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122-529: Georges Edmond Raoul Dumézil (4 March 1898 – 11 October 1986) was a French philologist , linguist , and religious studies scholar who specialized in comparative linguistics and mythology . He was a professor at Istanbul University , École pratique des hautes études and the Collège de France , and a member of the Académie Française . Dumézil is well known for his formulation of

244-532: A Jewish family, his father a merchant and his mother an embroidery shop owner. Unlike his younger brother, Mauss did not join the family business and instead he joined the socialist and cooperative movement in the Vosges. Following the death of his grandfather, the Mauss and Durkheim families grew close and at this time Mauss began to feel concerned about his education and took initiatives in order to learn. Mauss obtained

366-545: A cautiously ambiguous relation" with Nouvelle Droite figures like de Benoist and Haudry, "both of whom courted him avidly". During the 1930s, Dumézil supported the far-right, royalist, anti-democratic, and anti-German Action Française. While he held for a while Benito Mussolini in high regard, he steadfastly opposed Nazism and voiced as a journalist his opposition to the growing danger posed by German nationalism. However, Dumézil never joined Action Française, contending that "too many things separated [him] from them. The credo of

488-522: A goal. One must always have in view a project to carry out.” During their time in Bordeaux, Durkheim was a strict and responsible tutor to Mauss. In their interactions through letters,  Durkheim frequently demands Mauss to provide timely updates on his studies and his interactions with Rosine and his tutors. He stressed his responsibility to train him: “I’m the one [your mother] asked to train you. I trained you according to my ideals. One must accept

610-452: A large Western city. Donor and receiver do not know each other and are unlikely ever to meet again. In this context, the donation certainly creates no obligation on the side of the beggar to reciprocate; neither the donor nor the beggar have such an expectation. Testart argues that only the latter can actually be enforced. He feels that Mauss overstated the magnitude of the obligation created by social pressures, particularly in his description of

732-739: A memoir, believing that the legacy of his work should stand on its scholarly merits alone. However, shortly before his death, Dumézil made a series of in-depth interviews with his defender Eribon, which were subsequently published in Entretiens avec Georges Dumézil (1987). This book remains the closest Dumézil ever came to writing a memoir. Upon his death, Dumézil left a number of unfishined works on Indo-European mythology, some of which were subsequently edited by his friends and published. Accusations of Fascist sympathies continued after Dumézil's death. Eribon's Faut-il brûler Dumézil? (1992) has been credited with permanently debunking accusations that Dumézil

854-483: A mutual interdependence between giver and receiver. According to Mauss, the "free" gift that is not returned is a contradiction because it cannot create social ties. Following the Durkheimian quest for understanding social cohesion through the concept of solidarity , Mauss's argument is that solidarity is achieved through the social bonds created by gift exchange. Mauss emphasizes that exchanging gifts resulted from

976-501: A nit-picking classicist" and only the "technical research into languages and families". In The Space Trilogy by C. S. Lewis , the main character, Elwin Ransom, is a philologist – as was Lewis' close friend J. R. R. Tolkien . Dr. Edward Morbius, one of the main characters in the science fiction film Forbidden Planet , is a philologist. Philip, the main character of Christopher Hampton 's 'bourgeois comedy' The Philanthropist ,

1098-413: A philosophy agrégé and a member of the exam board, tutored Mauss for the exam. Durkheim also helped connect Mauss with Octave Hamelin , who became Mauss's close friend and an important tutor. Durkheim defined his correspondence with Mauss as: “This correspondence which I would have liked to have been more regular was precisely intended to allow me to follow you and to prevent you from working without

1220-745: A position in France, and encouraged him to move abroad. From 1925 to 1931, Dumézil was Professor of the History of Religions at Istanbul University . During his years in Istanbul, Dumézil acquired proficiency in Armenian and Ossetian , and many non-Indo-European languages of the Caucasus . This enabled him to study the Nart saga , on which he published a number of influential monographs . Dumézil developed

1342-778: A prolific career that would produce several landmarks in sociological literature. Like many members of [[[L'Année sociologique]]] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) group, Mauss was attracted to socialism, especially that espoused by Jean Jaurès . He was particularly engaged around the anti-semitic political events of the Dreyfus affair . Towards the end of the century, he helped edit such left-wing papers as [[[Le Populaire (French newspaper)|Le Populaire]]] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) , [[[L'Humanité]]] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) and [[[Le Mouvement socialiste]]] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) ,

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1464-473: A reconstructed text accompanied by a " critical apparatus ", i.e., footnotes that listed the various manuscript variants available, enabling scholars to gain insight into the entire manuscript tradition and argue about the variants. A related study method known as higher criticism studies the authorship, date, and provenance of text to place such text in a historical context. As these philological issues are often inseparable from issues of interpretation, there

1586-494: A religious education and was bar mitzvahed, yet by the age of eighteen he stopped practicing his religion. Mauss studied philosophy at Bordeaux , where his maternal uncle Émile Durkheim was teaching at the time. In the 1890s, Mauss began his lifelong study of linguistics , Indology , Sanskrit , Hebrew , and the ' history of religions and uncivilized peoples' at the [[[École pratique des hautes études]]] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) . He passed

1708-531: A script used in the ancient Aegean, was deciphered in 1952 by Michael Ventris and John Chadwick , who demonstrated that it recorded an early form of Greek, now known as Mycenaean Greek . Linear A , the writing system that records the still-unknown language of the Minoans , resists deciphering, despite many attempts. Work continues on scripts such as the Maya , with great progress since the initial breakthroughs of

1830-556: A significant impact on Anglophile post-structuralist perspectives in anthropology, cultural studies, and cultural history. He modified post-structuralist and post-Foucauldian intellectuals because he combines an ethnographic approach with contextualization that is historical, sociological, and psychological. Mauss served as an important link between the sociology of Durkheim and contemporary French sociologists. Some of these sociologists include: Claude Levi Strauss , Pierre Bourdieu , Marcel Granet , and Louis Dumont . The essay on The Gift

