Category Archives: Roman Jakobson

Books received – Adorno, Benveniste, Jakobson, Godel

Posted on May 19, 2025 by stuartelden

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

Posted on May 17, 2025 by stuartelden

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

Posted on May 4, 2025 by stuartelden

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

Posted on April 17, 2025 by stuartelden

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

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

Alexandre Koyré’s Wartime Teaching at the École Libre des Hautes Études and the New School

Posted on March 9, 2025 by stuartelden

In 1940, Alexandre Koyré was persuaded by Charles de Gaulle’s government in exile that he could make his most useful contribution to the French war effort by moving to New York and acting as secretary general of the planned École … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Hannah Arendt, René Descartes, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Edmund Leach on Roman Jakobson’s Contributions to Linguistics – audio recording from 1983

Posted on February 26, 2025 by stuartelden

In the NYU archives today, I read the typescript of a lecture given by Edmund Leach about Roman Jakobson at the New York Institute for the Humanities, and wondered if it had been published. One better, the audio recording of … Continue reading →

Posted in Roman Jakobson, Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 26: Benveniste’s late publications; Sunday Histories; beginning archival work in the United States

Posted on February 14, 2025 by stuartelden

Since the last update in December, I’ve been making some good progress on this project. The focus has mainly been on Benveniste’s work in the 1960s. But, as ever, I’ve found myself backtracking to earlier parts of his career and seeing some potentially … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Ernst Kantorowicz, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized, Understanding Henri Lefebvre | Leave a comment

Vladimir Nabokov, Roman Jakobson, Marc Szeftel and The Song of Igor

Posted on February 9, 2025 by stuartelden

Superficially at least, the stories of Vladimir Nabokov (1899-1977) and Roman Jakobson (1896-1982) would seem to connect. Both were born in Russia – Nabokov in Saint Petersburg; Jakobson in Moscow; both went into exile after the Revolution – Nabokov in … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Georges Dumézil, Jean Gottmann, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized, Vladimir Nabokov | 17 Comments

Thomas Sebeok, Umberto Eco and the Semiotics of Nuclear Waste

Posted on February 2, 2025 by stuartelden

The oldest texts preserved are inscriptions which date back about 5,000 years, though the dating is disputed, and how they should be read presents its own controversies. Most of the earliest texts are on tablets or in stone; with surviving … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Julia Kristeva, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Umberto Eco | 13 Comments