Category Archives: T.S. Eliot

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

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

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

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

Jean de Menasce and Émile Benveniste as translators of T.S. Eliot

The importance of Jean de Menasce to the life of Émile Benveniste has long been known. A former student of Benveniste in his Iranian courses at the École Pratique des Hautes Études, Menasce later taught at the University of Fribourg, … Continue reading

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Henri Lefebvre, Jean de Menasce, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories, T.S. Eliot | 1 Comment

Richard Wilson, Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers – Bloomsbury, August 2025

Richard Wilson, Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers – Bloomsbury, August 2025 This book has been put back to August 2025, but looking forward to this. ‘Richard Wilson’s meticulously researched, powerfully argued and brilliantly written account of Shakespeare’s 20th-century fascist followers is not … Continue reading

Posted in T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Richard Wilson, Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers – Bloomsbury, February 2025

Richard Wilson, Shakespeare’s Fascist Followers – Bloomsbury, February 2025 Very good to see this book scheduled. (update May 2025: it is now scheduled for August 2025. I’ve added the cover.) ‘Richard Wilson’s meticulously researched, powerfully argued and brilliantly written account … Continue reading

Posted in T.S. Eliot, William Shakespeare | Leave a comment

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 20: writing about Dumézil and Benveniste’s archives

In the previous update on the research for this project, I said I had begun work on a chapter on Dumézil’s career from the late 1930s to the late 1940s. That has also been the main focus on this last month too, trying … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Aurel Stein, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Stefanos Geroulanos, T.S. Eliot, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Some of my highlights on Progressive Geographies in 2023

I didn’t publish much this past year – The Archaeology of Foucault has a 2023 date but was officially published in December 2022, and the special issue of Theory, Culture and Society on Foucault was completed some time before. I … Continue reading

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Aurel Stein, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Emile Benveniste, Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Henri Lefebvre, Kostas Axelos, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, My Publications, Stefanos Geroulanos, T.S. Eliot, The Archaeology of Foucault, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Indo-European Thought in Twentieth-Century France update 16: archive work in the UK and working around the British Library disruption

With the British Library still offline and so largely unusable, and without a trip to Paris this month, I’ve mainly been working at home, though with a few side trips to libraries and archives in the UK. SOAS has a special collections … Continue reading

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Sigmund Freud, T.S. Eliot, Travel, Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Six degrees of T.S. Eliot – the links through Jean de Menasce to Émile Benveniste

Given how connected he was, I suppose it was only a matter of time before my Indo-European research project led me in the direction of T.S. Eliot. It came in the lead I was following with Jean de Menasce, who … Continue reading

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Jean de Menasce, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, T.S. Eliot, Uncategorized | 4 Comments