Category Archives: Georges Dumézil

Claude Lévi-Strauss, Georges Dumézil and Benoîte Groult: the Académie française and the debate about feminine nouns for professions

Posted on October 19, 2025 by stuartelden

In his dialogues with Didier Eribon, published in 1989, Claude Lévi-Strauss commented on the linguistic work of the Académie française, and especially a campaign to amend the gender terminology of professions. Should, for example, a female politician be referred to … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Georges Dumézil, Roger Caillois, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Rossella Saetta Cottone ed. Clémence Ramnoux, entre mythes et philosophie: Dumézil, Freud, Bachelard (avec des inédits de Clémence Ramnoux) – Éditions Rue d’Ulm, October 2025

Posted on October 8, 2025 by stuartelden

Rossella Saetta Cottone ed. Clémence Ramnoux, entre mythes et philosophie: Dumézil, Freud, Bachelard (avec des inédits de Clémence Ramnoux) – Éditions Rue d’Ulm, October 2025 Some excerpts available here; parts available online with subscription. Ramnoux’s Œuvres were published a few … Continue reading →

Posted in Clémence Ramnoux, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Dumézil, Sigmund Freud, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Berfrois articles – a complete archive of my pieces for this much-missed site

Posted on September 17, 2025 by stuartelden

Between 2011 and 2022 I wrote eleven pieces for the much-missed Berfrois site. Most were reviews of recent books. Although the site closed to new submissions in 2022, I thought the archive would be preserved. I was therefore disappointed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Georges Dumézil, Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, Shakespearean Territories, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Roman Jakobson’s two series of 1972 lectures at the Collège de France – dating, topics and archival traces, and his friendships with Claude Lévi-Strauss and Jacques Lacan

Posted on August 31, 2025 by stuartelden

In Stephen Rudy’s chronology of Roman Jakobson’s career, the entry for 1972 reads, in part:  Visiting Professor, Collège de France, Dec. […] Professeur d’état, Collège de France. Four lectures, Feb. 3-8. How many lectures did he give across the visits, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Antoine Meillet, Étienne Wolff, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Jacques Lacan, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Berfrois articles – an archive of my pieces for this much-missed site

Posted on August 26, 2025 by stuartelden

Between 2011 and 2022 I wrote eleven pieces for the much-missed Berfrois site. Most were reviews of recent books. Although the site closed to new submissions in 2022, I thought the archive would be preserved. I was therefore disappointed to … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Foucault's Last Decade, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Georges Dumézil, Immanuel Kant, Michel Foucault, Shakespearean Territories, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Michel Foucault’s early English translations – indications from the archives of the Georges Borchardt literary agency, the memoirs of André Schiffrin and the Susan Sontag connection

Posted on August 24, 2025 by stuartelden

Now it is almost automatic: a new book by Foucault in French is translated within a couple of years. The Collège de France courses, the Vrin series of critical editions of lecture courses and now other material, the fourth volume … Continue reading →

Posted in Georges Dumézil, Michel Foucault, Roger Caillois, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 29: working on Benveniste’s Vocabulaire, Dumézil’s Bilan and other work

Posted on August 18, 2025 by stuartelden

I’ve been back in the UK for a few months, though I continue to work through the archival material I saw in the United States, some of which is in the form of notes, some photos of things, and a … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Gillian Rose, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson | 1 Comment

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