1952-806: A son and a daughter. Philology Classical philology studies classical languages . Classical philology principally originated from the Library of Pergamum and the Library of Alexandria around the fourth century BC, continued by Greeks and Romans throughout the Roman and Byzantine Empire . It was eventually resumed by European scholars of the Renaissance , where it was soon joined by philologies of other European ( Romance , Germanic , Celtic ), Eurasian ( Slavic , etc.), Asian ( Arabic , Persian , Sanskrit , Chinese , etc.), and African ( Egyptian , Nubian , etc.) languages. Indo-European studies involve

2074-706: A strong interest in the Ossetians and their mythology , which was to prove indispensable for his future research. For the rest of his life, Dumézil would make yearly visits to Istanbul to conduct field research among Ossetians in Turkey . During this time he also published his Le problème des centaures (1929), which examined similarities in Greek and Indo-Iranian. It was inspired by Elard Hugo Meyer . Together with Le festin d'immortalité (1924) and Le crime des Lemniennes (1924), Le problème des centaures would form part of

2196-653: A trifunctional hierarchy respectively composed of priests, warriors and producers. In Dumézil's trifunctional model, the priests were responsible for the "maintenance of cosmic and juridical sovereignty", while warriors were tasked with the "exercise of physical prowess", and the commoners were responsible for "the promotion of physical well-being, fertility, wealth, and so on". In Norse mythology , these functions were according to Dumézil represented by Týr and Odin , Thor , and Njörðr and Freyr , while in Vedic mythology, they were represented by Varuna and Mitra , Indra , and

2318-401: A “list of important works that he think it would be useful to have” and “catalog them by subject.” The collaboration between the uncle and nephew was not always smooth. Durkheim frequently scolded Mauss in their correspondence about his punctuality and over-complication: “We are thus approaching the month of July. Do you not feel the march of time? Two months have passed since Easter. That

2440-508: Is a long time to draw up a list of books.” “Your list is arriving; it is a real desolation for me. For I see that you do not at all represent to yourself what there is to do, and instead of helping me to resolve the difficulties, you complicate them in such proportions, that, seeing the obstacles reappear as I believed to have overcome them, I had a moment of discouragement.” Marcel Mauss's studies under his uncle Durkheim at Bordeaux led to their doing work together on Primitive Classification which

2562-588: Is a professor of philology in an English university town . Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld , the main character in Alexander McCall Smith 's 1997 comic novel Portuguese Irregular Verbs is a philologist, educated at Cambridge. The main character in the Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film in 2012, Footnote , is a Hebrew philologist, and a significant part of the film deals with his work. The main character of

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2684-566: Is credited with having saved the Ubykh language from extinction. His magnum opus , Mythe et epopee , provides a thorough overview of the trifunctional ideology of Indo-European mythology, and was published in three volumes in (1968–1973). In 1974, Dumézil would earn the Prix Paul Valery for this work. Dumézil research has been credited with being largely responsible for the revival of Indo-European studies and comparative mythology in

2806-476: Is derived from the Greek φιλολογία ( philología ), from the terms φίλος ( phílos ) 'love, affection, loved, beloved, dear, friend' and λόγος ( lógos ) 'word, articulation, reason', describing a love of learning, of literature, as well as of argument and reasoning, reflecting the range of activities included under the notion of λόγος . The term changed little with the Latin philologia , and later entered

2928-547: Is happening in Paris. You must write to me for the sake of writing to me, so that I do not lose sight of you and not to send me chronicles. That, secondarily, you tell me everything that is happening, nothing better, since it is in my interest to be informed, but that is secondary. Now here we are at the end of the year and I know nothing of what you have done. I expect that you will stop your malpractices. What did Brochard tell you about your work? How are your other projects going? That

3050-528: Is important to distinguish between these activities and other social practices with which they might be confused. They go on to say that only social occurrences can be considered magical. Individual actions are not magic because if the whole community does not believe in efficacy of a group of actions, it is not social and therefore, cannot be magical. While Mauss is known for several of his own works – most notably his masterpiece Essai sur le Don (' The Gift ') – much of his best work

3172-516: Is no clear-cut boundary between philology and hermeneutics . When text has a significant political or religious influence (such as the reconstruction of Biblical texts), scholars have difficulty reaching objective conclusions. Some scholars avoid all critical methods of textual philology, especially in historical linguistics, where it is important to study the actual recorded materials. The movement known as new philology has rejected textual criticism because it injects editorial interpretations into

3294-455: Is not open to accepting this. In the book, Mauss and Hubert state: In magic, we have officers, actions, and representations: we call a person who accomplishes magical actions a magician , even if he is not professional; magical representations are those ideas and beliefs which correspond to magical actions; as for these actions, with regard to which we have defined the other elements of magic, we shall call them magical rites . At this stage it

3416-406: Is perhaps better recognised for his influence on the latter discipline, particularly with respect to his analyses of topics such as magic , sacrifice and gift exchange in different cultures around the world. Mauss had a significant influence upon Claude Lévi-Strauss , the founder of structural anthropology . His most famous work is The Gift (1925). Mauss was born in Épinal , Vosges , to

3538-532: Is the origin for anthropological studies of reciprocity . His analysis of the Potlatch has inspired Georges Bataille ( The Accursed Share ), then the situationists (the name of the first situationist journal was Potlatch ). This term has been used by many interested in gift economies and open-source software , although this latter use sometimes differs from Mauss's original formulation. See also Lewis Hyde 's revolutionary critique of Mauss in "Imagination and

3660-455: Is to reject the social bond; and reciprocating in order to demonstrate one's own liberality, honour, and wealth" (2018:341). Mauss describes how society is blinded by ideology, and therefore a system of prestations survives in societies when regarding the economy. Institutions are founded on the unity of individuals and society, and capitalism rests on an unsustainable influence on an individual's wants. Rather than focusing on money, Mauss describes

3782-417: Is treated amongst other scholars, as noted by both the philologists R.D Fulk and Leonard Neidorf who have been quoted saying "This field "philology's commitment to falsification renders it "at odds with what many literary scholars believe because the purpose of philology is to narrow the range of possible interpretations rather than to treat all reasonable ones as equal". This use of falsification can be seen in

