Category Archives: Sunday Histories

The Historian as Detective – Carlo Ginzburg and the Search for ‘Clues’

Posted on August 2, 2026 by stuartelden

A few years ago, after one of the presentations I’d given on reconstructing Émile Benveniste’s movements during the Second World War through various archives, one audience member said to another: “If I ever go missing, I want Stuart leading the … Continue reading →

Posted in Carlo Ginzburg, Sigmund Freud, Sunday Histories, Umberto Eco | 4 Comments

Marie-Louise Sjoestedt, Louis Renou and a 1940 arrest by the Germans

Posted on July 26, 2026 by stuartelden

I’ve written about Marie-Louise Sjoestedt (1900-1940), an important scholar of Celtic languages and mythology, briefly before in this series. From various accounts, there are two pieces of information about her. If both are true, then Renou (1896-1966) was arrested in 1940. But I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Antoine Meillet, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

The Georges Dumézil-Mircea Eliade correspondence – a chronological listing with publication details or archive locations

Posted on July 19, 2026 by stuartelden

The mythologist Georges Dumézil and the historian of religions Mircea Eliade had a long-term correspondence and several of their letters have been published. They met during the Second World War, and when Eliade’s links to the Iron Guard meant he … Continue reading →

Posted in Georges Dumézil, Mircea Eliade, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | Leave a comment

The Stockholm Appeal against Atomic weapons – Émile Benveniste, Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Jean Boulier and Cold War Politics

Posted on July 12, 2026 by stuartelden

Émile Benveniste was one of the signatories of the Stockholm appeal on 19 March 1950, against nuclear weapons. The short text of the appeal reads:  We demand the outlawing of atomic weapons as instruments of intimidation and mass murder of … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Sunday Histories | Leave a comment

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

Posted on July 5, 2026 by stuartelden

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

Foucault’s Visit to McGill University, and his meetings with Quebec separatists – Stuart Elden and Marcelo Hoffman on the Verso blog

Posted on July 2, 2026 by stuartelden

Marcelo Hoffman and I have written a short piece for the Verso blog about Foucault’s 1971 visit to Montreal. This was Foucault’s first time in Canada, where he gave three lectures on Nietzsche at McGill University and one on Sade at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Daniel Defert, Friedrich Nietzsche, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories | Leave a comment

Eighteen months of ‘Sunday Histories’

Posted on July 1, 2026 by stuartelden

I posted a short piece to this site every Sunday through 2025, and am now half-way through 2026. I don’t seem to be running out of ideas, usually with a few in progress at any one time, though some have … Continue reading →

Posted in Boris Porshnev, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Giorgio Agamben, Lucien Gerschel, Michel Foucault, Mircea Eliade, Roman Jakobson, Sunday Histories, Umberto Eco, Vladimir Nabokov | 1 Comment

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

Posted on June 28, 2026 by stuartelden

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

Initial Thoughts on Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm’s The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History

Posted on June 21, 2026 by stuartelden

There was a lot I learned, and much I liked, about Jason Ānanda Josephson Storm’s recently published The Genealogy of Genealogy: Nietzsche, Foucault, and the Coils of Critical History (University of Chicago Press, 2026). There was also a great deal which has … Continue reading →

Posted in Friedrich Nietzsche, Georges Bataille, Georges Dumézil, Gilles Deleuze, Jean Wahl, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, The Archaeology of Foucault, The Early Foucault, Uncategorized | 1 Comment

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

Posted on June 14, 2026 by stuartelden

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