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

academic An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

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, wi ...

and

mythology Myth is a folklore genre consisting of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society, such as foundational tales or origin myths. Since "myth" is widely used to imply that a story is not objectively true, the identification of a narra ...

. According to Durand,

Imagination Imagination is the production or simulation of novel objects, sensations, and ideas in the mind without any immediate input of the senses. Stefan Szczelkun characterises it as the forming of experiences in one's mind, which can be re-creations ...

and

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

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

Biography

During

World War Two World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

he joined the

French Resistance The French Resistance (french: La Résistance) was a collection of organisations that fought the German occupation of France during World War II, Nazi occupation of France and the Collaborationism, collaborationist Vichy France, Vichy régim ...

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 lat, Gratianopolis , commune status = Prefecture and commune , image = Panorama grenoble.png , image size = , caption = From upper left: Panorama of the city, Grenoble’s cable cars, place Saint- ...

. Gilbert Durand was the co-founder with Léon Cellier and

Paul Deschamps Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) * Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chri ...

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 '' epis ...

Henry Corbin Henry Corbin (14 April 1903 – 7 October 1978)Shayegan, DaryushHenry Corbin in Encyclopaedia Iranica. was a French philosopher, theologian, and Iranologist, professor of Islamic studies at the École pratique des hautes études. He was in ...

and

Carl Gustav Jung Carl Gustav Jung ( ; ; 26 July 1875 – 6 June 1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. Jung's work has been influential in the fields of psychiatry, anthropology, archaeology, literature, philo ...

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, also known as a bijective function, one-to-one correspondence, or invertible function, is a function between the elements of two sets, where each element of one set is paired with exactly one element of the other ...

influence between physiology and society.Durand (1964) '' L'Imagination symbolique'' quotation: In 1984, Gilbert Durand supervised the thesis by

Michel Gaucher Michel may refer to: * Michel (name), a given name or surname of French origin (and list of people with the name) * Míchel (nickname), a nickname (a list of people with the nickname, mainly Spanish footballers) * Míchel (footballer, born 1963), ...

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 Chambéry (, , ; Arpitan: ''Chambèri'') is the prefecture of the Savoie department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of eastern France. The population of the commune of Chambéry was 58,917 as of 2019, while the population of the Chamb ...

, Durand was raised to the title of Commander of the

Légion d'honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour (french: Ordre national de la Légion d'honneur), formerly the Royal Order of the Legion of Honour ('), is the highest French order of merit, both military and civil. Established in 1802 by Napoleon ...

, which was bestowed on him by a personality of his choice, in this case

Raymond Aubrac Raymond Aubrac (31 July 1914 – 10 April 2012) was a leader of the French Resistance during the Second World War and a civil engineer after the Second World War. Early life Aubrac was born Raymond Samuel into a middle-class Jewish family in Ves ...

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 ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

website {{DEFAULTSORT:Durand, Gilbert Writers from Chambéry 1921 births Grenoble Alpes University faculty French sociologists 20th-century French philosophers 2012 deaths French male non-fiction writers Winners of the Prix Broquette-Gonin (literature) French Resistance members Commandeurs of the Légion d'honneur 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