Although generally downplayed, Émile Durkheim's (1858–1917) works emerged out of the milieu of classical French socialism that placed religion at the core of the social question. Virtually every study of socialism up until the mid-nineteenth century appears to have emphasised its central focal points of religion and mysticism as well as the need to analyse their role in society utilising science (Jamil 2024; Picon 2003; Strube 2017). Consequently, socialism and sociology emerged interwoven. To illustrate, Marcel Mauss (1872–1950) wrote that socialism ‘was born at the same time as social science’ and this was ‘an important fact in the history of science and human morality’ (Mauss 2013: 260–261). However, by the late nineteenth century, alternative variants of socialism emerged that downplayed social science and the role of religion in society. As early as the mid-1880s, Durkheim criticised the ‘despotic socialism’ that placed violence and class conflict as the motor of social transformation (Fournier 2008: 54). Relatedly, Durkheim rejected Marxist theory in his 1897 review of Labriola's Essays on the Materialistic Conception of History, and in a letter to Mauss, Durkheim wrote ‘I anticipate and hope, a theory will emerge from L'Anneé sociologique. That theory, the exact opposite of historical materialism, which is so crude and simplistic despite its objectivist current, will make religion rather than economics the matrix of social facts’ (quoted in Fournier 2006: 69). Importantly though, Durkheim did not engage with Karl Marx's (1818–1883) works in-depth (Llobera 1980).

Abstract As a conceptual tool, effervescence offers a nuanced and complex explanation of forces for social change. Yet, it can be challenging to identify subject matter that spans the full implications of effervescence from embodied feeling to changes in social action over time. This study joins theories of effervescence with a unique set of primary historical records from a nineteenth-century religious utopian community in the United States to investigate whether effervescence might have a role in the creation, maintenance or decay of social ideals. As an explanation for social action, findings suggest that effervescence points to a link between embodied feeling, social ideals and institutional control – aspects of effervescence that offer avenues for future theoretical and empirical research.

Dictionnaire international Bourdieu, sous la direction de Gisèle Sapiro. Paris: Éditions du CNRS, 2020. 963 pp. Claude Didry, Découvrir Durkheim. Paris: Les Éditions sociales, 2022, 171 pp. Didier Deleule, Durkheim et la (Re)naissance du projet sociologique. Paris: Hermann Éditeurs, 2020, 126 pp. Christian Papilloud et Cécile Rol, Moral – Recht – Nation. Die Soziologie der Solidarität Gaston Richards (1860–1945) [Morale – droit – nation. La sociologie de la solidarité de Gaston Richard (1860–1945)]. Wiesbaden: Springer VS, 2019. 282 pp. Émile Durkheim, Leçons de sociologie criminelle, édition scientifique par Matthieu Béra, Paris: Flammarion. 2022. 415 pp. Henri Hubert et Marcel Mauss, Correspondance (1897–1927), édition de Rafael Benthien, Christophe Labaune et Christine Lorre. Paris: Classiques Garnier, 2021. 653 pp. Durkheim's Contributions to Social Anthropology in L'Année sociologique, édited par Yash Nandan, Middletown DE : Independently Published, 2022. 492 pp. Serge Paugam, L'Attachement social: Formes et fondements de la solidarité humaine, Paris: Seuil, 2023. 640 pp. Aleksandar Boškovic´, William Robertson Smith, New York: Berghahn Books, 2021, 139 pp. Stephen Turner. Mad Hazard: A Life in Social Theory. Current Perspectives in Social Theory, Vol. 38. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2022, xxii +241 pp.

Abstract This article examines the genesis and legacy of some of Durkheim's hypotheses on the relationship between nationalism and religion. On the one hand, it examines Durkheim's interpretation of the French Revolution as a religious phenomenon, from which nationalism has been seen as (the) religion of modernity. It also analyses Durkheim's conception of patriotism and its relationship with the religion of humanity. The article inquiries into Durkheim's writings, analysing the genesis of these propositions, which are rooted in foundations that are not entirely established. Following this critical examination, Durkheim's work is highlighted as a tool for reflecting on the sacrality of nations, showing how theories of nationalism of the last decades have recovered the Durkheimian legacy. Résumé Cet article se penche sur la genèse et l'héritage de certaines hypothèses de Durkheim sur la relation entre le nationalisme et la religion. Il examine, d'une part, l'interprétation durkheimienne de la Révolution française comme phénomène religieux et à partir de laquelle le nationalisme a été considéré comme (la) religion de la modernité. Il analyse, d'autre part, la façon dont cet auteur conçoit le patriotisme et son rapport avec la religion de l'humanité. L'article examine les écrits de Durkheim en analysant la genèse de ces propositions dont les fondements ne semblent pas tout à fait établis. À la suite de cet examen critique, l’œuvre de Durkheim est mise en valeur comme un outil de réflexion sur le caractère sacré des nations. Il s'agit de montrer comment les théories du nationalisme des dernières décennies ont pu récupérer l'héritage durkheimien.

