The Anthropological Turn : : French Political Thought After 1968 / / Jacob Collins.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2020 English
• VerfasserIn: Collins, Jacob,
• Place / Publishing House: Philadelphia : : University of Pennsylvania Press, , [2020]; ©2020
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Series: Intellectual History of the Modern Age
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (304 p.)

A close look at post-1968 French thinkers Régis Debray, Emmanuel Todd, Marcel Gauchet, and Alain de BenoistIn The Anthropological Turn, Jacob Collins traces the development of what he calls a tradition of "political anthropology" in France over the course of the 1970s. After the social revolution of the 1960s brought new attention to identities and groups that had previously been marginal in French society, the country entered a period of stagnation: the economy slowed, the political system deadlocked, and the ideologies of communism and Catholicism lost their appeal. In this time of political, cultural, and economic indeterminacy, political anthropology, as Collins defines it, offered social theorists grand narratives that could give greater definition to "the social" by anchoring its laws and histories in the deep and sometimes archaic past.Political anthropologists sought to answer the most basic of questions: what is politics and what constitutes a political community? Collins focuses on four influential, yet typically overlooked, French thinkers—Régis Debray, Emmanuel Todd, Marcel Gauchet, and Alain de Benoist —who, from Left to far Right, represent different political leanings in France. Through a close and comprehensive reading of their work, he explores how key issues of religion, identity, citizenship, and the state have been conceptualized and debated across a wide spectrum of opinion in contemporary France.Collins argues that the stakes have not changed since the 1970s and rival conceptions of the republic continue to vie for dominance. Political and cultural issues of the moment—the burkini, for example—become magnified and take on the character of an anthropological threat. In this respect, he shows how the anthropological turn, as it figures in the work of Debray, Todd, Gauchet, and Benoist, is a useful lens for viewing the political and social controversies that have shaped French history for the last forty years.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Introduction: France in the 1970s and the Making of Political Anthropology -- Chapter 1. Toward a White Nationalist Europe: The Archaic Fantasies of Alain de Benoist -- Chapter 2. Marcel Gauchet and the Anthropology of the State -- Chapter 3. Family Ties: The Anthropology of Emmanuel Todd and the Identity of France -- Chapter 4. Tracking the Sacred: The Political Anthropology of Régis Debray -- Conclusion -- Notes -- Index -- Acknowledgments