Georges Dumézil - Misplaced Pages Continue

3904-469: Is what I want to be informed about. After that, when you know something about me, you will tell me.” Mauss started assisting Durkheim in organizing and launching the L’Année Sociologique between 1895 and 1902. Mauss helped his uncle to recruit potential collaborators, including Paul Fauconnet , Henri Hubert , and Albert Milhaud . Durkheim envisioned the role of his nephew to be the “linchpin” in

4026-409: The agrégation in 1893. He was also the first cousin of the much younger Claudette (née Raphael) Bloch, a marine biologist and mother of Maurice Bloch , who became a noted anthropologist. Instead of taking the usual route of teaching at a lycée following college, Mauss moved to Paris and took up the study of comparative religion and Sanskrit. His first publication in 1896 marked the beginning of

4148-567: The Aśvins . Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis would come to revolutionize modern research on ancient civilizations. In the prelude to World War II, Dumézil returned to military service as a captain of the reserves in the French Army . He was subsequently posted at Liège as a liaison officer with the Belgian Army . Through the assistance of Maxime Weygand , a friend of his father, Dumézil

4270-661: The Grande Loge de France , a pro-Jewish masonic lodge, for which he would later be persecuted by the Nazis. In the late 1930s, Dumézil broadened his research to include the study of Germanic religion. His research on Germanic religion was greatly influenced by the renowned Dutch philologist Jan de Vries , and also by Höfler. It was while lecturing on the Indo-European component in Germanic religion at Uppsala University in

4392-664: The Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland , and the recipient of honorary doctorates from the universities of Uppsala, Istanbul, Berne and Liège . He was an Officer of the Legion of Honor . In the 1970s and 1980s, Dumézil vigorously continued with research and publishing, and devoted himself particularly to the study of the Indo-European components in Ossetian and Scythian mythology . The much awaited third edition of his Mitra-Varuna

4514-527: The Scythians , maintained a caste system which had been established before the Indo-Iranian migrations into South Asia. This article eventually caught the attention of French linguist Émile Benveniste , with whom Dumézil entered a fruitful correspondence. From 1931 to 1933, Dumézil taught French at Uppsala University . Here he became acquainted with the influential professor Henrik Samuel Nyberg and

4636-473: The University of Warsaw in 1920–1921. While lecturing at Warsaw, Dumézil was struck by striking similarities between Sanskrit literature and the works of Ovid , which suggested to him that these pieces of literature contained traces of a common Indo-European heritage. Dumézil gained his PhD in comparative religion in 1924 with the thesis Le festin d'immortalité . Inspired by the works of Ernst Kuhn ,

4758-409: The ownership rights are fully transferred to the new owner. The object has thereby become " alienated " from its original owner. In a gift economy , however, the objects that are given are unalienated from the givers; they are "loaned rather than sold and ceded". It is the fact that the identity of the giver is invariably bound up with the object given that causes the gift to have a power which compels

4880-534: The potlatch amongst North American Indians . Gift Economy theorist Genevieve Vaughan (1997) criticizes the French school of thought based on Mauss, exemplified by Jacques Godbout and Serge Latouche and the Mouvement Anti-utilittarisse des Sciences Sociales, for defining gift-giving as consisting of "three moments: giving, receiving, and giving back. The insistence upon reciprocity hides

5002-424: The trifunctional hypothesis on Proto-Indo-European mythology and society . His research has had a major influence on the fields of comparative mythology and Indo-European studies . Georges Dumézil was born in Paris, France, on 4 March 1898, the son of Jean Anatole Jean Dumézil and Marguerite Dutier. His father was a highly educated general in the French Army . Dumézil received an elite education in Paris at

Georges Dumézil - Misplaced Pages Continue

5124-937: The "exposure" of Dumézil's alleged political Fascist sympathies may lead to the abolishment (" Ragnarök ") of the concept of Indo-European mythology . Throughout his career, Dumézil published more than seventy-five books and hundreds of scholarly articles. His research continues to have a strong influence among Indo-Europeanists, classicists , Celticists , Germanicists , and Indologists. Prominent scholars heavily influenced by Dumézil include Emile Benveniste, Stig Wikander, Jan de Vries, Gabriel Turville-Petre , Werner Betz , Edgar C. Polomé, Jaan Puvhvel, Joël Grisward , Nicholas Allen , Georges Charachidzé , François-Xavier Dillmann , Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin , Daniel Dubuisson  [ fr ] , Lucien Gerschel , Emily Lyle , Dean A. Miller, Alwyn Rees , Brinley Rees , Robert Schilling , Bernard Sergent , Udo Strutynski , Donald J. Ward and Atsuhiko Yoshida . Along with Marija Gimbutas ,

5246-602: The 1930s. They also accused Dumézil's trifunctional hypothesis of similarity with Fascism, and wrote that his reconstruction of Indo-European society was motivated by a desire to abolish " Judeo-Christian " values. Momigliano had himself been a member of the National Fascist Party in the 1930s, but was not open about this. Dumézil was also defended by many colleagues, including C. Scott Littleton, Jaan Puhvel, Edgar C. Polomé , Dean A. Miller, Udo Strutynski, and most notably by Didier Eribon . Polomé and Miller saw

5368-806: The Action Française was a block: it forbade both appreciating Edmond Rostand and believing in the innocence of Captain Dreyfus ." Furthermore, Dumézil joined the Free Masonry in the early 1930s as a member of the Portique lodge of the Grande Loge de France of the Scottish Rite , and was consequently dismissed from his teaching positions and from the civil service by the collaborationist Vichy State during World War II. Some critics, particularly adherents of Lévi-Strauss, contended that

5490-543: The Bolshevik's coercive resort to violence and their destruction of the market economy . Like many other followers of Durkheim, Mauss took refuge in administration. He secured Durkheim's legacy by founding institutions to carry out research, such as [l'Institut Français de Sociologie] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) (1924) and [l'Institut d'Ethnologie] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) in 1926. These institutions stimulated

