthetics, social philosophy, and theories of embodiment.

Simmel and Social Interaction: An Ethnomethodological Perspective

Kenneth Liberman — 2026-07-17

The most fruitful use of Simmel’s seminal notion of Wechselwirkung may be the way he applied it to explain the generation of social formations that continuously facilitate interaction in society. Objective forms are necessary for people to share a life together, to think clearly, and to help them render their lives orderly; however, these forms necessarily become alien to those who develop them. Simmel sought to establish sociological inquiries that were based solidly upon a clear grasp of the dynamic and interconnected nature of life and that avoid reifying the phenomena they study. Ethnomethodology, with its attention to the ongoing, contingent details that compose ordinary life has followed a similar aim

Forms of Wechselwirkung: Simmel between Money, Love and Poverty

Donato Cocozza — 2026-07-17

This paper analyses Simmel’s concept of “Wechselwirkung”, highlighting its role in relation to money, love, and poverty. It defines money as ”Abstraktion der Wechselwirkung“ and illustrates how the concept of exchange lies at the heart of Simmel's theory of money. Love emerges as a paradigmatic social manifestation of “Wechselwirkung”'s generativity. Poverty is interpreted as a relational position. Despite their divergent outcomes (impersonal interchangeability, unrepeatable uniqueness, relational marginality), a comparison between money, love and poverty, reveals that they all embody the notion of ambivalent sociality. Ultimately, possible interpretative insights emerge regarding digital money, the welfare crisis and hypermodern manifestations of love.

The Negative Ontology of Queer Inspiration: the Contribution of Georg Simmel

Barbara Sonzogni — 2026-07-17

This paper develops a relational account of queer subjectivity by bringing the sociology of Georg Simmel into dialogue with contemporary queer theory. Rather than treating Simmel as a precursor, the article mobilizes his conceptual framework – particularly the notion of Wechselwirkung – as a resource for rethinking identity as a process emerging from dynamic social relations. The central argument is that Simmel’s formal sociology offers a relational ontology structurally compatible with queer critiques of identity as fixed and self-identical. Through an analysis of key sociological forms – such as fashion, the stranger, and money – the paper shows how subjectivity is constituted, stabilized, and destabilized within specific configurations of social interaction. These figures reveal identity as a process of repetition, liminal belonging, and abstraction, rather than as a stable ontological ground. By integrating Simmelian sociology with insights from queer theory, the article contributes to both fields. It expands the interpretative potential of Simmel’s work beyond its traditional reception, while providing queer theory with a sociologically grounded account of relational subjectivity. In doing so, it advances the idea of a negative ontology in which identity is understood as an open, processual, and continually negotiated form.

The One Before the Many: Towards a Simmelian Sociogenesis

Marine Kneubühler — 2026-07-17

This article recovers a principle central to Simmel’s sociology yet largely overlooked: the quantitative, or numerical, determination of social forms. Read as the basis for a genuine sociogenesis, this principle first lets us unsettle the dichotomous typologies on which classical sociology was founded, replacing fixed historical types with a continuous, threshold-sensitive scale that governs both the differentiation of individuals and the normative order that binds them. Pursued to its own logical end, however, this same principle requires a further descent, from three to two to one, that challenges an influential recent reading of Simmel – Gilbert’s claim that the dyad forms sociology’s minimal unit – and locates the group’s least common denominator in the individual as such, apart from the legacies of individualization and individualism.

Federica Pau, Luca Vargiu (Hrsg.), Georg Simmel. Variazioni estetiche. Milano: Meltemi 2024

Ludovica Boi — 2026-07-17

No abstract