This article illustrates how social structures and behaviours of scientists in the societal sub-system of open science resemble patterns analysed in The Gift, an essay written by Marcel Mauss nearly 100 years ago. The presented analysis goes beyond existing interpretations of gift-giving in science. The latter has mainly focussed on the exchange of knowledge and citations. I argue that The Gift explains also identity, competition, co-opetition, rituals and punishment. Mauss’s Gift is seen as a complementary model to existing economic and sociological approaches regularly used to analyse structures and behaviours in open science. By accentuating such an anthropological approach, I conclude that the Gift provides explanations for the stability and the expansion of the open science community.

This article presents the sociological typology of crimes developed by Durkheim for his course in criminal sociology of 1892–1893, of which a complete set of notes by his nephew and student Mauss was found among descendants in 2018. It can be broken down into four types of crimes: ataxic (theft, vagrancy), altruistic (homicide), alcoholic (blows and wounds, insults), anomic (fraudulent bankruptcy, swindling). This original typology in many ways announced the typology of suicides that would appear in 1897, and shows Durkheim’s sociological theory at that time, while he was defending his thesis in 1893, at the end of that academic year. It sheds new light on the notions of regulation and integration and suggests the articulation between collective representations and social life, while Durkheim has not yet had his “revelation” (1894–1895). Cet article présente la typologie sociologique des crimes élaborée par Durkheim pour son cours de sociologie criminelle de 1892–1893 dont un jeu de notes complet de son neveu et étudiant Mauss a été retrouvé chez des descendants en 2018. Elle se décompose en quatre types ou espèces de crimes : ataxiques (vols, vagabondage), altruistes (homicides), alcooliques (injures et coups et blessures) et anomiques. Cette typologie inédite préfigure, sur de nombreux aspects, la typologie des suicides qui paraîtra en 1897, et donne à voir la théorie sociologique de Durkheim à cet instant, alors qu’il soutient sa thèse à la fin de cette même année universitaire. Elle éclaire d’un nouveau jour les notions de régulation et d’intégration, alors à l’état de gestation, et donne à penser sur l’articulation entre les représentations collectives et la vie sociale, alors que Durkheim n’a pas encore eu sa « révélation » pour mener à bien son programme de sociologie religieuse (1894–1895).

In this article, I argue that the word ‘resource’ can be used to denote what is considered to be of high value in a given society. These values may relate either to society as a whole or to its parts. In the former case, resources often acquire the characteristics of the sacred as identified by Émile Durkheim and others. It is here argued that the Durkheimian approach captures the symbolic dimension of the collective sacred but ignores the social effects of people’s attempts to obtain access to the highest value. To understand how concrete social forms evolve, one may rather turn to the writings of Arthur Maurice Hocart. His approach draws our attention to values (of ‘life’) and the social processes deriving from people’s engagement with the sacred. To illustrate this approach, an ethnographic example from Odisha, India is provided.

Against readings that have emphasized Durkheim's sociological realism and reductionism, this article examines the role of individuality and psychology in his theory. In particular, Durkheim's approach to representations is the proof of the crucial importance he assigned to mental processes in the construction of social life. Durkheim showed the relation of representations to the collectivity – how ideas promote the sense of community – and in this context he emphasized their epistemological ramifications. Specifically, he pointed to a series of dualisms that remained unexplained by psychological analysis, including the one posing rational against affective logic. While arguing for the preeminence of ideas in Durkheim's view of society, the article also recognizes the limitations that marred his efforts at reconciling the individual with society. Most notably, his genetic approach and his account of the central role of affect in the creation of the social made Durkheim vulnerable to criticism. Even his late essay on the dualism of human nature, which testifies to his lifelong confrontations with psychology, left a whole set of questions unanswered about his theory's applicability to historical forms of institutionalization of the social, especially in modernity.

Borlandi, M. (ed.). 2012. « Émile Durkheim : Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse, un siècle après », L’Année sociologique 62(2), 280 pp. Levasse, P. (ed.). 2012. « Durkheim : Les Formes élémentaires de la vie religieuse (1912). Retour sur un héritage », Archives de sciences sociales des religions 159 (juillet–septembre), 267 pp.

It is traditional to discuss the relation between Durkheim and Weber as ‘founders of sociology’. At first sight, it might seem odd to couple Durkheim and Hegel. But it can be instructive to compare their approach to issues involving modern individualism, society and the state. In general, they subscribe to a combination of rationalism and developmental ethics, in which the rational is immanent in the real, despite the possibility of ‘contingent’ or ‘pathological’ departures from ‘normality’. More specifically, in the case of the state, they see one of its main historical roles as the emancipation of the individual in a development of the individual personality. At the same time they picture the state as ‘the brain’ of society and insist on its relative autonomy and independence from individuals. Instead, in a critique of direct democracy, they look to a web of intermediate groups and corporations. A basic problematic in their work, and a continuing source of reflection, is how to achieve a balance between individual rights and a necessary authority and legitimacy of public power. In both cases this balance rests, as a matter of principle, on confidence in the skills and civic virtue of political leaders.