MAURICE HALBWACHS ET
LES SCIENCES HUMAINES DE SON TEMPS

par Christian TOPALOV, Jean-Christophe MARCEL, Olivier MARTIN,
Laurent MUCCHIELLI, Philippe STEINER, Marie JAISSSON

Special Issue : Maurice Halbwachs : the Humanities in his Life and Times

This first issue, dedicated to Maurice Halbwachs, enables the review to remain faithful to its original intention to cut across traditional disciplinary barriers. At a time when academic boundaries between disciplines were still quite vague and when debates on the subject were particularly intense, Maurice HALBWACHS (1877-1945) kept up an uninterrupted dialogue with psychologists, economists, historians, demographers and statisticians. For this reason, when we study his work in context, light is also thrown on the history of these other, neighbouring disciplines.

In addition, Halbwachs was one of the greatest representatives of the durkheimian school of sociology. Together with Mauss, Granet, Simiand, Levy-Bruhl, Bouglé and a few others, he made a positive contribution to maintaining and developping sociology in French universities between the wars. With the aforementionned sociologists, he extended Durkheim’s intellectual legacy without embalming it. His major research projects on collective memory, suicide, economically determined behaviour and, more generally,the way of life typical of the different social classses. In addition, he never ceased to take an interest in other sociological traditions and, in particular, in the Chicago school, in the works of Pareto and, even more so, in German sociology – (It is not generally known that he was the main person involved in introducing Weber to the French at the end of the twenties).

The contributors to the current issue (Marie Jaisson, Jean-Christophe Marcel, Olivier Martin, Laurent Mucchielli, Philippe Steiner and Christian Topalov) have chosen to deal with all these aspects of Halbwachs’ career.

A historical document : this issue features Halbwachs’ account of his campaign to be elected to the Collège de France in 1943 – 1944, a previously unpublished document which is exceptionally interesting for researchers into the institutional history and sociology of academic networks.

Book Reviews : In-depth book reviews on works of psychopathology, the history of sociology, the history of geographical studies and the history of ethnology.

ISBN : 2-85939-609-8 .

Individual Price : 21,34 EUR

Institutionnal Price : 29,90 EUR