Category Archives: Pierre Bourdieu

Clémence Ramnoux – Mythology, Psychology, Philosophy

Clémence Ramnoux (1905-1997) was an important French scholar of ancient Greece. She worked mostly on the pre-Socratics, especially Heraclitus. Alongside Simone Pétrement she was one of the first two women who entered the philosophy programme of the École Normale Supérieure in 1927. Simone Weil … Continue reading

Posted in Clémence Ramnoux, Emile Benveniste, Gaston Bachelard, Jacques Lacan, Jean Gottmann, Jean Hyppolite, Kostas Axelos, Martin Heidegger, Maurice Blanchot, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 3 Comments

My favourite academic books of 2025

A list of academic books I liked published in 2025, or late 2024, or in paperback this year. Many of the books I read this year were published years ago; some of the 2025 ones I’ve bought or have been … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Kojève, Books, Boundaries, Clémence Ramnoux, Ernst Kantorowicz, Erwin Panofsky, Gaston Bachelard, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil, Gilles Deleuze, Louis Althusser, Michel Foucault, Michel Serres, Pierre Bourdieu, Theory, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 30 – archive work in Paris, Bern and Cambridge, MA, and Benveniste’s library

The formal end of the Leverhulme major research fellowship for the Indo-European thought project was at the end of September, but I have a no-cost extension until the end of January. This is invaluable, and is effectively to extend the grant for … Continue reading

Posted in Étienne Wolff, Claude Lévi-Strauss, David Harvey, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Erwin Panofsky, Georges Bataille, Georges Canguilhem, Georges Dumézil, Jacques Derrida, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Books received – Foucault, Duby, Stratford, Hage, Ramnoux

The newly published transcription of Foucault’s 1972 course in Buffalo, two autobiographical accounts by Georges Duby, Elaine Stratford’s remarkable book The Drowned: Elements of Loss and Repair, Ghassan Hage, Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Economy of Being, and the two volumes of … Continue reading

Posted in Clémence Ramnoux, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Sunday Histories | Leave a comment

Ghassan Hage, Pierre Bourdieu′s Political Economy of Being – Duke University Press, October 2025

Ghassan Hage, Pierre Bourdieu′s Political Economy of Being – Duke University Press, October 2025 The Introduction is open access at this link In Pierre Bourdieu’s Political Economy of Being, Ghassan Hage explores the great French social theorist’s work and revitalizes conventional … Continue reading

Posted in Pierre Bourdieu, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Erwin Panofsky’s dog and Ernst Kantorowicz

In the archives of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, there are some papers relating to Erwin Panofsky, the art historian, collected by his second wife Gerda Panofsky (née Sörgel). I was led there by the question of the … Continue reading

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Erwin Panofsky, Pierre Bourdieu, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Pierre Bourdieu and Erwin Panofsky: Architecture, Scholasticism and the Concept of Habitus

In 1967, Pierre Bourdieu translated Erwin Panofsky’s 1951 book Gothic Architecture and Scholasticism into French. The German-born Panofsky is best known for his work in art history, and for developing Aby Warburg’s distinction between iconography and iconology. He was teaching alternate semesters … Continue reading

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Erwin Panofsky, Ferdinand de Saussure, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Sunday Histories | 5 Comments

Pierre Bourdieu, Imperialisms: The International Circulation of Ideas and the Struggle for the Universal – trans. Peter Collier, Polity, June 2025

Pierre Bourdieu, Imperialisms: The International Circulation of Ideas and the Struggle for the Universal – trans. Peter Collier, Polity, June 2025 While Bourdieu’s work on cultural production, the reproduction of inequality and the rise of the modern state is well known, … Continue reading

Posted in Pierre Bourdieu, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

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

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

Books received – Quinn, Stonebridge, Harari, Donato, Anheim & Pasquali, Kojève, Jakobson, Wilson, Fall

A pile of mostly recently bought books, including Josephine Quinn, How the World Made the West: A 4,000-Year History; Lyndsey Stonebridge, We are Free to Change the World: Hannah Arendt’s Lessons in Love and Disobedience; Etienne Anheim and Paul Pasquali, Bourdieu et Panofsky: … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Kojève, Boundaries, Erwin Panofsky, Hannah Arendt, Juliet Fall, Pierre Bourdieu, Roman Jakobson, Territory | 1 Comment