5612-631: The Collège de Neufchâteau, Lycée de Troyes, Lycée Louis-le-Grand and Lycée de Tarbes. He came to master Ancient Greek and Latin at an early age. Through the influence of Michel Bréal , who was a student of Franz Bopp and the grandfather of one of Dumézil's friends, Dumézil came to master Sanskrit , and developed a strong interest in Indo-European mythology and religion . He began studying at École normale supérieure (ENS) in 1916. During World War I , Dumézil served as an artillery officer in

5734-899: The English language in the 16th century, from the Middle French philologie , in the sense of 'love of literature'. The adjective φιλόλογος ( philólogos ) meant 'fond of discussion or argument, talkative', in Hellenistic Greek , also implying an excessive (" sophistic ") preference of argument over the love of true wisdom, φιλόσοφος ( philósophos ). As an allegory of literary erudition, philologia appears in fifth-century postclassical literature ( Martianus Capella , De nuptiis Philologiae et Mercurii ), an idea revived in Late Medieval literature ( Chaucer , Lydgate ). The meaning of "love of learning and literature"

5856-732: The Erotic Life of Property". He also impacted the Mouvement Anti-Utilitariste dans les Sciences Sociales and David Graeber . Mauss's views on the nature of gift exchange have had critics. Main critiques against Mauss stem from beliefs that Mauss's essay is analyzing all primitive and archaic societies, but rather his essay is used to apply to one society and relationships within. French anthropologist Alain Testart (1998), for example, argues that there are "free" gifts, such as passers-by giving money to beggars, e.g. in

5978-585: The French Army, for which he received the Croix de Guerre . His father was inspector-general of the French artillery corps during the war. Dumézil returned to his studies at ENS in 1919. His most important teacher there was Antoine Meillet , who gave him a rigorous introduction in Iranian and Indo-European linguistics . Meillet was to have a great influence on Dumézil. Unlike other students of Meillet, Dumézil

6100-612: The United States by scholars such as Jaan Puhvel , C. Scott Littleton , Donald J. Ward , Udo Strutynski and Dean A. Miller . Many of these scholars were associated with the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Dumézil was made an Honorary Professor of the College de France in 1969, and became a Member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1970. Dumézil was a visiting professor at UCLA in 1971. He

6222-457: The [École pratique des hautes études] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) . [7] Two years later in 1931 Mauss was elected as the first holder of the Chair of Sociology in the [Collège de France] Error: {{Lang}}: invalid parameter: |label= ( help ) , and soon after he married his secretary in 1934 who soon was bedridden after a poisonous gas incident. Later, in 1940, Mauss

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6344-599: The ancient languages of the Near East progressed rapidly. In the mid-19th century, Henry Rawlinson and others deciphered the Behistun Inscription , which records the same text in Old Persian , Elamite , and Akkadian , using a variation of cuneiform for each language. The elucidation of cuneiform led to the decipherment of Sumerian . Hittite was deciphered in 1915 by Bedřich Hrozný . Linear B ,

6466-469: The anthropology of the gift was: "What power resides in the object given that causes its recipient to pay it back?". The answer is simple: the gift is a "total prestation" (see law of obligations ), imbued with "spiritual mechanisms", engaging the honour of both giver and receiver (the term "total prestation" or " total social fact " ( fait social total ) was coined by his student Maurice Leenhardt after Durkheim's social fact ). Such transactions transcend

6588-499: The application of empirical studies, and more fruitful than his earlier studies with Durkheim. His work fell into two categories, one being major ethnological works on exchange as a symbolic system, body techniques and the category of the person, and the second being social science methodology. In his The Gift , Mauss argued that gifts are never truly free, rather, human history is full of examples of gifts bringing about reciprocal exchange. The famous question that drove his inquiry into

6710-771: The aspects of the Maussian notion of the gift unless the moral and non-material qualities of gifting are considered. These aspects are, of course, at the heart of the gift, as demonstrated in books such as Annette Weiner's (1992) Inalienable Possessions: The Paradox of Keeping While Giving . Mauss's view on sacrifice was also controversial at the time. This was because it conflicted with the psychologisation of individuals and social behavior. In addition to this, Mauss's terms like persona and habitus have been used among some sociological approaches. French philosopher Georges Bataille used The Gift to draw new conclusions based on economic anthropology, in this case, an interpretation of how money

6832-516: The assistance of Sylvain Lévi , a friend of Meillet, was able to gain a position at the École pratique des hautes études (EPHE). From 1935 to 1968, Dumézil was Director of Studies at the Department of Comparative Religion at EPHE. In this capacity he was responsible for teaching and research on Indo-European religions. Students of Dumézil during this time include Roger Caillois . At EPHE, through

6954-481: The best introductory work on Dumézil's core ideas. Dumézil retired from teaching in 1968, but nevertheless continued a vigorous program of research and writing which continued until his death. He would eventually become proficient in more than 40 languages, including all branches of the Indo-European languages , most languages of the Caucasus, and indigenous languages of the Americas (most notably Quechuan ). Dumézil

7076-676: The body, one must apprehend these elements simultaneously. They defined the person as a category of thought, the articulation of particular embodiment of law and morality. Mauss and Hubert believed that a person was constituted by personages (a set of roles) which were executed through the behaviors and exercise of specific body techniques and attributes. Mauss and Hubert wrote another book titled A General Theory of Magic in 1902 [see external links for PDF]. They studied magic in 'primitive' societies and how it has manifested into our thoughts and social actions. They argue that social facts are subjective and therefore should be considered magic, but society

7198-461: The communicative character of simple giving and receiving without reciprocity and does not allow this group to make a clear distinction between gift-giving and exchange as two opposing paradigms." In subsequent works, for example, The Gift in the Heart of Language: The Maternal Source of Meaning (2015) Vaughan elaborated on gift-giving as a relation between giver and receiver that takes its form from

7320-485: The comparative philology of all Indo-European languages . Philology, with its focus on historical development ( diachronic analysis), is contrasted with linguistics due to Ferdinand de Saussure 's insistence on the importance of synchronic analysis . While the contrast continued with the emergence of structuralism and the emphasis of Noam Chomsky on syntax , research in historical linguistics often relies on philological materials and findings. The term philology

