Category Archives: Books

Michel Foucault and Richard Sennett’s 1980 NYU seminar on “Sexuality and Solitude” – some notes on attendance and readings

Posted on March 23, 2025 by stuartelden

The “Sexuality and Solitude” lecture was delivered by Richard Sennett and Michel Foucault to the New York Institute for the Humanities on 20 November 1980 at 5.30pm. It was held in the Tishman Auditorium of Vanderbilt Hall on Washington Square. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Michel Foucault, Foucault's Last Decade, Edward Said, Sunday Histories | 7 Comments

St Andrews and Nottingham talks on the ‘Indo-European’ project – audio recordings

Posted on March 21, 2025 by stuartelden

A couple of audio recordings of talks I’ve given on my ‘Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France‘ project. There is background on the project and some other recordings, updates on the research, short pieces and research resources at that page. … Continue reading →

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

Georges Dumézil, Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty, translated by Derek Coltman, edited by Stuart Elden, afterword by Veena Das – HAU books, December 2024 (now open access)

Posted on March 10, 2025 by stuartelden

Georges Dumézil, Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty, translated by Derek Coltman, edited by Stuart Elden, afterword by Veena Das – HAU books, December 2024 Pleased to say that the book is now available as an open-access … Continue reading →

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

The rediscovery of the typescripts of Foucault’s History of Madness and introduction and translation of Kant’s Anthropology, annotated by Foucault

Posted on March 5, 2025 by stuartelden

This is very interesting – the discovery of typescript versions of Foucault’s History of Madness and introduction and translation of Kant’s Anthropology, annotated by Foucault – Emmanuel le Doeff, À la découverte des thèses annotées de Michel Foucault (open access, … Continue reading →

Posted in Michel Foucault, The Early Foucault, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 26: Benveniste’s late publications; Sunday Histories; beginning archival work in the United States

Posted on February 14, 2025 by stuartelden

Since the last update in December, I’ve been making some good progress on this project. The focus has mainly been on Benveniste’s work in the 1960s. But, as ever, I’ve found myself backtracking to earlier parts of his career and seeing some potentially … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized, Understanding Henri Lefebvre | Leave a comment

Sunday histories – short essays on Progressive Geographies

Posted on February 2, 2025 by stuartelden

Updated June 2025: The full list of essays in this series is here. Over the past several years, my Progressive Geographies blog has become too much of a noticeboard, sharing information about books, talks or shorter pieces by other people … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories | 2 Comments

Benveniste and the Linguistic Circle of Prague

Posted on January 19, 2025 by stuartelden

There are some good histories of the Linguistic Circle of Prague, which met in the years before the Second World War, and which included Russian scholars as well as ones from Czechoslovakia. Jindřich Toman’s The Magic of a Common Language is a particularly … Continue reading →

Posted in Antoine Meillet, Emile Benveniste, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Foucault’s 1972 visit to Cornell University

Posted on January 12, 2025 by stuartelden

For his initial trips to the United States, Michel Foucault was often invited by French departments. His visits to SUNY Buffalo in 1970 and 1972, and the first of his multiple visits to the University of California, Berkeley in 1975 … Continue reading →

Posted in Daniel Defert, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault | 14 Comments

Lynne Huffer, “Order and Archive: A Foucault Abecedary”, boundary 2, 2024 and Instagram tiles

Posted on January 7, 2025 by stuartelden

Lynne Huffer’s extraordinary essay, “Order and Archive: A Foucault Abecedary“, boundary 2, Vol 51 No 4, 2024 (requires subscription unfortunately). Lynne is now on Instagram and has posted several tiles relating to this essay. It’s a review article of my … Continue reading →

Posted in Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault | 1 Comment

Benveniste, Dumézil, Lejeune and the decipherment of Linear B

Posted on January 5, 2025 by stuartelden

In April 1956, at Gif-sur-Yvette just outside of Paris, the first meeting of the International Colloquium on Mycenaean texts took place. The proceedings of the conference, edited by Michel Lejeune, were published later that year as Études mycéniennes: Actes du Colloque international sur … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories | 16 Comments