Category Archives: Mircea Eliade

The Murder of Ioan Culianu – Eliade, Anton, Eco, Lincoln and the University of Chicago

Posted on May 11, 2025 by stuartelden

The story sounds like a detective novel or a spy thriller. A professor of the history of religion at the University of Chicago is shot at close range in the third-floor bathroom of Swift Hall in 1991. The killing is … Continue reading →

Posted in Mircea Eliade, Sunday Histories, Umberto Eco, Uncategorized | 12 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

My favourite academic books of 2024

Posted on December 31, 2024 by stuartelden

At the end of each year I’ve posted a list of academic books I liked. The criteria was that they were published in that year (or late the previous one), and that I read and liked them. Many of the … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Eduardo Mendieta, Fredric Jameson, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gillian Rose, Karl Marx, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Stefanos Geroulanos, Territory, Theory, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 19: back to Dumézil, politics, and Benveniste in Persia and Afghanistan

Posted on April 30, 2024 by stuartelden

Since the last update on this project, I have begun work on a chapter on Dumézil’s career from the late 1930s to the late 1940s. This is another fascinating period, partly because of the range of books he published – 14 in 11 … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Carlo Ginzburg, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Books received – Martin, Specter, Trubetzkoy, Hoffman, Strauss (and Kojève), Lincoln

Posted on March 25, 2024 by stuartelden

A collection of essays on Emile Benveniste; Matthew Specter, Habermas: An Intellectual Biography; Nicolai Trubetzkoy, The Legacy of Genghis Khan and Other Essays on Russia’s Identity; Marcelo Hoffman’s Foucault in Brazil: Dictatorship, Resistance, and Solidarity; Leo Strauss, On Tyranny, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Kojève, Emile Benveniste, Jürgen Habermas, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade | 1 Comment

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 18: further work on Benveniste and more archives in Paris

Posted on March 18, 2024 by stuartelden

In the last update on this project, I talked about the Paris archival work I’d done in early February. There were a few loose ends of references when I got back from Paris, most of which I was able to resolve … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Kojève, Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Marcel Mauss, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Bruce Lincoln, Secrets, Lies, and Consequences: A Great Scholar’s Hidden Past and his Protégé’s Unsolved Murder – Oxford University Press, March 2024

Posted on December 3, 2023 by stuartelden

Bruce Lincoln, Secrets, Lies, and Consequences: A Great Scholar’s Hidden Past and his Protégé’s Unsolved Murder – Oxford University Press, March 2024 The tale of a legendary scholar, an unsolved murder, and the mysterious documents that may connect themIn early … Continue reading →

Posted in Mircea Eliade, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Georges Bataille correspondence – taking a look at the bound volumes at the Bibliothèque nationale de France

Posted on November 16, 2023 by stuartelden

A lot of letters to and from Georges Bataille have been published (for example, here), but the two bound volumes of correspondence at the Bibliothèque nationale are still something to behold. Given how much of his library and correspondence has … Continue reading →

Posted in Albert Camus, Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Friedrich Nietzsche, Gaston Bachelard, Georges Bataille, Jacques Lacan, Karl Jaspers, Kostas Axelos, Maurice Blanchot, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Mircea Eliade, Pierre Klossowski, Roger Caillois, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 13: work on Benveniste, Saussure and in UK archives, a seminar on the research, and a brief health update

Posted on August 31, 2023 by stuartelden

In an earlier post here I briefly mentioned the medical issues that put me in hospital for three weeks in July. The operation was a success and I am making a good, though slow, recovery. I have been at home for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Ferdinand de Saussure, Georges Dumézil, Mircea Eliade, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

“Indo-European Thought in Post-War France“, Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies, 31 May 2023 (video)

Posted on June 1, 2023 by stuartelden

My talk to the Warwick Seminar for Interdisciplinary French Studies was recorded and is available online – “Indo-European Thought in Post-War France“ I begin with two stories – one about the Mission Paul Pelliot and its importance to the early … Continue reading →

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