Maurice Halbwachs was a French philosopher and sociologist known for developing the concept of
collective memoryCollective memory is a term coined by Maurice Halbwachs, separating the notion from the individual memory. The collective memory is shared, passed on and also constructed by the group, or modern society. The debate was taken up by Jan Assmann, who wrote Das kulturelle Gedächtnis...
.
Born in
ReimsThe city of Rheims , in English and in French, lies in the Champagne-Ardenne region in north-eastern France 129 km east-northeast of Paris....
, Halbwachs attended the
École Normale SupérieureThe École Normale Supérieure is a French grande école...
in Paris. There he studied philosophy with
Henri BergsonHenri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century.- Overview :...
, who influenced him greatly. He
aggregatedIn France, the agrégation is a civil service competitive examination for some positions in the public education system. The laureates are known as agrégés...
in Philosophy in 1901. He taught at various
lycées before traveling to Germany in 1904, where he studied at the University of Göttingen and worked on cataloging Leibniz's papers. He was nominated to co-edit an edition of Leibniz's work which never came to fruition. He returned to France in 1905 where he met
Émile DurkheimDavid Émile Durkheim was a French sociologist and pioneer in the development of modern sociology and anthropology. His work and editorship of the first journal of sociology, L'Année Sociologique, as well as his creation of the first European department of sociology, helped establish sociology...
and became interested in sociology. He soon joined the editorial board of
L'Année SociologiqueL'Année Sociologique is a sociology journal founded in 1898 by Émile Durkheim, who also served as its editor. It was published annually until 1925, and returned to publication as Annales Sociologiques between 1934 and 1942...
, where he worked with
François SimiandFrançois Simiand was a French sociologist and economist best known as a participant in the Année Sociologique. As a member of the French Historical School of economics, Simiand predicated a rigorous factual and statistical basis for theoretical models and policies...
editing the
EconomicsEconomics is the social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
and
StatisticsStatistics is a branch of mathematics concerned with collecting and interpreting data. According to other definitions, it is a mathematical science pertaining to the collection, analysis, interpretation or explanation, and presentation of data. Statisticians improve the quality of data with the...
section. In 1909, he returned to Germany to study
MarxismMarxism is the political philosophy and economic worldview based upon a materialist interpretation of history, a Marxist analysis of capitalism, a theory of social change, and an atheist view of human liberation derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels; three primary aspects of...
and economics in Berlin.
Throughout World War I, Halbwachs worked at the War Ministry. Shortly after the end of the war, he became professor of
sociologySociology is the scientific or systematic study of human societies. It is a branch of social science that uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop and refine a body of knowledge about human social structure and activity, often with the goal of applying such...
and
pedagogyPedagogy is the study of being a teacher. The term generally refers to strategies of instruction, or a style of instruction.Pedagogy is also sometimes referred to as the correct use of teaching strategies . For example, Paulo Freire referred to his method of teaching adults as "critical pedagogy"...
at the
University of StrasbourgThe University of Strasbourg in Strasbourg, Alsace, France, is the largest university in France, with 43,000 students and over 4,000 researchers....
. He remained in this position for over a decade, taking leave for a year as a visiting professor at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
, when he was called to the
SorbonneThe historic University of Paris was founded in the mid 12th century, likely between 1160 and 1170 , In 1970 it was reorganized as 13 autonomous universities...
in 1935. There he taught sociology and worked closely with
Marcel MaussMarcel Mauss was a French sociologist.-Background:Mauss was born in Epinal, Vosges to a Jewish family, and studied philosophy at Bordeaux, where his uncle Émile Durkheim was teaching at the time and agregated in 1893...
and served as the editor of
Annales de Sociologie, the successor journal to
L'Année Sociologique. In 1944 he received one of France's highest honors, a chair at the
Collège de FranceThe Collège de France is a higher education and research establishment located in Paris, France, in the 5th arrondissement, or Latin Quarter, across the street from the historical campus of La Sorbonne at the intersection of Rue Saint-Jacques and Rue des Ecoles...
in
Social PsychologySocial psychology is a type of social science that is concerned with individuals' thoughts, feelings and behavior as they affect or are affected by other individuals...
. A longtime socialist, Halbwachs was detained by the
GestapoThe was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning in April 1934, it was under the overall administration of the Schutzstaffel under Heinrich Himmler in his position as leader of the SS and Chief of German Police...
after the
NaziNazism, known officially in German as National Socialism , is the totalitarian ideology and practices of the Nazi Party or National Socialist German Workers’ Party under Adolf Hitler, and the policies adopted by the dictatorial government of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945.Nazism is often considered...
occupation of Paris and deported to Buchenwald, where he died of dysentery in 1945.
Part of his books were offered by his widow to the library of the
Centre d'études sociologiques and are now held at the
Human and Social Sciences Library Paris Descartes-CNRSThe Human and Social Sciences Library Paris Descartes-CNRS is one of the most important French libraries concerning sociology, linguistics and science education...
.
External links