Category Archives: Georges Dumézil

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

Posted on December 23, 2022 by stuartelden

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

Stuart Elden, ‘Editing Georges Dumézil’s Mitra-Varuna’, Berfrois, December 2022

Posted on December 16, 2022 by stuartelden

Update September 2025: the Berfrois site is now closed and the archive has been removed. My piece can now be found here. I have a short piece at Berfrois, ‘Editing Georges Dumézil’s Mitra-Varuna‘. Sadly Berfrois is closing, so I want … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Immanuel Kant, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Books received – Dumézil, Bejan, Leucate, Basso, Koerner, Malpas

Posted on December 12, 2022 by stuartelden

A copy of Georges Dumézil, Heur et Malheur du guerrier; Cristina Bejan, Intellectuals and Fascism in Interwar Romania: The Criterion Association; Aristide Leucate’s recent short study of Dumézil; Elisabetta Basso, Young Foucault: The Lille Manuscripts on Psychopathology, Phenomenology, and Anthropology, 1952–1955; E.F.K. … Continue reading →

Posted in Ferdinand de Saussure, Georges Dumézil, Jeff Malpas, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Martin Heidegger, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade | Leave a comment

Indo-European thought project update 7: Working on Dumézil’s teaching, a few research resources, and some archival work in Paris

Posted on November 14, 2022 by stuartelden

I’ve made some progress with the Indo-European project over the past few weeks. Not as much as I’d hoped, and it feels a bit unsystematic at this point, but early work is often like that. This has included a couple … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, The Archaeology of Foucault | 1 Comment

Parts of Georges Bataille’s library for sale (and a fascinating downloadable catalogue and inventaire)

Posted on November 5, 2022 by stuartelden

Parts of Georges Bataille’s library are for sale – story here. As you’d expect, things are rather expensive… A catalogue is available to buy – La bibliothèque de Georges Bataille – and to download as pdf here. petit in-4, broché, … Continue reading →

Posted in Albert Camus, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Jacques Lacan, Jean-Paul Sartre, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Pierre Klossowski | 3 Comments

Georges Dumézil’s Mythe et épopée series and its partial English translations

Posted on October 31, 2022 by stuartelden

Towards the end of his career, Georges Dumézil began to produce some works summarising the results of his decades of research. The most important was the Mythe et épopée series published by Gallimard in three volumes in 1968, 1971 and 1973.  Each … Continue reading →

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

Georges Dumézil’s The Destiny of the Warrior – a work in progress

Posted on October 24, 2022 by stuartelden

Mitra-Varuna is the best place to go, in English, for Dumézil’s views on the first function of sovereignty, and its twofold nature: the first judicial and worldly, the second divine and supernatural. In French, Les Dieux souverains des Indo-Européens (Gallimard 1977) updates and … Continue reading →

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

A 1970 French interdisciplinary seminar on structuralism, attended by Foucault, Canguilhem, Bourdieu, Serres, Thom et. al., its published traces and a request for help

Posted on October 12, 2022 by stuartelden

This is a short account of an interesting event and a rather specialist request for help. In the late 1960s, 1970s and early 1980s the Institut collégial européen organised a series of events, most of which were reported in their annual … Continue reading →

Posted in Clémence Ramnoux, Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, Roland Barthes | 6 Comments

Indo-European thought project update 6: beginning the Leverhulme fellowship, my self-imposed guidelines for writing and time-discipline, and some summer cycling and writing

Posted on October 7, 2022 by stuartelden

I’m in the incredibly privileged position of beginning a Leverhulme major research fellowship this week, to work on the Indo-European thought in Twentieth-Century France project. As a note to myself, I’m going to try to work with the guidelines I set myself seven years … Continue reading →

Posted in Cycling, Foucault: The Birth of Power, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Shakespearean Territories, Uncategorized, William Shakespeare, Writing | Leave a comment

Georges Dumézil, Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty, trans. Derek Coltman, ed. Stuart Elden – HAU books, June 2023

Posted on October 3, 2022 by stuartelden

Georges Dumézil, Mitra-Varuna: An Essay on Two Indo-European Representations of Sovereignty, trans. Derek Coltman, ed. Stuart Elden – HAU books, June 2023. Pre-order details at the University of Chicago Press site, who distribute HAU books. A classic text that develops one … Continue reading →

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