Section « FloriLESC »

Conceived and designed as a critical and dialogical anthology, FloriLESC (from the French word ‘florilège’ – meaning anthology – and LESC, the acronynm of the Laboratoire d’ethnologie et sociologie comparative) is an invitation to add new frames to old texts by republishing and commenting on the work of an elder generation of ethnologists. This publishing initiative has a number of aims: to take stock of the thinking and developments in French anthropology since the mid-1970s; to reflect on the singularity of the debates that have animated the intellectual life of the laboratory, the teams that have joined it and the department; to compile a body of work akin to a handbook reflecting the diversity and evolution of fields, themes and approaches; to pay tribute to researchers who have passed away; to emphasise the permanence or, on the contrary, the overtaking of certain anthropological and ethnomusicological approaches over the decades; to establish intellectual filiations; and so on. More specifically, a ‘junior author’ is asked to choose a text by a ‘senior author’ that has inspired him or her and/or from which to develop his or her own reflections. When the case applies, the senior author is invited to return to his or her article in a brief introduction, to place it in the context in which it was written. The younger author then writes an original article based on the older author’s initial text. The main idea is that the new contribution should place the original text in the context of current theoretical questions. In the case of members of the laboratory who have left us, ‘posthumous dialogues’ and portraits are envisaged to accompany the republished text.
In consultation with the journal Ateliers d’anthropologie and LESC, two or three years after their publication, BEROSE brings this initiative back into the spotlight.