On Symbolism and Symbolisation: The Work of Freud, Durkheim and Mauss

In On Symbolism and Symbolisation: The Work of Freud, Durkheim and Mauss, Éric Smadja returns to the end of the 19th century and explores how the concepts of symbolism and symbolisation have been discussed among theorists, and how this discussion has developed and revolutionised the human sciences as we know them today. Uniquely, he connects three key thinkers of psychoanalysis, sociology and ethnology – Freud, Durkheim and Mauss – and discusses how their diverse epistemological paths blend...