The College of Sociology was a loosely-knit group of French intellectuals, named after the informal discussion series that they organized. The College was founded in 1937 in Paris and continued operating until 1939, when it was disrupted by the war. An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... 1937 was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1939 was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Founding members include some of France's most well-known intellectuals of the interwar period, including Georges Ambrosino, Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois, Pierre Klossowski, Pierre Libra, and Jules Monnerot . Participants also included Michel Leiris, Alexandre Kojève, Jean Paulhan, and Jean Wahl. Georges Bataille (September 16, 1897 – July 9, 1962) was a French writer, anthropologist and philosopher, though he avoided the latter term himself. ... Roger Caillois (March 3, 1913 - December 21, 1978), was a French intellectual whose idiosyncratic work brought together literary criticism, sociology, and philosophy by focusing on subjects as diverse as gems and the sacred. ... Alexandre Kojève (Alexandre Vladimirovitch Kojevnikov) (1902 - 1968) was Marxist and Hegelian political philosopher, who had a substantial impact on intellectual life in France in the 1930s. ... Jean André Wahl (1888 - 1974) was a French philosopher. ...

The members of the College were united in their dissatisfaction with surrealism. They believed that surrealism's focus on the unconscious privileged the individual over society, and obscured the social dimension of human experience. Surrealism is an artistic movement, and an aesthetic philosophy that aims for the liberation of the mind by emphasizing the critical and imaginative powers of the unconscious. ...

In contrast to this, the members of the College focused on "Sacred Sociology, implying the study of all manifestations of social existence where the active presence of the sacred is clear." The group drew on work in anthropology which focused on the way that human communities engaged in collective rituals or acts of distribution such as potlatch. It was here, in moments of intense communal experience, rather than the individualistic dreams and reveries of surrealism, that the College of Sociology sought the essence of humanity. Anthropology (from the Greek word άνθρωπος = human) consists of the study of humankind (see genus Homo). ... A potlatch is a ceremony among certain First Nations peoples on the Pacific Northwest coast of the United States and the Canadian province of British Columbia such as the Haida, Tlingit, Tsimshian, Salish, Nuu-chah-nulth, and Kwakiutl (Kwakwakakawakw). ...

The group met for two years and lectured on many topics, including the structure of the army, the Marquis de Sade, English monarchy, literature, sexuality, Hitler, and Hegel. This focus, and in particular their interest in indigenous cultures, was part of a wider trend towards primitivism of the time. A nations army is its military, or more specifically, all of its land forces. ... Portrait of the Marquis de Sade by Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo (c. ... The monarch or Sovereign is the head of state of the United Kingdom. ... Open Directory Project: Literature World Literature Electronic Text Archives Magazines and E-zines Online Writing Writers Resources Libraries, Digital Cataloguing, Metadata Distance Learning Dictionary of the History of Ideas: Classicism in Literature The Universal Library, by Carnegie Mellon University Project Gutenberg Online Library Abacci - Project Gutenberg texts matched with Amazon... Human sexuality is the expression of sexual feelings. ... Adolf Hitler Adolf Hitler (April 20, 1889 – April 30, 1945, standard German pronunciation in the IPA) was the Führer (leader) of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi Party) and of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. ... Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (August 27, 1770 - November 14, 1831) was a German philosopher born in Stuttgart, Württemberg, in present-day southwest Germany. ... This article is about anarcho-primitivism. ...

Sources

• Moebius, Stephan. Die Zauberlehrlinge. Soziologiegeschichte des Collège de Sociologie. Konstanz: UVK 2006. (About the College of Sociology, its members (like Bataille, Michel Leiris or Walter Benjamin, and sociological impacts, Marcel Mauss, Robert Hertz, Durkheim and the effects on Derrida, Foucault, Baudrillard, Maffesoli etc.).