Category Archives: Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France

Books received – Renou, Althusser, Safransky, Zumwalt, Woodard

Mainly bought second-hand for the Indo-European project, along with Sara Safransky, The City after Property: Abandonment and Repair in Postindustrial Detroit, sent by Duke University Press. The Rosemary LévyZumwalt book is the first part Franz Boas: The Emergence of the Anthropologist … Continue reading

Posted in Friedrich Nietzsche, Louis Althusser, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Uncategorized, urban/urbanisation | Leave a comment

Saussure’s notes on German legends – cross-references between the different editions of these manuscripts

I’ve previously discussed reading Ferdinand de Saussure’s work, mainly around the variant texts of his posthumously published Course on General Linguistics, and some of his early work on Indo-European languages. Saussure’s notes on German legends are one of the other major posthumous … Continue reading

Posted in Ferdinand de Saussure, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Books received – Milner, Lévi-Strauss, Lefebvre, Guattari, Saussure, Walters & Tazzioli

Some books for the Indo-European thought project, together with the copy of Musset Henri Lefebvre gave to Georges Bataille (more here) and William Walters and Martina Tazzioli (eds.), Handbook on Governmentality, in which I have a chapter on Foucault and … Continue reading

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Felix Guattari, Ferdinand de Saussure, Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault | 4 Comments

“Indo-European Thought in Post-War France“, Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies, 31 May 2023 (video)

My talk to the Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies was recorded and is available online – “Indo-European Thought in Post-War France“ I begin with two stories – one about the Mission Paul Pelliot and its importance to the early … Continue reading

Posted in Books, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Mircea Eliade, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

‘Indo-European Thought in Post-War France’, Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies, 31 May 2023, 4pm

Update: the recording is available here For anyone interested in my new project, I’ll be speaking about some of it in an online seminar today at 4pm: ‘Indo-European Thought in Post-War France’, Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Mircea Eliade | Leave a comment

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 12: working in some UK archives; Benveniste’s EPHE teaching; some talks on the research

After the last update a friend contacted me with some valuable information – about an archive which was already on my list of ones to try to visit when in the United States next year, but should certainly now be … Continue reading

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Eric Hobsbawm, Georges Dumézil, Gillian Rose, Henri Lefebvre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (1900-1940) – an important scholar of Celtic languages and mythology

Update January 2025: A revised and expanded version of this post is here. One of the problems with my current project on Indo-European thought in France is how male-dominated it is. If you look at a photograph of the Collège … Continue reading

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Urban Nature podcast episode 4: Stuart Elden and Gabriel Kozlowski

Urban Nature episode 4: Stuart Elden and Gabriel Kozlowski I was pleased to be Gabriel’s guest on the Urban Nature podcast for a discussion of several different aspects of my work – on territory, terrain, Lefebvre, Foucault, Shakespeare and even … Continue reading

Posted in Bruno Latour, Henri Lefebvre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Shakespearean Territories, terrain, Territory, The Birth of Territory, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Indo-European thought in twentieth-century France update 11: Dumézil and Charachidzé’s work on Ubykh; Lévi-Strauss and his archive; Eliade’s correspondence; Koyré’s networks; and continuing work with Dumézil’s archive

My attempt with this project to keep to a broadly chronological order of working through of Georges Dumézil’s major publications (see last update) took a bit of a detour, as his 1931 book La Langue des Oubykhs led me to follow the thread … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Italo Calvino, Jacques Lacan, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson, Umberto Eco, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Indo-European thought project update 8: working on Barthes, Lévi-Strauss and the Mission Paul Pelliot

Since the last update on this project I’ve not done quite what I intended. I had thought I’d begin working systematically through Georges Dumézil’s works in a chronological way, filling in much detail and some gaps in my previous reading. Instead I went down … Continue reading

Posted in Aurel Stein, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Clémence Ramnoux, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Roland Barthes, Roman Jakobson, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault | 1 Comment