Monthly Archives: April 2026

Saffron O’Neill, The Visual Life of Climate Change – Bristol University Press, December 2025 (print and open access)

Saffron O’Neill, The Visual Life of Climate Change – Bristol University Press, December 2025 (print and open access) Available open access digitally under CC-BY-NC-ND licence. Images can play a key role in communication – but climate change imagery can be … Continue reading

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Nicolas Guilhot, Conspiracy: The History of a Political Obsession – Harvard University Press, October 2026

Nicolas Guilhot, Conspiracy: The History of a Political Obsession – Harvard University Press, October 2026 Pundits, scholars, and the general public alike have argued that conspiratorial thinking is the greatest threat to liberal democracy. Nicolas Guilhot, however, challenges us to … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Hannah Arendt, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Georges Redard and the Linguistic Atlas of Iranian Speakers

After Émile Benveniste suffered a major stroke in late 1969, his former student and friend Georges Redard planned to publish some of Benveniste’s incomplete projects. Redard was by this time teaching at the University of Bern in Switzerland. One volume … Continue reading

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Harriet Hawkins, “Lithic Lives: Earth Stories from Cambodia’s Land of the Gemstones”, 9th Cosgrove Lecture, Royal Holloway, 11 May 2026

Harriet Hawkins, “Lithic Lives: Earth Stories from Cambodia’s Land of the Gemstones“, 9th Cosgrove Lecture, Royal Holloway, 11 May 2026 A fragment of ruby, a hand-written list of sapphire sales from February 1918, a much-loved pop song crooned during Cambodia’s … Continue reading

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A Scholarly Edition of Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers – first three volumes, Oxford University Press, April 2026

A Scholarly Edition of Leibniz’s Philosophical Papers – first three volumes published by Oxford University Press on 30 April 2026, edited by Lloyd Strickland. They are very expensive, over £400 for the first three volumes: Leibniz: Philosophical Papers, 1677–1686 – … Continue reading

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Tiphaine Samoyault, Translation and Violence, trans. Alexander Hertich, Princeton University Press, September 2026

Tiphaine Samoyault, Translation and Violence, trans. Alexander Hertich, Princeton University Press, September 2026 The rapid development of AI-powered translation tools is making translation more accessible than ever before, raising in a dramatic new way the old utopian promise of translation—to … Continue reading

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Two dedications from Georges Dumézil – to Alfred Ernoux and Luc Estang

With only rare exceptions, I’ve not tended to buy second-hand books with a view to the edition or dedications. Generally, I’ve been getting hold of copies because of the content, and the relatively few times I’ve looked for a first … Continue reading

Posted in Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Julian Brigstocke, Nonauthoritarian Authority: Cities, Materiality, and the Aesthetics of Power – LSE Press, March 2026 (print and open access)

Julian Brigstocke, Nonauthoritarian Authority: Cities, Materiality, and the Aesthetics of Power – LSE Press, March 2026 (print and open access) Authority is not a word with many positive connotations. It suggests power-hungry dictators, trigger-happy police, stifling bureaucracies, and monumental urban … Continue reading

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Clémentine Fauré-Bellaïche, A Protestant Air: Gide, Sartre, Barthes, and the Religion of Literary Modernity –  Cornell University Press, June 2026

Clémentine Fauré-Bellaïche, A Protestant Air: Gide, Sartre, Barthes, and the Religion of Literary Modernity –  Cornell University Press, June 2026 A Protestant Air focuses on the Protestant connection linking three intellectual giants of twentieth-century French thought: André Gide, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Roland … Continue reading

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Maurice Blanchot’s Politics and His War-Time Reviews of Georges Dumézil

The philosopher, literary theorist and novelist Maurice Blanchot’s politics have come under periodic scrutiny. Leslie Hill describes the source of the controversy:  As early as 1931 and 1932, while starting out with the Journal des débats, Blanchot was writing political articles … Continue reading

Posted in Albert Camus, Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Jean-Paul Sartre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Maurice Blanchot, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 2 Comments