7442-516: The consequences of what one desired. She is free to regret it, but she cannot hold it against you.” The interactions between Durkheim and Mauss were not one-way help and guidance. When working on his book Suicide , Durkheim asked Mauss to help him annotate articles on suicide cases in the German army, England and Wales, and Spain, with a special focus on ranks and years of service in the army, gender, and professions. Mauss then helped Durkheim compile

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7564-552: The criticism of Dumézil as an expression of political correctness and Marxist ideology, and questioned the scholarly credentials of the critics. Dumézil himself responded vigorously to these accusations, pointing out that he had never been a member of a Fascist organization, never been sympathetic to Fascist ideology, and that the ancient Indo-European hierarchical social structure never appealed to him. In order to clarify his political position, he declared to Éribon in 1987: "the principle, not simply monarchical, but dynastic, which protects

7686-483: The debate surrounding the etymology of the Old English character Unferth from the heroic epic poem Beowulf . James Turner further disagrees with how the use of the term is dismissed in the academic world, stating that due to its branding as a "simpleminded approach to their subject" the term has become unknown to college-educated students, furthering the stereotypes of "scrutiny of ancient Greek or Roman texts of

7808-499: The development of fieldwork-based anthropology by young academics. Among the students he influenced were George Devereux , Jeanne Cuisinier, Alfred Metraux , Marcel Griaule , Georges Dumezil , Denise Paulme , Michel Leiris , Germaine Dieterlen , Louis Dumont , Andre-Georges Haudricourt , Jacques Soustelle , and Germaine Tillion . In 1901, Mauss was appointed to the Chair of the History of Religions of Non-Civilized Peoples at

7930-492: The diet of Jain renouncers and compels them to avoid preparing food, as this could potentially involve violence against microscopic organisms. Since Jain renouncers do not work, they rely on food donations from lay families within the Jain community. However, the former must not appear to be having any wants or desires, and only very hesitantly and apologetically receives the food prepared by the latter. "Free" gifts therefore challenge

8052-435: The divisions between the spiritual and the material in a way that, according to Mauss, is almost "magical". The giver does not merely give an object but also part of himself, for the object is indissolubly tied to the giver: "the objects are never completely separated from the men who exchange them" (1990:31). Because of this bond between giver and gift, the act of giving creates a social bond with an obligation to reciprocate on

8174-502: The existence of a distinct priestly class among the Proto-Indo-Europeans . In the early 1930s, under the pseudonym "Georges Marcenay", he wrote some articles for the right-wing newspapers Candide and Le Jour , where he advocated an alliance between France and Italy against Nazi Germany . Dumézil's opposition to Nazism figures prominently in several of his later works on Germanic religion. At this time Dumézil joined

8296-710: The fall of 1943. During the war, Dumézil significantly reformulated his theories, and applied his trifunctional hypothesis to the study of Indo-Iranians, most notably in his work Mitra-Varuna (1940). In this work, Dumézil suggested that the Indo-Iranian gods Mitra and Varuna represented juridical and religious sovereignty respectively, and that these functions were relics of an earlier Indo-European tradition also manifested in Roman and Norse mythology. In works such as Jupiter, Mars, Quirinus (1941), Horace et les Curiaces (1942), Servius et la Fortune (1943) and Naissance de Rome (1944), Dumézil applied his trifunctional hypothesis to

8418-535: The famous decipherment and translation of the Rosetta Stone by Jean-François Champollion in 1822, some individuals attempted to decipher the writing systems of the Ancient Near East and Aegean . In the case of Old Persian and Mycenaean Greek , decipherment yielded older records of languages already known from slightly more recent traditions ( Middle Persian and Alphabetic Greek ). Work on

8540-402: The formation of the journal and the broader theoretical transformation it would bring. Mauss was assigned to work on the religious sociology section, the most important section for Durkheim, as he envisioned the journal to “create religious sociology” and to “make religion, no longer economics, the matrix of social facts .” Other than recruitment, Mauss was assigned by Durkheim to work up

8662-565: The highest office of the State from caprices and ambitions, seemed to me, and still seems to me, preferable to the generalized election in which we have been living since Danton and Bonaparte. The example of the [constitutional] monarchies of the North (of Europe) confirmed to me this feeling. Of course, the formula is not applicable in France." Dumézil died in Paris from a massive stroke on 11 October 1986. He had deliberately refrained from writing

8784-497: The history and sociology of religion. In 1887, Émile Durkheim was appointed to the Université de Bordeaux . He was later joined by his nephew in 1890, who was preparing for his degree in philosophy at Bordeaux. During their time at Bordeaux , Durkheim constantly interacted with Mauss through letters, guiding him in academic work and personal life. Between 1893 and 1894, when Mauss started to prepare for Agrégation , Durkheim,

8906-416: The intellectual life and I am enjoying the life war is giving me" (Fournier 2006: 175). While liberating, he also dealt with the devastation and violence of the war as many of his friends and colleagues died in the war, and his uncle Durkheim died shortly before its end. Mauss began to write a book "On Politics" that remained unfinished, but the early 1920s emphasized his energy for politics through criticism of

9028-406: The last in collaboration with Georges Sorel . In 1901, Mauss began drawing more on ethnography, and his work began to develop characteristics now associated with formal anthropology. Mauss served in the French army during World War I from 1914 to 1919 as an interpreter. The military service was liberating from Mauss's intense academics, as he stated, "I'm doing wonderfully. I just wasn't made for

9150-432: The latter parth of the 20th century. He was generally regarded as the world's foremost expert on the comparative study of Indo-European mythology. From the late 1960s towards the end of his life, Dumézil's research came to be widely celebrated in the United States, where many of his works on Indo-European mythology were translated into English and published. Additional works inspired by Dumézil's theories were also published in

9272-624: The latter's favourite students, Stig Wikander and Geo Widengren . Through Wikander and Widengren, Dumézil further became acquainted with Otto Höfler . Wikander, Widengren and Höfler would remain lifelong friends and intellectual collaborators of Dumézil. Throughout their careers, these scholars would have a strong influence on each other's research. Most notably, Höflers research on the Germanic comitatus , and Wikander's subsequent research on related warrior fraternities among early Indo-Iranians, would have enormous influence on Dumézil's later research. Dumézil returned to France in 1933, where he through

