Gilbert Durand

Gilbert Durand (1 May 1921 – 7 December 2012) was a French academic known for his work on the imaginary, symbolic anthropology[1] and mythology.[2]

Gilbert Durand
Gilbert Durand
Born(1921-05-01)1 May 1921
Chambéry, France
Died7 December 2012(2012-12-07) (aged 91)
Moye, France
Era20th-century philosophy
RegionWestern philosophy
InstitutionsGrenoble-II
Doctoral advisorGaston Bachelard
Main interests
Anthropology, symbology, depth psychology, history of religion
Righteous
Among the Nations
By country

According to Durand, Imagination and Reason can be complementary. He defended the status of the image, traditionally devalued in Western thought, particularly in French philosophy. He advocated a multidisciplinary approach.

He distinguished between two regimes: the diurnal and the nocturnal, to classify symbols and archetypes.

Biography

During World War Two he joined the French Resistance in the Vercors.

He began his career by teaching philosophy in the secondary school system from 1947 to 1956 (philosophy is taught in France at high school level), and then became a university professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the Grenoble II.

Gilbert Durand was the co-founder — with Léon Cellier and Paul Deschamps in 1966, — and the director, of the Centre de recherche sur l'imaginaire[3] and a member of Eranos. In 1988 he founded the humanities and social sciences review Les Cahiers de L'imaginaire.

He was a follower of Gaston Bachelard, Henry Corbin[4] and Carl Gustav Jung and the teacher of Michel Maffesoli. Gilbert Durand gained a worldwide notoriety and his Center is currently the small group of an international network of over sixty laboratories. In his most famous work, Les Structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire (1960), he formulated the influential concept of the anthropological trajectory (sometimes translated anthropological dialectic or anthropological course),[5] according to which there is a bijective influence between physiology and society.[6][7]

In 1984, Gilbert Durand supervised the thesis by Michel Gaucher on L'Intuition astrologique dans l'imaginaire (Université Grenoble II).

In 1991 a special colloquium organized by Michel Maffesoli was held in his honour at the prestigious Centre culturel international de Cerisy-la-Salle.

On 14 March 2007, in Chambéry, Durand was raised to the title of Commander of the Légion d'honneur, which was bestowed on him by a personality of his choice, in this case Raymond Aubrac on behalf of the President (as is customary).

Durand died on 7 December 2012.[2]

Bibliography
  • Les Structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire, Paris, Dunod (first edition, Paris, P.U.F., 1960).
  • Le Décor mythique de la Chartreuse de Parme, Paris, José Corti (1961)
  • L'Imagination symbolique, Paris, PUF (first édition in 1964).
  • Sciences de l'homme et tradition. Le nouvel esprit anthropologique, Paris, Albin Michel (first ed. Tête de feuille-Sirac, Paris, 1975).
  • Figures mythiques et visages de l'œuvre. De la mythocritique à la mythanalyse, Paris, Berg International, 1979.
  • L'Âme tigrée, Paris, Denoël, 1980.
  • La Foi du cordonnier, Paris, Denoël, 1984.
  • Beaux-arts et archétypes. La religion de l'art, Paris, P.U.F., 1989.
  • L'Imaginaire. Essai sur les sciences et la philosophie de l'image, Paris, Hatier, 1994.
  • Introduction à la mythodologie. Mythes et sociétés, Paris, Albin Michel, 1996.
  • Champs de l'imaginaire. Textes réunis par Danièle Chauvin, Grenoble, Ellug, 1996.
  • Les Mythes fondateurs de la franc-maçonnerie, Paris, Dervy, 2002.
  • With Simone Vierne, Le Mythe et le Mythique, Paris, Albin Michel, 1987.
  • With Sun Chaoying, Mythes, thèmes et variations, Paris, Desclée de Brouwer, 2000.
  • Imagens e Reflexos do Imaginário Português, Lisbon, Hugin Editores, 2000. New Ed. with the addition of his correspondence with Lima de Freitas, under the title: Portugal - Tesouro Oculto da Europa, Lisbon, Ésquilo, 2008.

References
  1. Hanegraaff, Wouter J. (2012-01-19). Esotericism and the Academy: Rejected Knowledge in Western Culture. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-1-139-50400-3.
    the scholar of symbolic anthropology Gilbert Durand
  2. Staff (10 December 2012). "Décès de Gilbert Durand, résistant et anthropologue de l'imaginaire" (in French). Le Soir. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
  3. Centre de recherche sur l'imaginaire (CRI) Archived 2012-07-21 at archive.today
  4. Gilbert Durand, "La pensée d'Henry Corbin et le Temple maçonnique", Travaux de la loge nationale de recherches Villard de Hoonecourt, 3, 1981, pp. 173–182
  5. Michel Maffesoli (1996) The emotional community : research arguments in The time of the tribes: the decline of individualism in mass society p. 23, 30n. Also published in Gelder, Ken (2005) The subcultures reader
  6. Les Structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire (1960) quotation:
    genèse réciproque qui oscille du geste pulsionnel à l'environnement matériel et social, et vice versa
    English translation:
    ..there is a reciprocal genesis which alternates between the drive-motivated gesture and the material and social environment, and vice versa
  7. Durand (1964) L'Imagination symbolique quotation:
    Le « trajet anthropologique » peut être suivi dans le sens : physiologie -> société, ou au contraire : société -> physiologie. ... il n'ya aucun lien de cause à effet.

Further reading
  • Dominique Raynaud, Architectures comparées: essai sur la dynamique des formes, 1998, pp. 11–2.
  • Maffesoli Michel (ed.), La Galaxie de l’imaginaire. Dérive autour de l’œuvre de Gilbert Durand, Paris, Berg international, 1980.
  • Pachter Michèle, Gilbert Durand, Sociétés, vol. 1, no 4, juin 1985.
  • Durand Jean-Pierre & Robert Weil, Sociologie contemporaine, Paris, Vigot, 1993, pp. 212–215.
  • Godinho Helder, « Gilbert Durand » in Thomas Joël (ed.), Introduction aux méthodologies de l'imaginaire, Paris, Ellipses, 1998, pp. 140–149.
  • Cabin Philippe, Une cartographie de l’imaginaire : Entretien avec Gilbert Durand, Sciences humaines, janvier 1999.
  • Patrice Van Eersel, Le retour des dieux. Entretien avec Gilbert Durand, Nouvelles Clés, 30, été 2001, pp. 54-59
  • Bertin Georges, Pour l'Imaginaire, principes et méthodes, Esprit critique, vol. 4 n°2, Février 2002.
  • Xiberras Martine, Pratique de l'imaginaire. Lecture de Gilbert Durand, Laval, Presses de l'Université Laval, 2002.
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