Until today the importance of Marcel Mauss for the emergence andfurther development of Durkheimian sociology of religion has been neglectedboth in religious studies and the sociology of religion. Mauss’ works are, however,more than preliminary steps for Durkheim’s The Elementary Forms of ReligiousLife. This can already be seen in his first major review from 1896 which developsthe concept of the sacred. In general, Mauss’ studies on the sacred and on magic,his analyses of the seasonal variation of religion and of sacrifice and (...) prayer aswell as his conceptualization of mana open new approaches and insights forcurrent studies of religion which go beyond Durkheim’s sociology of religion. Thearticle discusses Mauss’ pioneering role for the Durkheimian perspective onreligion and introduces the central concepts of Mauss’ sociology of religion. (shrink)

This article was first published in City, Territory and Architecture, volume 5, Article number : 4 under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. We thank the authors for the permission to republish it here.: The recent, rich scholarship on rhythms, following in the wake of Lefebvre's book Éléments de rythmanalyse, proves that rhythmanalysis is an important sensitising notion and research technique. Despite its increasing recognition, - Urbanisme – Nouvel article.

Within the purview of the sociology of knowledge Durkheim and Scheler appear among its important inaugurators theorizing the social foundations of knowledge, seemingly from mutually exclusive perspectives. Scheler’s phenomenology of values and community is often juxtaposed with Durkheim’s attempt to integrate values in reality, represented by the social configuration of organic solidarity. This essay argues that the affinity between Scheler and Durkheim deserves reexamination. Means employed for pursuing this aim include a reconsideration of how values mediate reality, but, above all, (...) an attempt to show that both thinkers converge on their principal normative goal. This is no other than a global community of solidarity which both Scheler and Durkheim, albeit through different trails, visualize as the culmination of value-ethics. While Durkheim pursues this goal through a systematic exposition of the transition from mechanical to organic solidarity, late Scheler’s view of ‘the age of adjustment’ discloses a normative approach on modernity at odds with the then prevalent Kulturkritik . This ideal helps to rehabilitate Scheler and to approach the notions of sociality, the sociology of knowledge and the configuration of the ‘encompassing person’ through Durkheimian lenses. The essay concludes with a brief appraisal of theoretical gains drawn from this newly lit affinity. (shrink)

Depuis longtemps, la recherche met en relief les influences françaises et allemandes de la pensée de Georges Gurvitch. De récents travaux ouvrent désormais la voie à l’étude de ses sources russes. Cet article vise à poser les bases de l’étude des sources russes de la pensée de Gurvitch. Pour ce faire, il recourt à onze articles publiés par Gurvitch, entre 1924 et 1931, dans la revue russe de l’émigration Annales contemporaines, dont il dégage une propension marquée à l’endroit des totalités (...) sociales. L’article comprend, en outre, une brève étude du parcours russe de Gurvitch ainsi qu’une traduction intégrale de la dernière partie de l’article « Éthique et religion ». (shrink)

Can a phenomenologically-founded sociology contribute to the understanding of social change? By reference to the structure of the lifeworld as it has been analyzed by Husserl and Schutz, I argue that human action is formed by temporal, spatial, and social dimensions. These are objectified by a social semantics through which they gain their intersubjective cultural shape. From this perspective, I investigate changes in the temporal, spatial, and social dimensions of this semantics, as they occur in the present transformation of post-socialist (...) societies. Finally, I consider whether these changes mark a return to Western patterns and whether they confirm the thesis of the end of history. (shrink)

The slow construction of the urban civilization: the socio-historic distances in the reading of an urban form.The post-Soviet city is generally envisioned as a city in transition, on a more or less direct course towards the market city. This observation recalls the reconstitution of the residential property stock through privatizations, the redefinition of the individual in countries shaped by collectivist references, the post-national reconstitution of the economy and the political structures (Dressier, Gatti, and Perez-Agote, 1999). L. Kogan's approach suggests that (...) we need a deeper analysis in the shaping of ‘urban civilization’ and the construction of urban policies, to change the way we look at the construction of urban permanence. (shrink)