9394-503: The most influential mythographers of all time. Notable works published by Dumézil in the late 1940s include Tarpeia (1947), Loki (1948), L'Héritage Indo-Européen à Rome (1949) and Le Troisième souverain (1949). The latter work examined the role of Aryaman and his Indo-European counterparts, such the Norse god Heimdallr , in wider Indo-European mythology. Through several influential works of his friend Wikander, Dumézil came to doubt

9516-534: The mythological and social structures Dumézil identified with Indo-Europeans were not distinctly Indo-European, but rather characteristic of all humanity. Among those were Colin Renfrew , who doubts that Indo-Europeans had anything distinctly in common beyond speaking Indo-European languages. The harshest critics of Dumézil were Arnaldo Momigliano and Carlo Ginzburg , who charged Dumézil with having "sympathy for Nazi culture" due to his writings on Germanic religion in

9638-452: The need to focus on faits sociaux totaux, total social facts, which are legal, economic, religious, and aesthetic facts which challenge the sociological method. An important notion in Mauss's conceptualization of gift exchange is what Gregory (1982, 1997) refers to as " inalienability ". In a commodity economy , there is a strong distinction between objects and persons through the notion of private property . Objects are sold, meaning that

9760-515: The original principles of textual criticism have been improved and applied to other widely distributed texts such as the Bible . Scholars have tried to reconstruct the original readings of the Bible from the manuscript variants. This method was applied to classical studies and medieval texts as a way to reconstruct the author's original work. The method produced so-called "critical editions", which provided

9882-524: The origins of older texts. Philology also includes the study of texts and their history. It includes elements of textual criticism , trying to reconstruct an author's original text based on variant copies of manuscripts. This branch of research arose among ancient scholars in the Greek-speaking world of the 4th century BC, who desired to establish a standard text of popular authors for both sound interpretation and secure transmission. Since that time,

10004-604: The pantheon of the Mitanni was derived from an earlier pantheon shared by all Indo-Iranians, and that the main deities in the Indo-Iranian pantheon represented the three functions of Indo-European society. According to Dumézil, it was only during the rise of Zoroaster that Ahura Mazda became the chief deity in Iranian mythology. In the years immediately after World War II, Dumézil recruited Claude Lévi-Strauss and Mircea Eliade to EPHE, and both became close friends whom he strongly influenced. These three men are widely considered

10126-503: The part of the recipient. Not to reciprocate means to lose honour and status, but the spiritual implications can be even worse: in Polynesia , failure to reciprocate means to lose mana , one's spiritual source of authority and wealth. To cite Goldman-Ida's summary, "Mauss distinguished between three obligations: giving, the necessary initial step for the creation and maintenance of social relationships; receiving, for to refuse to receive

10248-615: The phonetic approach championed by Yuri Knorozov and others in the 1950s. Since the late 20th century, the Maya code has been almost completely deciphered, and the Mayan languages are among the most documented and studied in Mesoamerica . The code is described as a logosyllabic style of writing. In English-speaking countries, usage of the term "philology" to describe work on languages and works of literature, which had become synonymous with

10370-404: The political right , but always presented his works as apolitical, and had many friends and admirers on the left , such as Michel Foucault . Defunct Defunct In the 1980–1990s, Dumézil came under heavy criticism from certain scholars, particularly left-wing historians, who accused Dumézil of being a crypto-Fascist and a neo-traditionalist, by implicitly defending in his scholarly writings

10492-632: The practices of German scholars, was abandoned as a consequence of anti-German feelings following World War I . Most continental European countries still maintain the term to designate departments, colleges, position titles, and journals. J. R. R. Tolkien opposed the nationalist reaction against philological practices, claiming that "the philological instinct" was "universal as is the use of language". In British English usage, and British academia, philology remains largely synonymous with "historical linguistics", while in US English , and US academia,

10614-475: The primal human experience of mothering and being mothered. Another example of a non-reciprocal "free" gift is provided by British anthropologist James Laidlaw (2000). He describes the social context of Indian Jain renouncers, a group of itinerant celibate renouncers living an ascetic life of spiritual purification and salvation. The Jainist interpretation of the doctrine of ahimsa (an extremely rigorous application of principles of nonviolence ) influences

10736-443: The recipient to reciprocate. Because gifts are unalienable they must be returned; the act of giving creates a gift-debt that has to be repaid. Because of this, the notion of an expected return of the gift creates a relationship over time between two individuals. In other words, through gift-giving, a social bond evolves that is assumed to continue through space and time until the future moment of exchange. Gift exchange therefore leads to

10858-464: The recommendation of Lévi, Dumézil also attended lectures by sinologist Marcel Granet , whose methodology for the study of religions was to have a strong influence on Dumézil. Seeking to acquire knowledge of non-Indo-European cultures, Dumézil became proficient in Chinese and gained a deep understanding of Chinese mythology . In his research on the social structure of ancient Indo-Iranians, Dumézil

10980-449: The relationship between languages. Similarities between Sanskrit and European languages were first noted in the early 16th century and led to speculation of a common ancestor language from which all these descended. It is now named Proto-Indo-European . Philology's interest in ancient languages led to the study of what was, in the 18th century, "exotic" languages, for the light they could cast on problems in understanding and deciphering

11102-501: The research of Dumézil continues to form the basis for modern Indo-European studies. His formulation of the trifunctional hypothesis has been described by C. Scott Littleton as one of the most important scholarly achievements of the 20th century. Since 1995, the Académie Française awards the annual Prix Georges Dumézil  [ fr ] for a work of philology. Dumézil married Madeleine Legrand in 1925, with whom he had

