Gilbert Durand (; 1 May 1921 – 7 December 2012) was a French

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the go ...

known for his work on the imaginary,

symbolic anthropology Symbolic anthropology or, more broadly, symbolic and interpretive anthropology, is the study of cultural symbols and how those symbols can be used to gain a better understanding of a particular society. According to Clifford Geertz, " lieving, ...

and

mythology Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

. According to Durand,

Imagination Imagination is the production of sensations, feelings and thoughts informing oneself. These experiences can be re-creations of past experiences, such as vivid memories with imagined changes, or completely invented and possibly fantastic scenes ...

and

Reason Reason is the capacity of consciously applying logic by drawing valid conclusions from new or existing information, with the aim of seeking the truth. It is associated with such characteristically human activities as philosophy, religion, scien ...

can be complementary. He defended the status of the

image An image or picture is a visual representation. An image can be Two-dimensional space, two-dimensional, such as a drawing, painting, or photograph, or Three-dimensional space, three-dimensional, such as a carving or sculpture. Images may be di ...

, traditionally devalued in Western thought, particularly in

French philosophy French philosophy, here taken to mean philosophy in the French language, has been extremely diverse and has influenced Western philosophy as a whole for centuries, from the medieval scholasticism of Peter Abelard, through the founding of modern ph ...

. He advocated a multidisciplinary approach. He distinguished between two regimes: the diurnal and the nocturnal, to classify symbols and

archetypes The concept of an archetype ( ) appears in areas relating to behavior, historical psychology, philosophy and literary analysis. An archetype can be any of the following: # a statement, pattern of behavior, prototype, "first" form, or a main mo ...

Biography

During

World War Two World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies and the Axis powers. Nearly all of the world's countries participated, with many nations mobilisi ...

he joined the

French Resistance The French Resistance ( ) was a collection of groups that fought the German military administration in occupied France during World War II, Nazi occupation and the Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy#France, collaborationist Vic ...

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 Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

sociology Sociology is the scientific study of human society that focuses on society, human social behavior, patterns of Interpersonal ties, social relationships, social interaction, and aspects of culture associated with everyday life. The term sociol ...

and

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, society, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including archaic humans. Social anthropology studies patterns of behav ...

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 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 Gaston Bachelard (; ; 27 June 1884 – 16 October 1962) was a French philosopher. He made contributions in the fields of poetics and the philosophy of science. To the latter, he introduced the concepts of ''epistemological obstacle'' and ''Epist ...

Henry Corbin Henry Corbin (14 April 1903 – 7 October 1978) was a French philosopher, theologian, and Iranologist, professor of Islamic studies at the École pratique des hautes études. He was influential in extending the modern study of traditional Islami ...

and

Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist, psychotherapist, and psychologist who founded the school of analytical psychology. A prolific author of over 20 books, illustrator, and correspondent, Jung was a ...

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''), according to which there is a

bijective In mathematics, a bijection, bijective function, or one-to-one correspondence is a function between two sets such that each element of the second set (the codomain) is the image of exactly one element of the first set (the domain). Equival ...

influence between physiology and society.Durand (1964) '' L'Imagination symbolique'' quotation: 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.

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

External links

Extracts from Durand's foreword
to ''The Anthropological Structures of the Imaginary''
Eranos
*
Interview of Gilbert Durand, on ''Nouvelles Clés''
*

* ttp://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/family.html?language=en&itemId=4014695 Gilbert Durandat

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Durand, Gilbert Writers from Chambéry 1921 births Academic staff of Grenoble Alpes University French sociologists 20th-century French philosophers 2012 deaths French male non-fiction writers Winners of the Prix Broquette-Gonin (literature) French Resistance members Commanders of the Legion of Honour French Righteous Among the Nations Officers of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic Recipients of the Croix de Guerre 1939–1945 (France) Recipients of the Resistance Medal

Biography

Bibliography

References

Further reading

External links