A book of 80,000 words for students and the public in Polity Press’ ‘Key contemporary thinkers’ series. A full draft to be submitted in 2025 for publication in 2026.
The elements so mixed in him that Nature might stand up and say to all the world, “there was a man” (Shakespeare).
Preface and acknowledgments
Chronology
Introduction: Mauss’s life, France 1870-1945, about this book
Part one: Academic writings, work, and public engagement
Chapter 1. Durkheim’s school of French sociology
Chapter 2. Religion, magic, ritual, and classification
Chapter 3. Politics, journalism, and war
Chapter 4. The social market and money
Chapter 5. The essay on the gift
Chapter 6. Founder of French anthropology
Chapter 7. Encyclopedic humanism: psychology, technology, person, body, and death
Part two: Analysis, commentary and Mauss’ legacy
Chapter 8. The sacred and the symbolic
Chapter 9. Human understanding: magic, religion, philosophy, math, and science
Chapter 10. Building a human economy in a world crisis
Chapter 11. The critique of modern bureaucracy and social science then and now
References
Very much looking forward to this project’s fruition. I’m pretty interested in Mauss’ legacy as far as ontology and epistemology go, not necessarily as confined to social anthropology per say, maybe somewhat, but more in his influence on those philosophical ethnologists who were and are interested in critiquing culture as a plastic idiom of banal difference and a scaffolding for the rejection of radical alterity. Folks like Klossowski and Clastres, Baudrillard and Virilio.