Category Archives: Roman Jakobson

Books received – Porshnev, Jameson, Coveney, de Menasce, Foucault, Medby, Chimisso, Blencowe, Braudel, Jakobson

Posted on December 4, 2025 by stuartelden

A few books bought recently, mostly second-hand; Fredric Jameson, The Political Unconscious, Cristina Chimisso, Hélène Metzger, Historian and Historiographer of the Sciences, Ingrid Medley, Arctic State Identity and Claire Blencowe, Spirits of Extraction, in recompense for review work; and Foucault’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Fernand Braudel, Fredric Jameson, Ludwig Binswanger, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Gordon and Tina Wasson, Slavic Studies in the Cold War, and the Hallucinogenic Mushroom

Posted on November 23, 2025 by stuartelden

R. Gordon Wasson was Vice President at the American investment bank J.P. Morgan & Co., a major supporter of Slavic Studies in the United States during the Cold War, and fascinated by hallucinogenic mushrooms.  His wife, Valentina Pavlovna Wasson was … Continue reading →

Posted in Claude Lévi-Strauss, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

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

Posted on November 12, 2025 by stuartelden

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

Vladimir Nabokov’s original and unpublished translation of The Discourse of Igor’s Campaign; and Roman Jakobson’s enduring wish to complete his English edition

Posted on November 9, 2025 by stuartelden

In two previous pieces in the ‘Sunday Histories’ series, I have discussed the planned but unrealised collaboration between Vladimir Nabokov and Roman Jakobson on an edition and translation of “The Song of Igor”, an old Russian poem of the 12th century. Jakobson had … Continue reading →

Posted in Georges Dumézil, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized, Vladimir Nabokov | 4 Comments

Roman Jakobson’s paper to The First World Conference on Yiddish Studies, 1958: “The Languages of the Diaspora as a Particular Linguistic Problem”

Posted on October 26, 2025 by stuartelden

In an earlier piece in the ‘Sunday Histories’ series, I discussed the work Roman Jakobson did for Franz Boas on the Paleo-Siberian and Aleutian material at the New York Public Library. In his initial time in the United States, as a refugee from … Continue reading →

Posted in Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories | 3 Comments

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 | 2 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

Émile Benveniste on auxiliarity – an Acta Linguistica Hafniensia article, Eli Fischer-Jørgensen, a misplaced abstract and a 1965-66 Collège de France course

Posted on July 27, 2025 by stuartelden

In 1965, Émile Benveniste published “Structure des relations d’auxiliarité” in Acta Linguistica Hafniensia – a journal founded by the Linguistic Circle of Copenhagen. Its initial editors were Viggo Brøndal and Louis Hjelmslev. Although the journal had been founded in 1939, and published five … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Books received – Denman, Jakobson, Harari, Derrida, Foucault, Fischer-Jørgensen

Posted on July 14, 2025 by stuartelden

Derek S. Denman, Fortress Power: Hostile Designs and the Politics of Spatial Control, second-hand copies of Roman Jakobson, Six Lectures on Sound and Meaning, Josué V. Harari, Scenarios of the Imaginary, Eli Fischer-Jørgensen, Trends in Phonological Theory: A Historical Introduction, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson | 3 Comments

Books received – Garber, Serres, Spanos, Bové & O’Hara, Trubetzkoy & Jakobson, Boulez

Posted on July 3, 2025 by stuartelden

Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare in Bloomsbury, now in paperback; Michel Serres, Hermes II: Interference; the older collection The Question of Textuality: Strategies of Reading in Contemporary American Criticism; Nikolai Trubetzkoy’s correspondence with Roman Jakobson in French translation; and Pierre Boulez’s lectures … Continue reading →

Posted in Michel Serres, Roman Jakobson, William Shakespeare | 1 Comment