11224-735: The restoration of a traditional hierarchical order in Europe (e.g. the three estates ). Many of these critics pointed out that Dumézil's lifelong close friend Pierre Gaxotte had been the secretary of Action Française leader Charles Maurras , and that his work had been influential on members of the European New Right , including Alain de Benoist , Jean Haudry , or Roger Pearson , who used his theories to support far-right political positions, with an "Indo-European race" (conflated with white people ) being seen as superior to all other peoples. Bruce Lincoln has argued that Dumézil "maintained

11346-508: The results of human mental processes. This science compares the results of textual science with the results of experimental research of both psychology and artificial intelligence production systems. In the case of Bronze Age literature , philology includes the prior decipherment of the language under study. This has notably been the case with the Egyptian , Sumerian , Assyrian , Hittite , Ugaritic , and Luwian languages. Beginning with

11468-621: The school of Durkheim as his own. His early works reflect the dependence on Durkheim's school, yet as more works, including unpublished texts were read, Mauss preferred to start many projects and often not finish them. Mauss concerned himself more with politics than his uncle, as a member of the Collectivistes, French workers party, and Revolutionary socialist workers party. His political involvement led up to and after World War I. Mauss has been credited for his analytic framework which has been characterized as more supple, more appropriate for

11590-447: The science fiction TV show Stargate SG-1 , Dr. Daniel Jackson , is mentioned as having a PhD in philology. Marcel Mauss Marcel Israël Mauss ( French: [mos] ; 10 May 1872 – 10 February 1950) was a French sociologist and anthropologist known as the "father of French ethnology". The nephew of Émile Durkheim , Mauss, in his academic work, crossed the boundaries between sociology and anthropology . Today, he

11712-428: The spring of 1938 that Dumézil made a major discovery which was to revolutionize his future research. In his subsequent Mythes et dieux des Germains (1939), Dumézil found that early Germanic society was characterized by the same social divisions as those among the early Indo-Iranians. On this basis, Dumézil formulated his trifunctional hypothesis , which argued that ancient Indo-European societies were characterized by

11834-558: The statistical tables in Suicide . Durkheim, being a controversial figure in academia at the time, also seeks information about himself and other scholars’ interests in L’Année Sociologique from Mauss, although stressing it to be “secondary” when compared to updating on what Mauss was doing: “Its [Mauss's correspondence with Durkheim] purpose is to keep me informed of what you are doing, not to give me studied reports on what

11956-422: The study of the Indo-European heritage of ancient Rome . From the late 1940s onwards, the comparative study of Vedic, Roman and Norse mythology and society would constitute the main focus of Dumézil's research. Iranian and Greek mythology played less conspicuous roles in his research. Naissance des archanges (1945) is his sole book on Iranian and Zoroastrian material. In this work, Dumézil suggests that

12078-404: The text and destroys the integrity of the individual manuscript, hence damaging the reliability of the data. Supporters of new philology insist on a strict "diplomatic" approach: a faithful rendering of the text exactly as found in the manuscript, without emendations. Another branch of philology, cognitive philology, studies written and oral texts. Cognitive philology considers these oral texts as

12200-617: The thesis examined ritual drinks in Indo-Iranian , Germanic , Celtic , Slavic and Italic religion. Dumézil's early writings were also inspired by the research of James George Frazer , whose views were however becoming discredited due to advances in the field of anthropology. At ENS, Dumézil became a close friend of Pierre Gaxotte . Gaxotte was a follower of Charles Maurras , leader of the nationalist Action Française movement. Though some have accused Dumézil of being in sympathy with Action Française, this has been denied by Dumézil, who

12322-464: The trifunctional Indo-European social structure, which he now regarded more as an ideology than an established system. In 1955, Dumézil spent several months as a visiting professor at the University of Lima , during which he dedicated much time the study of the language and mythology of the Quechua people . During the 1950s, Dumézil conducted much research on what he hypothesised to be a war between

12444-494: The two children of Rosine Mauss and Gerson Mauss, alongside his younger brother Camille Henri Mauss. Both the uncle and nephew were born in Épinal, France , with a fourteen-year age difference. Religion is a keyword in the family life of both Mauss and Durkheim, with Moïse Durkheim being the rabbi of Épinal and chief rabbi of Vosges. Although both Mauss and Durkheim later set themselves away from religious beliefs and practices, this contributed to their mutual interest in studying

12566-501: The universalist theories of Durkheim and Lévi-Strauss, and thus contended that the trinfuctional structure of Indo-European society was a distinct characteristic of the Indo-Europeans. Dumézil had studied the languages and mythology of several indigenous peoples of the Americas , and contended that trifunctionalism was not prevalent among those peoples. Dumézil was elected to the Collège de France in 1949, where he until 1968

12688-555: The various functions in Indo-European mythology, which he suggested culminated in the incorporation of the third function into the first and second function. Dumézil's ideas on this topic were published in Aspects de la fonction guerrière chez les Indo-Européens (1956). Other notable works published by Dumézil in the 1950s include Hadingus (1953), and several works on Roman, Celtic and Germanic religion. His L'Idéologie tripartie des Indo-Européens , published in 1958, has been described as

12810-401: The wider meaning of "study of a language's grammar, history and literary tradition" remains more widespread. Based on the harsh critique of Friedrich Nietzsche, some US scholars since the 1980s have viewed philology as responsible for a narrowly scientistic study of language and literature. Disagreements in the modern day of this branch of study are followed with the likes of how the method

12932-399: The will of attaching other people – 'to put people under obligations', because "in theory such gifts are voluntary, but in fact they are given and repaid under obligation". Mauss also focused on the topic of sacrifice. The book Sacrifice and its Function which he wrote with Henri Hubert in 1899 argued that sacrifice is a process involving sacralising and desacralising. This

13054-450: The works Dumézil referred to as his "Ambrosia cycle". Dumézil's work in Istanbul would be of enormous importance to his future research, and he would later consider his years in Istanbul as the happiest of his life. In 1930, Dumézil published his important La préhistoire indo-iranienne des castes . Drawing upon evidence from Avestan , Persian , Greek , Ossetian and Arabic sources, Dumézil suggested that ancient Indo-Iranians, including

