“Indo-European Thought at the Collège de France“, Social Anthropology Seminar, University of St Andrews, 29 November 2024, 2pm (online)

On Friday I’ll be speaking about my current research.

Emile Benveniste and Georges Dumézil both lost their teaching positions under the Vichy regime, but for different reasons and with different outcomes. Benveniste was Jewish, had been captured shortly before the Armistice, and when he escaped, he went into exile in Switzerland. Before being deployed to Turkey, Dumézil had briefly been a Freemason and was excluded due to the laws on secret societies. He got his position back, remained in Paris, and published throughout the war with Gallimard. At the Liberation he was under suspicion of collaboration, and temporarily lost his position again. Benveniste returned to the Collège de France, and in 1949 proposed Dumézil for a chair in Indo-European civilisation. For the next two decades Benveniste and Dumézil taught there in parallel – Benveniste usually teaching one course on linguistics, and another on vocabulary; Dumézil teaching on mythology but also his interest in Caucasian languages and folklore. Some of their most important publications, including Dumézil’s Myth and Epic and Benveniste’s Vocabulary of Indo-European Institutions, were originally presented in their classes. Using teaching records, publications, archival materials and correspondence, this talk will discuss the period when Indo-European thought was at the centre of one of France’s elite institutions.