By studying how different societies understand categories such as time and causality, the Durkheimians decentered Western epistemology.  With contributions from philosophy, sociology, anthropology, media studies, and sinology, this volume illustrates the interdisciplinarity and intellectual rigor of the category project which did not only stir controversies among contemporary scholars but paved the way for other theories exploring how the thoughts of individuals are prefigured by society and vice versa.

Martin Zillinger is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. His major field research has been in Morocco on trance, ritual, and new media.

List of Figures

Introduction: The Durkheim Schools Category Project: A Collaborative Experiment UnfoldsJohannes F.M. Schick, Mario Schmidt, and Martin ZillingerPart I: Silenced Influences and Hidden TextsChapter 1. Kantian Categories and the Relativist Turn: A Comparison of Three RoutesGregory Schrempp

Chapter 2. Hidden Durkheim and Hidden Mauss: An Empirical Rereading of the Hidden Analogical Work Made Necessary by the Creation of a New ScienceNicolas Sembel

Chapter 3. Mana in Context: From Max Müller to Marcel MaussNicolas Meylan

Chapter 4. Durkheim, the Question of the Categories and the Concept of LaborSusan Stedman Jones

Chapter 5. Inequality Is a Scientific Issue When the Technologies of Practice That Create Social Categories Become Dependent on Justice in ModernityAnne Warfield Rawls

Chapter 6. Experimenting with Social Matter: Claude Bernards Influence on the Durkheim Schools Understanding of CategoriesMario Schmidt

Part II: Lateral Links and Ambivalent AntagonistsChapter 7. Freedom, Food, and the Total Social Fact. Some Terminological Details of the Category Project in Le Don by Marcel MaussErhard Schüttpelz

Chapter 8. Durkheimian Thinking and the Category of TotalityNick J. Allen

Chapter 9. Durkheimian Creative Effervescence, Bergson and the Ethology of Animal and Human SocietiesWilliam Watts Miller

Chapter 10. It is not my time that is thus arranged: Bergson, the Category Project, and the Structuralist TurnHeike Delitz

Chapter 11. Let Us Dare a Little Bit of Metaphysics: Marcel Mauss, Henri Hubert and Louis Weber on Causality, Time, and TechnologyJohannes F. M. Schick

Part III: Forgotten Allies and Secret StudentsChapter 12. The Rhythm of Space: Stefan Czarnowskis Relational Theory of the Sacred Martin Zillinger

Chapter 13.La Pensée Catégorique: Marcel Granets Grand Sinological Project at the Heart of the LAnnée Sociologique Tradition Robert André LaFleur

Chapter 14. Drawing a Line: On Hertz Hands Ulrich van Loyen

Chapter 15. Between Claude Lévi-Strauss, Pierre Bourdieu and Michel Foucault, or: What Is the Meaning of Mauss Total Social Fact?Jean-François Bert

Chapter 16. From Durkheim to Halbwachs: Rebuilding the Theory of Collective Representations Jean-Christoph Marcel

Chapter 17. Durkheims Quest: Philosophy beyond the Classroom and the Libraries Wendy James

Index