Louis Gernet (28 November 1882 – 29 January 1962) was a French

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources; it is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics (with especially strong ties to etymology). Philology is also defined as th ...

and sociologist.

Life

A student at the

École Normale Supérieure École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

(class of 1902), he received a licentiate in law and

agrégation In France, the ''agrégation'' () is a competitive examination for civil service in the French public education system. Candidates for the examination, or ''agrégatifs'', become ''agrégés'' once they are admitted to the position of ''professe ...

in grammar. In 1917, supported by the Fondation Thiers, he received his doctorate in letters with a dissertation entitled "Researches on the development of legal and moral thought in Greece". For a long time he led a modest academic career, devoted to teaching Greek at the

University of Algiers The University of Algiers (Arabic language, Arabic:جامعة الجزائر – بن يوسف بن خـدة ), commonly called the Algiers 1 University, is a public university, public research university located in Algiers, Algeria. It is the ...

. In 1948, at the age of 66, he went to the seminary of legal sociology at the

École Pratique des Hautes Études École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

to teach

ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

anthropology. From 1949 to 1961 he was editor of the journal ''L'Année sociologique'', to which he also contributed under the heading "Legal and moral sociology". In 1964, two years after Gernet's death, his pupil

Jean-Pierre Vernant Jean-Pierre Vernant (; January 4, 1914 – January 9, 2007) was a French historian and anthropologist, specialist in ancient Greece. Influenced by Claude Lévi-Strauss, Vernant developed a structuralist approach to Greek myth, tragedy, and ...

founded the Centre Louis-Gernet, a centre for the comparative study of ancient societies which is attached to the

École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales The School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (french: École des hautes études en sciences sociales; EHESS) is a graduate ''grande école'' and ''grand établissement'' in Paris focused on academic research in the social sciences. The ...

Principal works

* ''Recherches sur le développement de la pensée juridique en Grèce ancienne'', 1917 (doctoral dissertation; republ. Albin Michel, 2001) * With

André Boulanger André Boulanger (26 July 1886 – 9 September 1958) was a French professor of literature and Latin scholar who shared his activity between archaeology and the teaching profession. He was a professor of Latin language and literature at Fribourg, ...

: ''Le Génie grec dans la religion'' (Albin Michel), 1932 * ''Droit et société dans la Grèce ancienne'', 1955 * ''Anthropologie de la Grèce antique'' (Maspéro), 1968 Gernet also translated and commented classical Greek works.

References

Georges Davy Georges Davy (; 31 December 1883, Bernay – 27 July 1976, Coutances) was a French sociologist. He was a student and disciple of Émile Durkheim. With Marcel Mauss and Paul Huvelin he pioneered anthropological studies of the origins of the idea o ...

, ''Hommage à Louis Gernet rendu au Collège de France'' (Paris), 1966 * Riccardo Di Donato, "L’anthropologie historique de Louis Gernet", ''Annales ESC'', Sep.-Dec. 1982: 984-96 {{DEFAULTSORT:Gernet, Louis French philologists French classical scholars French sociologists 1882 births 1962 deaths École Normale Supérieure alumni French male writers 20th-century French male writers 20th-century philologists