Théodore André Monod (9 April 1902 – 22 November 2000) was a French naturalist, humanist, scholar and explorer.

Exploration

Monod was educated at

École alsacienne The École alsacienne is a co-educational private school located in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. The school was founded by a group of French Alsatians after the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. It then became a model for reforming th ...

and obtained a doctorate in science from

Sorbonne University Sorbonne University () is a public research university located in Paris, France. The institution's legacy reaches back to the Middle Ages in 1257 when Sorbonne College was established by Robert de Sorbon as a constituent college of the Unive ...

in 1922."Theodore Monod, Sahara-Loving Naturalist, Dies at 98"
nytimes.com. Retrieved 24 February 2023. Early in his career, Monod was made professor at the ''

Muséum national d'histoire naturelle The French National Museum of Natural History ( ; abbr. MNHN) is the national natural history museum of France and a of higher education part of Sorbonne University. The main museum, with four galleries, is located in Paris, France, within the Ja ...

'' and founded the '' Institut fondamental d’Afrique noire'' in Senegal. He became a member of the ''

Académie des sciences d'outre-mer Académie des sciences d'outre-mer (formerly ) is a learned society created in 1922 whose field of activity is mainly geography and general history in Africa, Latin America, Asia and Oceania. Its headquarters are located in the 16th arrondissement ...

'' in 1949, member of the '' Académie de marine'' in 1957 and member of the ''

Académie des sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

'' in 1963. In 1960, he became one of the founders of the ''

World Academy of Art and Science The World Academy of Art and Science (WAAS), founded in 1960, is an international non-governmental scientific organization and global network of more than 800 scientists, artists, and scholars in more than 90 countries. It serves as a forum for s ...

''. He began his career in Africa with the study of monk seals on

Mauritania Mauritania, officially the Islamic Republic of Mauritania, is a sovereign country in Maghreb, Northwest Africa. It is bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the west, Western Sahara to Mauritania–Western Sahara border, the north and northwest, ...

's Cap Blanc peninsula. However, he soon turned his attention to the

Sahara desert The Sahara (, ) is a desert spanning across North Africa. With an area of , it is the largest hot desert in the world and the list of deserts by area, third-largest desert overall, smaller only than the deserts of Antarctica and the northern Ar ...

, which he would survey for more than sixty years in search of

meteorite A meteorite is a rock (geology), rock that originated in outer space and has fallen to the surface of a planet or Natural satellite, moon. When the original object enters the atmosphere, various factors such as friction, pressure, and chemical ...

s. Though he failed to find the meteorite he sought, he discovered numerous plant species as well as several important

Neolithic The Neolithic or New Stone Age (from Ancient Greek, Greek 'new' and 'stone') is an archaeological period, the final division of the Stone Age in Mesopotamia, Asia, Europe and Africa (c. 10,000 BCE to c. 2,000 BCE). It saw the Neolithic Revo ...

sites. Perhaps his most important find (together with Wladimir Besnard) was the Asselar man, a 6,000-year-old skeleton of the

Adrar des Ifoghas The Adrar des Ifoghas (also Adrar des Iforas; Tamasheq: ⴰⴷⵔⴰⵔ ⵏ ⵉⴼⵓⵖⴰⵙ in Tifinagh; Adrar n Ifoghas; Ifoghas' Mountains) is a massif located in the Kidal Region of Mali, reaching into Algeria. It has an area of aroun ...

that many scholars believe to be the first remains of a distinctly

black person Black is a racial classification of people, usually a Politics, political and Human skin color, skin color-based category for specific populations with a mid- to dark brown complexion. Not all people considered "black" have dark skin and ofte ...

. In the early 1960s he discovered the caravan wreck site at Ma'adin Ijafen.

Private life and activism

Monod, the son of Wilfred Monod, attended the '' Lycée Pierre Corneille'' in Rouen.Lycée Pierre Corneille de Rouen - History
/ref> His father was a

pastor A pastor (abbreviated to "Ps","Pr", "Pstr.", "Ptr." or "Psa" (both singular), or "Ps" (plural)) is the leader of a Christianity, Christian congregation who also gives advice and counsel to people from the community or congregation. In Lutherani ...

l'Oratoire du Louvre The Église réformée de l'Oratoire du Louvre, is a historic Protestant church located at 145 rue Saint-Honoré – 160 rue de Rivoli in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, across the street from the Louvre. It was founded as a Catholic church in 161 ...

, which Theodore also attended. He subsequently became the founding president of the

Francophone The Francophonie or Francophone world is the whole body of people and organisations around the world who use the French language regularly for private or public purposes. The term was coined by Onésime Reclus in 1880 and became important a ...

