CAMPUS NOTICE

 

OFFICE OF THE DEAN -
DIVISION OF ARTS AND HUMANITIES

OFFICE OF THE CHAIR -
DEPARTMENT OF LITERATURE

JUNE 26, 2018


ALL ACADEMICS, STAFF AND STUDENTS AT UC SAN DIEGO

SUBJECT:    Passing of Professor Marcel Hénaff

It is with great sadness we announce the passing of our colleague and friend Marcel Hénaff on June 11, 2018. He was 75 years old.

Professor Hénaff joined the Department of Literature in July 1989 and, upon his retirement in March 2012, was Distinguished Research Professor in Literature's French Section and served as adjunct professor in the Department of Political Science.

Receiving the "Agrégé de philosophie" (a special certificate in Paris) and trained in philosophy at the University of Copenhagen and anthropology at the University of Abidjan, he brought fresh multidisciplinary perspectives to a wide array of topics from 18th-century literature, urbanism and democracy, to theories of money and violence, and the ethical and social relations embedded in the circulation of gifts.

He taught undergraduate and graduate courses in French literature and culture, religion and political theory, and was known as a generous intellectual mentor to many students and colleagues. An active participant in European scholarly debates and a longstanding member of the Collège International de Philosophie, in 2002 he was awarded the Grand Prize for Philosophy by the Académie Française and the Prize for Philosophy by the French Academy of Moral and Political Sciences for his book "Le Prix de la Vérité: Le don, l'argent, la philosophie" (2002), published in English in 2010 ("The Price of Truth: Gift, Money, Philosophy").

He was widely known for his other books including (in English translation) "Sade, the Invention of the Libertine Body" (1999) and "Claude Lévi-Strauss and the Making of Structural Anthropology" (1998), as well as the more recent volumes "La Ville qui vient" (2008), "Le Don des philosophes: Repenser la réciprocité" (2012), and "Violence dans la raison? Conflit et cruauté" (2014). He was a regular contributor to the Parisian review, Esprit.

We extend our condolences to Professor Hénaff's family and friends.



Cristina Della Coletta
Dean
Division of Arts and Humanities

Yingjin Zhang
Chair
Department of Literature