Category Archives: Books

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 28: archives in Princeton, Chicago and final work in New York

Posted on May 20, 2025 by stuartelden

I’ve continued my work with archives in the USA over the past several weeks. Some of this has been in relation to the Indo-European Thought project, but I’ve managed to work on some peripheral things too.I had two days in Princeton, … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Edward Said, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Jacques Derrida, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Vladimir Nabokov | 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 (open access)

Posted on May 19, 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 As I was away, I’ve only just received the editor copies. The … Continue reading →

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

Émile Benveniste and the Sogdian Word for ‘Knee’

Posted on April 27, 2025 by stuartelden

This was written for an event on ‘Troubling Classical Bodies‘ at the Remarque Institute at New York University on 11 April 2025. My thanks to Stefanos Geroulanos and Brooke Holmes for the invitation to give this short talk, and to … Continue reading →

Posted in Antoine Meillet, Emile Benveniste, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Foucault at Buffalo in 1970 and 1972: The Desire for Knowledge; The Criminal in Literature; and The History of Truth

Posted on April 20, 2025 by stuartelden

I have discussed Foucault’s two visits to Buffalo before. First, most briefly, in Foucault: The Birth of Power (2017). In that book, which is on the first half of the 1970s, I simply indicated that Foucault gave some lectures in Buffalo (pp. … Continue reading →

Posted in Foucault: The Birth of Power, Friedrich Nietzsche, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault, Uncategorized | 20 Comments

Elisabeth Raucq, animal names and approaches to Indo-European vocabulary

Posted on April 13, 2025 by stuartelden

In the preface to the second edition of his Mitra-Varuna, Georges Dumézil mentions some of the people who attended the lecture course which became the book. Delivered at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 1938-39, this was the last year … Continue reading →

Posted in Antoine Meillet, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Roger Caillois, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Troubling Classical Bodies, Remarque Institute, New York University, 11 April 2025, 12.30pm and online – Brooke Holmes, Anurima Banerji and Stuart Elden

Posted on March 31, 2025 by stuartelden

Troubling Classical Bodies, Remarque Institute, New York University, 11 April 2025, 12.30pm and online – Brooke Holmes, Anurima Banerji and Stuart Elden I’ll be speaking about an aspect of my Indo-European project, on an early text by Émile Benveniste about … Continue reading →

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

The Territory of the Vocabulary and the Vocabulary of Territory: Emile Benveniste 

Posted on March 30, 2025 by stuartelden

If I was writing The Birth of Territory again, I would certainly have found a little space for a brief discussion of Émile Benveniste and his Le Vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, now available in English again as the Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society and open access … Continue reading →

Posted in Antoine Meillet, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Reinhart Koselleck, Sunday Histories, Territory, Terror and Territory, The Birth of Territory | 8 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 27: more archive work on Saussure, Blanchot, Foucault, Jakobson and Koyré, two recordings, and a talk at the University at Buffalo

Posted on March 24, 2025 by stuartelden

I’ve been doing a lot more work in archives in the United States for this project over the past few weeks. I had a few days up in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which was even colder than New York. There, I was … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, David Farrell Krell, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Ferdinand de Saussure, Georges Dumézil, Hannah Arendt, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson | 1 Comment

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 Edward Said, Foucault's Last Decade, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 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