Unitarian Association (1986-1990), the first openly Unitarian religious organization established in France and later sponsored a spin-off of the AUF known as the Fraternal Assembly of Christian Unitarians. Monod was also politically active, taking part in

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

and antinuclear protests until only some months before his death. He wrote several articles and books that adumbrated the emerging

environmentalist Environmentalism is a broad Philosophy of life, philosophy, ideology, and social movement about supporting life, habitats, and surroundings. While environmentalism focuses more on the environmental and nature-related aspects of Green politics, g ...

movement. He described himself as a Christian anarchist. In 1970, he led an International Committee for the Defence of Ernest Ouandié during his trial. The Cameroonian revolutionary was executed on the orders of the regime. Monod was the great-grandson of Frédéric Monod. He shared a common ancestor with biologist

Jacques Monod Jacques Lucien Monod (; 9 February 1910 – 31 May 1976) was a French biochemist who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1965, sharing it with François Jacob and André Lwoff "for their discoveries concerning genetic control of e ...

, the musician Jacques-Louis Monod, the politician

Jérôme Monod Jérôme Monod (7 September 1930 – 18 August 2016) was a French business executive and political advisor. He was the chairman of Lyonnaise des eaux, later known as Suez-Lyonnaise, from 1980 to 2000. He was an advisor to President Jacques Chirac ...

and director

Jean-Luc Godard Jean-Luc Godard ( , ; ; 3 December 193013 September 2022) was a French and Swiss film director, screenwriter, and film critic. He rose to prominence as a pioneer of the French New Wave film movement of the 1960s, alongside such filmmakers as ...

. Monod was a strict vegetarian who advocated for

animal rights Animal rights is the philosophy according to which many or all Animal consciousness, sentient animals have Moral patienthood, moral worth independent of their Utilitarianism, utility to humans, and that their most basic interests—such as ...

. He never touched alcohol, meat or tobacco. He once walked 600 miles in the Sahara to prove that he had sufficient stamina without eating meat.

Scientific work

The scientific bibliography of Théodore Monod includes more than 700 works on topics – from his thesis subject, the Gnathiidae (a family of parasitic

Isopoda Isopoda is an order of crustaceans. Members of this group are called isopods and include both aquatic species and terrestrial species such as woodlice. All have rigid, segmented exoskeletons, two pairs of antennae, seven pairs of jointed l ...

), to the subject that he held close to his heart until his death: the Scaridae, which he published on in 1994 in collaboration with Canadian research scientist Andrea Bullock. Monod discovered and gave his name to 30 species of insects and plants, 50 crustaceans and several fish.

Selected works

Works re-edited and released by

Actes Sud Actes Sud is a French publishing house based in Arles. It was founded in 1978 by author Hubert Nyssen. By 2013, the company, then headed by Nyssen's daughter, Françoise Nyssen, had an annual turnover of 60 million euros and 60 staff members. ...

(

Arles Arles ( , , ; ; Classical ) is a coastal city and Communes of France, commune in the South of France, a Subprefectures in France, subprefecture in the Bouches-du-Rhône Departments of France, department of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Reg ...

): *''Méharées'', (Paris, 1937), rééd. 1989. *''L'Émeraude des garamantes'', (éditions de L'Harmattan, Paris, 1984), rééd. 1992. *''L'Hippopotame et le philosophe'', rééd. 1993. *''Désert lybique'', éditions Arthaud, 1994. *''Majâbat Al-Koubrâ'', Actes Sud, 1996. *''Maxence au désert'', Actes Sud, Arles, 1995. *''Tais-toi et marche ...'', exploration journal from El Ghallaouya-Aratane-Chinguetti, Actes Sud, 2002.

Awards

*1960 Patrons's Medal of the

Royal Geographical Society The Royal Geographical Society (with the Institute of British Geographers), often shortened to RGS, is a learned society and professional body for geography based in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1830 for the advancement of geographical scien ...

for his work in the Sahara.

Authority name

References

*This article began as a translation of the corresponding article at the French Wikipedia, accessed 17 December 2005.

External links

Obituary at monachus-guardian.org

"Un exceptionel naturtaliste eclectique"
'' Autres Temps,'' 2001, vol. 70 issue 70, pp. 25–38 {{DEFAULTSORT:Monod, Theodore 1902 births 2000 deaths 20th-century anarchists 20th-century French zoologists Christian anarchists Christian humanists French anarchists French carcinologists French Christian pacifists French explorers French explorers of Africa French naturalists French Protestants French Unitarians French vegetarianism activists Lycée Pierre-Corneille alumni Members of the French Academy of Sciences National Museum of Natural History (France) people Scientists from Rouen