Category Archives: Roman Jakobson

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

Pierre Yves-Testenoire, Les cours de Roman Jakobson à l’École Libre des Hautes Études: New York, 1942–1946 – De Gruyter, August 2025

Pierre Yves-Testenoire, Les cours de Roman Jakobson à l’École Libre des Hautes Études: New York, 1942–1946 – De Gruyter, August 2025 Exiled in the United States during the Second World War, linguist Roman Jakobson gave a series of lectures at the … Continue reading

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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

Roman Jakobson, Franz Boas, and the Paleo-Siberian and Aleutian material at the New York Public Library

The support for refugee scholars to come to the United States of America in the 1930s and 1940s is well known. Varian Fry famously helped several hundred European artists and intellectuals to flee Vichy France between 1940 and 1941. The … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Ernst Cassirer, Ernst Kantorowicz, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 28: archives in Princeton, Chicago and final work in New York

I’ve continued my work with archives in the USA over the past several weeks. Some of this has been in relation to the Indo-European Thought project, but I’ve managed to work on some peripheral things too.I had two days in Princeton, … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Edward Said, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Jacques Derrida, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Vladimir Nabokov | 1 Comment

Books received – Adorno, Benveniste, Jakobson, Godel

Three books by Adorno from Verso, and second-hand copies of Émile Benveniste’s Indo-European Language and Society, the first volume of Roman Jakobson’s Selected Writings, and Robert Godel, Les Sources Manuscrites du cours de linguistique générale de F. de Saussure.

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Ferdinand de Saussure, Roman Jakobson, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Books received – Vendryes, Critique, Jakobson & Pomorska, Rose, Zerelli, Nabokov & Wilson, Koyré, Wikander, Jakobson & Fischer-Jørgensen

Mainly bought second-hand while in New York, but also the recent Critique issue on Canguilhem, the new translation of Stig Wikander, The Aryan Männerbund, and Linda M.G. Zerelli, A Democratic Theory of Truth.

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Gillian Rose, Roman Jakobson, Vladimir Nabokov | Leave a comment

Vladimir Nabokov, Roman Jakobson, and The Song of Igor – other sources for the story of a failed collaboration

In a previous piece on Vladimir Nabokov, Roman Jakobson, Marc Szeftel and The Song of Igor, I outlined the story of a planned collaborative edition and English translation of the Slavic epic The Song of Igor. This is a text of disputed … Continue reading

Posted in Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized, Vladimir Nabokov | 8 Comments

Fifteen ‘Sunday Histories’ on Progressive Geographies

There are now fifteen ‘Sunday Histories‘ posted on Progressive Geographies – short essays about something related, directly or indirectly, to my research. I’ve been posting these weekly through 2025. I could have predicted the three on Foucault would get the … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, David Farrell Krell, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Erwin Panofsky, Gillian Rose, Hannah Arendt, Michel Foucault, Pierre Bourdieu, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Territory, Umberto Eco | Leave a comment

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

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