Category Archives: Sunday Histories

The Territory of the Vocabulary and the Vocabulary of Territory: Emile Benveniste 

Posted on March 30, 2025 by stuartelden

If I was writing The Birth of Territory again, I would certainly have found a little space for a brief discussion of Émile Benveniste and his Le Vocabulaire des institutions indo-européennes, now available in English again as the Dictionary of Indo-European Concepts and Society and open access … Continue reading →

Posted in Antoine Meillet, Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Reinhart Koselleck, Sunday Histories, Territory, Terror and Territory, The Birth of Territory | 7 Comments

Michel Foucault and Richard Sennett’s 1980 NYU seminar on “Sexuality and Solitude” – some notes on attendance and readings

Posted on March 23, 2025 by stuartelden

The “Sexuality and Solitude” lecture was delivered by Richard Sennett and Michel Foucault to the New York Institute for the Humanities on 20 November 1980 at 5.30pm. It was held in the Tishman Auditorium of Vanderbilt Hall on Washington Square. … Continue reading →

Posted in Edward Said, Foucault's Last Decade, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Hannah Arendt, David Farrell Krell and the early English translations of Heidegger

Posted on March 16, 2025 by stuartelden

Some years ago, when I was working on Heidegger, I read David Farrell Krell’s “Work Sessions with Martin Heidegger” essay. These were sessions in which Krell discussed some of Heidegger’s vocabulary and worked with him on possible English renderings, as … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, David Farrell Krell, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger, Sunday Histories, Uncategorized | 4 Comments

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

The Friendship between Hannah Arendt and Alexandre Koyré

Posted on March 2, 2025 by stuartelden

Although they both studied in Germany, and were among those who attended Heidegger’s lecture courses in the 1920s, Hannah Arendt and Alexandre Koyré didn’t meet at that time. (Arendt attended lectures in 1924-26 in Marburg; Koyré in 1928-29 in Freiburg.) Their first … Continue reading →

Posted in Alexandre Koyré, Georges Bataille, Hannah Arendt, Jacques Derrida, Karl Jaspers, Martin Heidegger, Sunday Histories | 6 Comments

Walter B. Henning, Robert Oppenheimer, Ernst Kantorowicz, the Institute for Advanced Study and the Khwarezmian Dictionary Project

Posted on February 23, 2025 by stuartelden

Walter Bruno Henning spent part of the 1955-56 academic year at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. His project at the time was described by him as “Analysis of the Khwarezmian language; collection of material for the Corpus Inscriptionem … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Sunday Histories | 12 Comments

Ernst Kantorowicz and the California Loyalty Oath

Posted on February 16, 2025 by stuartelden

In 1950, the medieval historian Ernst Kantorowicz privately published, at his own expense, a short book entitled The Fundamental Issue. It cost him $425 – perhaps about $5000 today. It concerned a loyalty oath at the University of California, first proposed … Continue reading →

Posted in Ernst Kantorowicz, Sunday Histories, William Shakespeare | 13 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

Sunday histories – short essays on Progressive Geographies

Posted on February 2, 2025 by stuartelden

Updated June 2025: The full list of essays in this series is here. Over the past several years, my Progressive Geographies blog has become too much of a noticeboard, sharing information about books, talks or shorter pieces by other people … Continue reading →

Posted in Emile Benveniste, Georges Dumézil, Mapping Indo-European Thought in Twentieth Century France, Michel Foucault, Sunday Histories | 2 Comments