13176-488: Was Chair of Indo-European Civilization. This position was specifically created for him. In the 1950s and 1960s, Dumézil's theories gained increasing acceptance among scholars. The spread of Dumézil's theories was greatly aided by support he received from friends such as Émile Benveniste, Stig Wikander, Otto Höfler and Jan de Vries. Notable Iranologists who adopted Dumézil's theories include Benveniste, Wikander, Geo Widengren, Jacques Duchesne-Guillemin and Marijan Mole . Dumézil

13298-497: Was a crypto-Fascist. Charges of Fascist sympathies have nevertheless continued to be leveled, most notably by Eliade's former student Bruce Lincoln . Inspired by the critique of Momigliano and Ginzburg, Lincoln has criticized Dumézil from a Marxist perspective, and suggested that Dumézil was a Germanophobic Fascist. Similar accusations have also been leveled by the Swedish Marxist historian Stefan Arvidsson , who hopes that

13420-605: Was a fervent Dreyfusard known for his philosemitism , republicanism , anti-racism and Germanophobia . Dumézil had deliberately avoided attending Hubert's lectures, and had to be convinced by Meillet to provide Hubert with a copy of his PhD thesis, which Hubert subsequently bitterly criticized. The refusal of Mauss and Hubert to provide Dumézil with a position may have been motivated by suspicions that Dumézil did not agree with them politically. The rejection by Hubert led to Dumézil losing support from Meillet as well. Meilett informed Dumézil that it would be impossible for him to acquire

13542-656: Was done in collaboration with members of the Année Sociologique , including Durkheim ( Primitive Classification ), Henri Hubert ( Outline of a General Theory of Magic and Essay on the Nature and Function of Sacrifice ), Paul Fauconnet ( Sociology ) and others. Mauss influenced French anthropology and social science. He did not have a great number of students like many other Sociologists did, however, he taught ethnographic method to first generation French anthropology students. In addition to this, Mauss's ideas have had

13664-598: Was elected to the highly prestigious Académie Française in 1975. His election to Académie Française was sponsored by Lévi-Strauss, who gave him the welcoming address. Dumézil was also an Associate Member of the Royal Academy of Science, Letters and Fine Arts of Belgium , Corresponding Member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences , Honorary Member of the Royal Irish Academy , Honorary Fellow of

13786-407: Was forced out of his job as the Chair of Sociology and out of Paris due to the German occupation and anti-Semitic legislation passed. Mauss remained socially isolated following the war and died in 1950. Moïse Durkheim and Mélanie Isidor, the parents of Émile Durkheim , had four children: Rosine (1848-1930), Félix (1850-1889), Céline (1851-1931), and Émile (1858-1917). Marcel Israël Mauss was one of

13908-677: Was greatly aided by Benveniste, who had earlier been critical of Dumézil's theories. During his early years at EPHE, Dumézil modified many his theories. Most importantly, he increasingly shifted his focus from linguistic evidence to evidence from ancient social structures. Iranologists who influenced Dumézil in this approach include Arthur Christensen , James Darmesteter , Hermann Güntert and Herman Lommel . Notable works of Dumézil from this period include Ouranos-Varuna (1934) and Flamen-Brahman (1935). Ouranos-Varuna examined similarities in Greek and Vedic mythology , while Flamen-Brahman examined

14030-539: Was however also criticized by certain Indologists , Iranologists and Romanists . Indologist Paul Thieme notably argued that the gods of the Mitanni were distinctly Indo-Aryan rather than Indo-Iranian, and that Dumézil's reconstruction of Indo-Iranian religion was thus mistaken. Dumézil responded vigorously to such criticism, while also continuously refining his theories. Most notably, Dumézil modified his theories on

14152-652: Was in April 1940 posted to the French military mission in Ankara , Turkey, where he remained during the Battle of France . He was repatriated to France in September 1940, and subsequently returned to full-time teaching at EPHE. Because he had been a Freemason as a young man, Dumézil was fired from EPHE by the pro-Nazi Vichy government in early 1941. Through the influence of colleagues, he was however able to regain his position in

14274-476: Was more interested in mythology than linguistics. In the 19th century, philologists such as Franz Felix Adalbert Kuhn , Max Müller and Elard Hugo Meyer (who had influenced Bréal) had conducted notable work on comparative mythology, but their theories had since been found to be mostly untenable. Dumézil became determined to restore the field of comparative mythology from its contemporary discredit. Dumézil lectured at Lycee de Beauvais in 1920, and taught French at

14396-413: Was narrowed to "the study of the historical development of languages" ( historical linguistics ) in 19th-century usage of the term. Due to the rapid progress made in understanding sound laws and language change , the "golden age of philology" lasted throughout the 19th century, or "from Giacomo Leopardi and Friedrich Schlegel to Nietzsche ". The comparative linguistics branch of philology studies

14518-443: Was never a member of the organization. Dumézil's PhD thesis was highly praised by Meillet, who requested Marcel Mauss and Henri Hubert , both followers of Émile Durkheim , to assist Dumézil with further studies. For reasons unknown, the request was turned down. Mauss and Hubert were both socialists in the spirit of Jean Jaurès , who actively used their academic influence to advance their own political ideology. Hubert in particular

14640-425: Was published in L'Année Sociologique . In this work, Mauss and Durkheim attempted to create a French version of the sociology of knowledge , illustrating the various paths of human thought taken by different cultures, in particular how space and time are connected back to societal patterns. They focused their study on tribal societies in order to achieve depth. While Mauss called himself a Durkheimian, he interpreted

14762-498: Was published in 1977. He received the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca in 1984. In his later years, Dumézil became a visible figure in French society, and was frequently interviewed and cited in the public press. His theories on Indo-European society were celebrated by Nouvelle Droite figures such as Alain de Benoist , Michel Poniatowski and Jean Haudry , but Dumézil was careful to distance himself from them. Dumézil openly identified with

14884-412: Was when the "former directed the holy towards the person or object, and the latter away from a person or object." Mauss and Hubert proposed that the body is better understood not as a natural given. Instead, it should be seen as the product of specific training in attributes, deportments, and habits. Furthermore, the body techniques are biological, sociological, and psychological and in doing an analysis of

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