Category Archives: People

Andrea Brondino, Narrative and History in the Works of Umberto Eco, Carlo Ginzburg, and Wu Ming: Untangling the Strands – Bloomsbury, December 2026

Posted on July 7, 2026 by stuartelden

Andrea Brondino, Narrative and History in the Works of Umberto Eco, Carlo Ginzburg, and Wu Ming: Untangling the Strands – Bloomsbury, December 2026 Using the works of prominent Italian authors of both fiction and nonfiction, this book challenges the established … Continue reading →

Posted in Carlo Ginzburg, Umberto Eco, Wu Ming | Leave a comment

Environments of Planetary Urbanization and Data-Spheres of Planetary Urbanization – two recent books from Neil Brenner’s Urban Theory Lab

Posted on July 6, 2026 by stuartelden

Two recent books from Neil Brenner’s Urban Theory Lab at the University of Chicago. Neil Brenner, Swarnabh Ghosh and Nikos Katsikis, Environments of Planetary Urbanization – Jovis, December 2025 Grga Bašić, Neil Brenner, Mariano Gomez-Luque and Nikos Katsikis, Data-Spheres of … Continue reading →

Posted in Neil Brenner, urban/urbanisation | Leave a comment

Introducing Richard Wilson’s Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers – text of a talk at Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare, 27 June 2026

Posted on July 5, 2026 by stuartelden

These are my opening remarks to a roundtable celebrating Richard Wilson’s book Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers: Modern Friends, at an event on Shakespeare and British Inter-war Philosophy (1918-1939) held at Garrick’s Temple to Shakespeare on 27 June 2026. A few lines … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Carl Schmitt, Walter Benjamin, William Shakespeare, Hannah Arendt, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Bataille, Carlo Ginzburg, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Alexandre Kojève, Sunday Histories, Roger Caillois, T.S. Eliot | Leave a comment

Book review of Ernst Kantorowicz, Radiances: Unpublished Essays on Gods, Kingship, and Images of the State, ed. Robert E. Lerner

Posted on July 3, 2026 by stuartelden

My book review of Ernst Kantorowicz, Radiances: Unpublished Essays on Gods, Kingship, and Images of the State, ed. Robert E. Lerner, is now online first at The English Historical Review. I’m happy to send a copy if you can’t access this, … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Erwin Panofsky | Leave a comment

Books received – Agamben, Bachelard, Bloch, de la Durantaye, Wahl, Febvre, Braudel

Posted on July 3, 2026 by stuartelden

Books bought new or second-hand recently, including the recent biography and graphic novel Marc Bloch: L’historien combattant, and some older books. The Agamben books are for teaching next academic year – Where are we now? collects his pandemic writings, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Fernand Braudel, Gaston Bachelard, Giorgio Agamben, Jean Wahl, Lucien Febvre, Marc Bloch | 1 Comment

Foucault’s Visit to McGill University, and his meetings with Quebec separatists – Stuart Elden and Marcelo Hoffman on the Verso blog

Posted on July 2, 2026 by stuartelden

Marcelo Hoffman and I have written a short piece for the Verso blog about Foucault’s 1971 visit to Montreal. This was Foucault’s first time in Canada, where he gave three lectures on Nietzsche at McGill University and one on Sade at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Daniel Defert, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories | Leave a comment

Some of the many tributes to Carlo Ginzburg (1939-2026)

Posted on July 2, 2026 by stuartelden

There are too many to try to be comprehensive, but here are a few of the tributes and reposts of older material celebrating the life and career of the remarkable historian Carlo Ginzburg (1939-2026). Obituary by John Foot in The … Continue reading →

Posted in Carlo Ginzburg, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Eighteen months of ‘Sunday Histories’

Posted on July 1, 2026 by stuartelden

I posted a short piece to this site every Sunday through 2025, and am now half-way through 2026. I don’t seem to be running out of ideas, usually with a few in progress at any one time, though some have … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Giorgio Agamben, Lucien Gerschel, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Umberto Eco, Vladimir Nabokov | 1 Comment

Nicholas Brown, Maria Elisa Cevasco, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, and Robert T. Tally eds. The Future of Totality: Fredric Jameson and the Prospects of Critical Theory, Duke University Press, July 2026

Posted on June 30, 2026 by stuartelden

Nicholas Brown, Maria Elisa Cevasco, Fabio Akcelrud Durão, and Robert T. Tally eds. The Future of Totality: Fredric Jameson and the Prospects of Critical Theory, Duke University Press, July 2026 Introduction available open access Following his death in 2024, Fredric Jameson’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Fredric Jameson | Leave a comment

Did Émile Benveniste try to escape to the USA from Lyon in the Second World War?

Posted on June 28, 2026 by stuartelden

As part of my research on Georges Dumézil and Émile Benveniste, I’ve been tracing their quite different experiences in the Second World War. Both lost their teaching positions under Vichy, although for very different reasons – Dumézil because he had once … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Jean de Menasce, Jean Wahl, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, T.S. Eliot | Leave a comment