The Fruit of the Arts and the Mob

This essay considers accounts of the Dreyfus Affair published in the newspaper Thamarat al-Funun (founded 1875) during 1898 to demonstrate how Arab writers addressed the rights of minorities in Europe and examined failed emancipatory projects. Writing about the Dreyfus Affair allowed intellectuals in the Levant to reverse the power relationship between themselves and Europe and to comment on the kinds of politics that would ensure the equality before the law of the Jewish minority in Europe. These debates further illustrate that even before the shift to electoral politics in the Ottoman Empire (after 1908) and in postwar Arab nation-states, Arab writers were preoccupied with the relationship between statecraft and majority-minority relations. They argued that democratic institutions such as parliaments and courts of law were the best venues to safeguard the rights of religious communities whose mere existence was defined as a problem. Bashkin shows how Thamarat al-Funun pointed to phenomena that endangered religious communities, such as fanaticism, racism, abuse of power by the police and the military, and mob politics.

Durkheim, the Action Française and the Question of Nationalism

This article concerns Émile Durkheim’s critique of the Action Française as expressed in his seminal articles of 1898, which was an important moment in the Dreyfus Affair, where Durkheim’s active engagement serves to challenge a still widespread view of him as a latter day traditionalist and positivist, He developed epistemological and political arguments against this proto-fascist movement, which have implications for his accounts of nationalism and internationalism.

Emile Durkheim’s Germany

The importance of German science for Durkheim seems indubitable. But writing about his relationship with Germany is not easy because this very relationship became the main reason for attacks against Durkheim. Indeed, in 1905, Simon Deploige, a Belgian professor at Louvain University, accused him of having imported German science into France without acknowledging that it was “German.” In the tense political international context of the time, the accusation had potentially important consequences because Durkheim, as a Jew, and shortly after the Dreyfus Affair, was eventually accused to be a German spy. How should historians deal with the topic? Saying that Durkheim was “influenced” by German thought may be adopting the point of view of an actor of the time (namely, Deploige). That is why this chapter will not talk about “influence,” a term which suggests that knowledge is received passively. Instead, the chapter focuses on what Durkheim describes as “German” in order to understand how this perception evolved between the 1880s and World War I.

Sacrifice Compared

Although most major social anthropologists came from Britain, the new sensitivity to ritual among students of religion, it appears, was felt more powerfully in France than elsewhere. This chapter considers the conditions in which a new intellectual sensitivity to sacrifice appeared towards the end of the nineteenth century, and the immense implications of this sensitivity on new approaches to religion. Although reflection on sacrifice dates back to antiquity, it is only with the emergence of the science of religion as an academic discipline after the mid-nineteenth century that it became grounded in theoretical approaches to religion. We will see how Durkheim’s most gifted students dealt with sacrifice, and call attention to the broader political context, from the Dreyfus Affair to the First World War.

Durkheim en réunion (1ère partie)

*Full article is in FrenchEnglish abstract: Thanks to an original archive, this article aims to characterize Durkheim’s interventions at the Council of Professors in Bordeaux from 1887 to 1902. Frequency, tonality and above all the subjects of interest of his interventions are studied. We are able to see that he paid great attention to the students and their education (i.e. their courses, fees, grants, the problem of the predominance of Latin, proposals for reform of the competitive agrégation in philosophy) but that he was also interested in administrative subjects (modalities of attribution of new courses and new chairs, procedures of the council) and research subjects (subscriptions for the university library, life of the historical and local Annales du Midi). We finally discover that he certainly had administrative ambitions – to become the dean – ended by political circumstances (the Dreyfus Affair).French abstract: Cet article vise à caractériser les interventions de Durkheim aux assemblées des professeurs de la Faculté de Lettres de l’université de Bordeaux entre 1887 et 1902 en se référent à une archive inédite. Sont présentées les fréquences, la tonalité et surtout ses domaines d’interventions. On voit qu’il s’intéresse d’abord aux étudiants et à leurs études (ouverture ou fermeture des cours, attribution des bourses, droits d’inscription, problème de la prédominance du latin, réforme de l’agrégation de philosophie), mais aussi aux questions administratives (attribution des chaires, fonctionnement du conseil de l’université), et aux questions liées à la recherche (abonnements en revues à la Bibliothèque universitaire, vie de la revue antiquisante des Annales du midi). On découvre qu’il n’était pas dépourvu d’ambitions administratives, que les circonstances politiques (l’affaire Dreyfus) vinrent contrarier.

9. After the Rougon-Macquart

‘After the Rougon-Macquart’ considers the final novel of the Rougon-Macquart cycle, Doctor Pascal. This novel explores the themes of science and religion, renewal and rebirth. The latter theme was of personal significance to Zola, as he had recently fathered two children with his mistress, Jeanne Rozerot. Zola’s later fiction is discussed in the context of the climate of ideas in France in the fin de siècle. The writer’s involvement in the Dreyfus affair brought him glaringly into the public eye, and may indeed have led to his death: he died from carbon monoxide poisoning, suspected to be the result of foul play. His remains were interred in the Panthéon alongside Voltaire, Rousseau, and Victor Hugo.

The Dreyfus Affair and Durkheim’s Experience of Anti-Semitism

This article emphasizes the importance of the Dreyfus Affair in the manner in which Emile Durkheim approached the subject of anti-Semitism between 1897 and 1899, while the Affair was in full swing in France. Although Durkheim was the founder of positivist sociology, disconnected from preconceived notions, he nevertheless courageously entered the fight to defend Dreyfus, both as a scholar and as a Jew. In a series of articles and letters, he reflected on the causes of anti-Semitism and proposed an interpretation of Jews as scapegoats, because in his view society’s suffering was resolved by ostracizing Jews as pariahs. But this interpretation is unsatisfactory. Based on impressions rather than on a sociological analysis conducted in accordance with his Rules of Sociological Method, Durkheim’s analysis of explanatory variables is not convincing and is oriented around psychological considerations rarely seen elsewhere in his work.