Category Archives: Emile Benveniste

Lucien Gerschel, Georges Dumézil, William Shakespeare and the history of Coriolanus 

Posted on August 17, 2025 by stuartelden

One of Georges Dumézil’s most loyal students was Lucien Gerschel. He seems to have begun attending his classes at the École Pratique des Hautes Études in 1937-38, but certainly was there for the 1938-39 course which became Dumézil’s 1940 book Mitra-Varuna. … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Shakespearean Territories, Sunday Histories, William Shakespeare | 1 Comment

Claude Lévi-Strauss’s Fondation Loubat lectures at the Collège de France: A Structural Analysis of the Wolverine in North American Mythology

Posted on August 10, 2025 by stuartelden

In the 1949-50 academic year, Claude Lévi-Strauss gave the Fondation Loubat lectures at the Collège de France. He was hoping to get elected to a chair there at this time, and behind the scenes various people were lobbying for this to … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Sunday Histories | 4 Comments

A postcard to Arne Furumark from the 1956 Mycenaean Studies conference

Posted on August 8, 2025 by stuartelden

Looking for something else, I chanced upon a postcard to Arne Furumark, available online, signed by the participants at the 1956 Mycenaean Studies conference outside of Paris, which I talk about here. Among the names are the decipherers of Linear B, … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Sunday Histories | 4 Comments

Herman Lommel and the ancient Aryans – Hegel’s great-grandson, Saussure translator and his links to Benveniste, Dumézil and Wikander

Posted on August 3, 2025 by stuartelden

In Mitra-Varuna in 1940, Georges Dumézil mentions the equation of Ahura-Mazdāh and Varuna, which he says was a “hypothesis, long accepted without argument”, but which “has subsequently been hotly disputed – wrongly, in my belief”, and that “on this point I regret … Continue reading →

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

Hadi Fakhoury ed., New Perspectives on Henry Corbin – Palgrave Macmillan, July 2025

Posted on July 28, 2025 by stuartelden

Hadi Fakhoury ed., New Perspectives on Henry Corbin – Palgrave Macmillan, July 2025 This collection brings together scholars from various fields to explore the work, life, and legacy of Henry Corbin (1903–1978), a towering figure in the modern study of … Continue reading →

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

Émile Benveniste on auxiliarity – an Acta Linguistica Hafniensia article, Eli Fischer-Jørgensen, a misplaced abstract and a 1965-66 Collège de France course

Posted on July 27, 2025 by stuartelden

In 1965, Émile Benveniste published “Structure des relations d’auxiliarité” in Acta Linguistica Hafniensia – a journal founded by the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen. Its initial editors were Viggo Brøndal and Louis Hjelmslev. Although the journal had been founded in 1939, and published five … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Two Greek Words for Kings and the Question of Territory: Wanax, Basileus and Émile Benveniste’s Vocabulaire

Posted on July 13, 2025 by stuartelden

In his Vocabulaire, the Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society, Émile Benveniste mentions some questions relating to spatiality and territory that I have briefly surveyed here. One question he raised I said was worthy of further attention. In his French text, and its English … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Sunday Histories, Territory, The Birth of Territory | 3 Comments

Six Months of ‘Sunday Histories’ – weekly short essays on Progressive Geographies

Posted on June 30, 2025 by stuartelden

At the beginning of 2025 I decided to try to post a short essay each week on Progressive Geographies. I felt the blog had become too much of a noticeboard, sharing information about interesting books, talks or shorter pieces by … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Kojève, Alexandre Koyré, Edward Said, Emile Benveniste, Erwin Panofsky, Henri Lefebvre, Jean Hyppolite, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Territory, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Leonard Robert Palmer, Elisabeth/Elizabeth Palmer and the “Studies in General Linguistics” series – a note on the English editors and translators of André Martinet and Émile Benveniste

Posted on June 29, 2025 by stuartelden

Leonard Robert Palmer (1906-1984) was a British linguist, important both for his own work and as an editor. Early in his career he taught Classics at the Victoria University of Manchester, became Chair of Greek at King’s College London, and from … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories | 4 Comments

Gillian Rose and the Indo-Europeanists

Posted on June 8, 2025 by stuartelden

While I’ve been working on my Indo-European thought project, I’ve looked at a few books from the University of Warwick’s library which came from the Gillian Rose collection. Some of the books from that collection could not be borrowed – ones … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Gillian Rose, Mircea Eliade, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 5 Comments