History - Sociology - Philosophy - History and philosophy of science and technology - Linguistics - Economics - Geography/City planning/Ecology - Political science - Law - Literature - Art - Anthropology/Ethnology - Psychology/Psychoanalysis
History
27,000 volumes (one-fifth of the library’s monograph collection)
Around 880 new volumes acquired yearly on average
239 periodicals received frequently, including 98 with electronic access
Contact Sophia Cagnolo
The extensive history collection is attributable to FMSH’s initial proximity with the Annales School. The collection includes all the major historical currents developed by the Annales School or its successors since the First World War, with a particular place given to historiography: economic and social history, history of mentalities, cultural history, historical anthropology, serial history, new political history, socio-history, microhistory, history of memory, historicity, etc.
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Sociology
15,000 volumes
Around 350 new volumes acquired yearly on average
236 periodicals received frequently, including 132 with electronic access
Contact Jeanne Longevialle
The sociology collection, developed since the library’s creation, covers the discipline from its founders (Durkheim, Mauss, Weber, the Chicago School, etc.) to contemporary currents. Cultural studies and gender studies are extensively represented.
Thanks to FMSH’s activity as a manager of research contracts, as well as the proximity with certain EHESS researchers and research laboratories, a grey literature collection has been built up and the library has benefited from substantial donations of researchers’ private libraries.
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Philosophy
13,000 volumes
Around 320 new volumes acquired yearly on average
163 periodicals received frequently, including 66 with electronic access
Contact Fabrice Mouillot
Originally constituted of the complete works of German philosophers and English analytic philosophers, the collection has opened up to modern and contemporary, Western and non-Western philosophical currents. Thus, it encompasses fields of enquiry such as the philosophy of mind, metaphysics, ethics, logic, pragmatism, critical theory, philosophy of art, Jewish philosophy, and the Scottish Enlightenment. The collection also covers lesser known currents such as utopias, libertarian philosophy, Trotskyism, etc. It includes numerous critical works, as well as the written proceedings of colloquia and lectures.
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History and philosophy of science and technology
3,000 volumes
Around 80 new volumes acquired yearly on average
61 periodicals received frequently, including 31 with electronic access
Contact Fabrice Mouillot
This collection covers the fields of the history of science, the history of technology and cultural transfer, theoretical physics, theoretical mathematics and cognitive science.
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Linguistics
6,800 volumes
Around 170 new volumes acquired yearly on average
168 periodicals received frequently, including 80 with electronic access
Contact Laurence Montignaut
Theoretical linguistics comprises the bulk of this collection, in all major linguistic currents. In addition, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, ethnolinguistics and semiology are represented.
A slight number of works in philology, Romanistics and applied linguistics are in the collection.
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Economy
10,000 volumes
Around 180 new volumes acquired yearly on average
120 periodicals received frequently, including 51 with electronic access
Contact Christine Léorel
This collection comprises works by major economic theoreticians, from Max Weber to Amartya Sen. In the Annales School tradition, it also includes a large number of studies on economic and financial history. Studies of the economies of emerging countries, at the crossroads of economics, sociology and geopolitics, are well represented; this portion of the collection was recently enriched with a large collection on economic development based on the studies of Ignacy Sachs, one of the first socio-economists to work on this concept and who offered the library all his works and a large portion of his working library.
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Geography/City planning/Ecology
3,300 volumes
Around 80 new volumes acquired yearly on average
46 periodicals received frequently, including 18 with electronic access
Contact Christine Léorel
This support collection for social and human science research was initially focused chiefly on studies of cities and city planning.
Since then, in keeping with the trend towards sustainable development studies, the library has developed a collection of works on the environment that, as for the economics collection, has been enriched by the works and working library of Ignacy Sachs.
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Political science
9,800 volumes
Around 350 new volumes acquired yearly on average
146 periodicals received frequently, including 78 with electronic access
Contact Fabrice Mouillot
This collection is primarily based on works in political philosophy and theory, in addition to works on the political and social situation of countries, public policy, the sociology of political parties, and international relations. The library also holds a collection in defence strategy and social science, along with numerous works on Marxism and communism, anarchism, utopias and social philosophy.
Globalisation and postcolonial theory are a contemporary orientation for the collection’s development.
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Law
2,000 volumes
Around 60 new volumes acquired yearly on average
26 periodicals received frequently, including 8 with electronic access
Contact Pascale Hilsz
This collection is made up of works on the margins of the legal field, at the crossroads with other social and human sciences: history of law, criminology, legal sociology, history and sociology of justice, penal policy and human rights.
The library also benefits from frequent donations of works (such as the Droit et société collection and reports from the Mission for Law and Justice Research).
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Literature
10,000 volumes
Around 60 new volumes acquired yearly on average
55 periodicals received frequently, including 16 with electronic access
Contact Pascale Hilsz
The collection dedicated to literature and, to a lesser extent, cinema and music has been built up mainly at the confluence of other social and human sciences, notably philosophy, history, sociology and anthropology.
Literary works are acquired based on their capacity to cast light on currents of thought and historical or political periods (travel literature, biographies and autobiographies, correspondence, journals, testimonial literature, etc.).
Works about literature, which are a more sizeable portion of the collection, deal mainly with literary theory, textual analysis and literary semiology. A portion of the collection is also made up of authors’ complete works supplemented with a critical corpus.
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Art
2,300 volumes
Around 80 new volumes acquired yearly on average
22 periodicals received frequently, including 3 with electronic access
Contact Laurence Montignaut
This collection is primarily organised around two major focus areas: 1) research into art and its interaction with society (sociology of art, conditions for the production and reception of art, themes and motifs); and 2) reflections on the field of art (philosophy of art, aesthetics, semiology of art).
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Anthropology/Ethnology
6,100 volumes
Around 170 new volumes acquired yearly on average
116 periodicals received frequently, including 42 with electronic access
Contact Jeanne Longevialle
This collection proposes the essential, fundamental works of ethnology and anthropology in their original languages and in translation when available.
It is based on four orientations: 1) general works, i.e. studies of the notions, concepts and methods of anthropology; 2) the history of the discipline and various related theories; 3) social and cultural anthropology, which comprises the most extensive portion of the collection; and 4) more marginally, biological anthropology and prehistoric anthropology.
This collection also provides research support for related fields, thanks to the often cross-disciplinary nature of the works acquired.
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Psychology/Psychoanalysis
6,300 volumes
Around 50 new volumes acquired yearly on average
111 periodicals received frequently, including 74 with electronic access
Contact Laurence Montignaut
This collection gives priority to research currents at the edge of other fields of knowledge within the library’s purview, chiefly among which social psychology and cognitive psychology. In parallel, a substantial portion of the collection is dedicated to psychoanalysis, which is a requisite for a subjective approach to disciplines such as history, sociology and anthropology.
In 2006 and 2008, this collection was notably enriched by the donation of the library of François Balmès and a portion of the library of Bernard Sigg, both psychoanalysts.
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