Gilbert Durand

Vocation

Notable

French academic known for his work on the imaginary, symbolic anthropology and mythology. Durand was teacher of philosophy from 1947 to 1956, then professor of Sociology and Anthropology at Grenoble II. Gilbert Durand was the co-founder — with Léon Cellier and Paul Deschamps in 1966 — and the director of the Centre de recherche sur l'imaginaire and a member of Eranos. He participated in the resistance in the Vercors. Gilbert Durand gained a worldwide notoriety and his Center is currently the small group of an international network of over sixty laboratories. In his most famous work,Les Structures anthropologiques de l'imaginaire (1960), he formulated the influential concept of the anthropological trajectory (sometimes translated anthropological dialectic or anthropological course), according to which there is a bijective influence between physiology and society. In 2000, Gilbert Durand was awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations award from Yad Vashem. The medal is awarded to him in 2001 in Chambéry. On 14 March 2007, in Chambéry, Durand received from Raymond Aubrac the title of Commander of the Légion d'honneur. Durand died on 7 December 2012. Link to Wikipedia biography