Francoise Heritier Paperback / softback

by Gerald Gaillard

Part of the Anthropology's Ancestors series

Paperback / softback

Out of stock

Description

Follows the life of French anthropologist FranÃ§oise HÃ©ritier, who had a lasting impact on a generation of French anthropologists that continues to this day. A great intellectual figure, FranÃ§oise HÃ©ritier succeeded Claude LÃ©vi-Strauss as the Chair of Anthropology at the CollÃ¨ge de France in 1982.

She was an Africanist, author of magnificent works on the Samo population, the scientific progenitor of kinship studies, the creator of a theoretical base to feminist thought and an activist for many causes. â€œI read this intellectual biography of FranÃ§oise HÃ©ritier with great pleasure.

Though highly regarded in France, she is not yet well known in English-language academic circles, but she certainly should be.

This book will be a revelation to many anthropologists and feminist scholars.â€â€”Adam Kuper, London School of Economics From the Forword by Michelle Perrot: I came to know her at the National Council for HIV, that she chaired from 1989 to 1994â€¦.

Her theoretical concerns were also crucial to the understanding of pandemics, but we did not then realise that HIV/AIDS was also a precursor and a warning of pandemics to come.

She grasped the importance of conceptions of bodily â€˜humoursâ€™â€”blood, semen, milkâ€”that seemed to play a role in the horrific spread of an epidemic of which we knew nothing, except that it resulted in an appalling mortality rate, particularly among young menâ€¦. she was a remarkable chair, concerned to share her insights into the illness and to anchorâ€”necessaryâ€”interventions within a framework that would be respectful of human rights.