Maurice Halbwachs

Maurice Halbwachs

Full name	Maurice Halbwachs
School	Structuralism
Main interests	Sociology, Philosophy, Anthropology, Cultural Studies
Notable ideas	collective memory
Influenced by Mauss · Marx · Durkheim
Influenced Paul Ricoeur

Maurice Halbwachs (French pronunciation: [mɔˈʁis ˈalbvaks]; 11 March 1877 - 16 March 1945) was a French philosopher and sociologist known for developing the concept of collective memory.

Born in Reims, Halbwachs attended the École Normale Supérieure in Paris. There he studied philosophy with Henri Bergson, who influenced him greatly. He aggregated in Philosophy in 1901. He taught at various lycées before traveling to Germany in 1904, where he studied at the University of Göttingen and worked on cataloging Leibniz's papers. He was nominated to co-edit an edition of Leibniz's work which never came to fruition. He returned to France in 1905 where he met Émile Durkheim and became interested in sociology. He soon joined the editorial board of L'Année Sociologique, where he worked with François Simiand editing the Economics and Statistics section. In 1909, he returned to Germany to study Marxism and economics in Berlin.

Throughout World War I, Halbwachs worked at the War Ministry. Shortly after the end of the war, he became professor of sociology and pedagogy at the University of Strasbourg. He remained in this position for over a decade, taking leave for a year as a visiting professor at the University of Chicago, when he was called to the Sorbonne in 1935. There he taught sociology and worked closely with Marcel Mauss and served as the editor of Annales de Sociologie, the successor journal to L'Année Sociologique. In 1944 he received one of France's highest honors, a chair at the Collège de France in Social Psychology. A longtime socialist, Halbwachs was detained by the Gestapo after the Nazi occupation of Paris and deported to Buchenwald, where he died of dysentery in 1945.

Part of his books were offered by his widow to the library of the Centre d'études sociologiques and are now held at the Human and Social Sciences Library Paris Descartes-CNRS.

Book signed by Georges Dumézil and offered to Maurice Halbwachs.
Maurice Halbwachs Collection of Human and Social Sciences Library Paris Descartes-CNRS

Main ideas

Halbwachs' most important contribution to the field of sociology came in his book La Mémoire collective, 1950 (On Collective Memory), in which he advanced the thesis that a society can have a collective memory and that this memory is dependent upon the 'cadre' or framework within which a group is situated in a society. Thus, there is not only an individual memory, but also a group memory that exists outside of and lives beyond the individual. Consequently, the individual's understanding of the past is strongly linked to this group consciousness.

Halbwachs also wrote an important book on suicide, Les Causes du suicide, 1930 (The Causes of Suicide). In this book he followed the footsteps of his mentor Émile Durkheim, and expanded and elaborated upon the former's theories on suicide.

Bibliography

• Halbwachs, Maurice, On collective memory, Chicago (IL), The University of Chicago Press, 1992
  • translated from: Les cadres sociaux de la mémoire, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1952, originally published in Les Travaux de L'Année Sociologique, Paris, F. Alcan, 1925
  • edited, translated and introduction by Lewis A. Coser, includes a translation of the conclusion of: La Topographie légendaire des évangiles en terre sainte: étude de mémoire collective, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1941
• Halbwachs, Maurice, The collective memory, New York, Harper & Row Colophon Books, 1980, 182 pages
  • pdfs of chapters 1 and 2 available (pp. 22–49 and 50-87) on UCSB Collective Memory seminar website
  • translated from: La mémoire collective, Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1950
  • introduction by Mary Douglas, includes a translation of: ‘La mémoire collective chez les musiciens’, Revue philosophique, no. 3 – 4 (1939)
• Michel Verret, Lectures sociologiques: Bourdieu, Passeron, Hoggart, Halbwachs, Janet, Le Play, Girard, Naville, Paris, Harmattan, 2009 (ISBN 978-2-296-10391-7).
• Dietmar Wetzel, Maurice Halbwachs, Konstanz, UVK Verlagsgesellschaft, 2009 (ISBN 978-3-86764-106-7).
• Marie Jaisson et Christian Baudelot, eds, Maurice Halbwachs, sociologue retrouvé, Paris, Rue d’Ulm, 2007 (ISBN 978-2-7288-0387-3).
• Annette Becker, Maurice Halbwachs, un intellectuel en guerres mondiales 1914-1945, Paris. Agnès Viénot, 2003 (ISBN 2-914645-46-5).
• Gérard Namer, Halbwachs et la mémoire sociale, Paris, L’Harmattan, 2000 (ISBN 2-7384-9595-8).
• Realino Marra, Halbwachs, la memoria collettiva e lo spazio giuridico, in «Sociologia del diritto», XV-1, 1988, pp. 141-50.

External links

• Timeline of Halbwachs's life (German)

Persondata
Name	Halbwachs, Maurice
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	11 March 1877
Place of birth
Date of death	16 March 1945
Place of death