Marcel Mauss

Marcel Mauss (1872-1950), the nephew and close collaborator of Emile Durkheim, co-founded the journal Annee Sociologique with him, around which the French sociological school coalesced. He taught at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes from 1901 and at the College de France from 1930, and was a co-founder, along with Levy-Bruhl and Rivet, of the French Institute of Ethnology (1926). An encyclopedic mind with exceptionally broad education and remarkable ethnographic and linguistic knowledge, Mauss left a significant mark on 20th-century sociological and anthropological thought. His work, although fragmented, inspired a multitude of diverse thinkers and was at the root of several subsequent intellectual developments. Some of his works include: "De quelques formes primitives de classification" (1903, co-authored with E. Durkheim, Greek translation "Μορφές πρωτόγονης ταξινόμησης", Gutenberg 2001), "Essai sur la nature et la fonction du sacrifice" (1899, co-authored with H. Hubert), "Essai sur le don, forme et raison de l'echange dans les societes archaiques" (1925, Greek translation "Το δώρο", Kastaniotis 1979), "Manuel d'ethnographie" (1947).