Philosophy/Literary Studies

“Michèle Richman’s astute analyses cast new light on the institutional and discursive constraints that positioned sociology within the literary and artistic avant-garde of interwar France.” Steven Ungar, author of Identity Papers and Scandal and Aftereffect

It seems improbable, but the most radical cultural iconoclasts of the interwar years-Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, and Michel Leiris-responded to the rise of fascism by taking refuge in a “sacred sociology.” Michèle H. Richman examines this seemingly paradoxical development, tracing the overall implications for French social thought of the “ethnographic detour” that began with Durkheim’s interest in Australian aboriginal religion.

Richman argues that by assimilating sociology to this revised notion of the sacred, these intellectuals revitalized a critical discourse based on anthropological thinking dating back to Montaigne and culminating in Rousseau. Her work thus supplies an important chapter in the history of the human sciences while demonstrating the formation of an innovative critical discourse that straddles literary theory, social thought, and religious and cultural studies.

Michèle H. Richman is associate professor of French studies at the University of Pennsylvania.

Contradictions
University of Minnesota Press
Printed in U.S.A.
Cover design by Jeanne Lee