Francis Zimmermann's HTML files
I wish to take up the challenge of introducing non-Western tongues and modes of thought into the practice of professionally established, academic philosophy.
I am interested in non-Western developments of professional philosophy, and I am focussing on two different problematics that belong with my fields of research as an anthropologist in India, namely: (1) Environmental and medical ethics, and (2) Voice and the performance of verbal art. I was trained in classical philosophy before shifting to anthropology.
As an anthropologist and a faculty member of EHESS, I have been pursuing three lines of research, namely: (1) continuing anthropological fieldwork in Kuttanad (South India), (2) textual studies in the scholarly traditions of medicine, logic and philosophy in India, (3) explorations into the cognitive foundations of linguistic anthropology, the development of this discipline over the last thirty-five years, and its alliance with the anthropology of performance in the study of human Voice and linguistic diversity.
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Kerala Society and Malayalam Literature
At first trained in classical philosophy, Sanskrit and social anthropology, I studied Ayurveda with Vayaskara N. S. Mooss in Kottayam (Kerala) during two long periods of fieldwork in 1976-78 (Kottayam) and 1981-84 (Pondicherry). Apart from continuing research interests in Ayurvedic and philosophical texts, I am currently developing various analyses and arguments focussing on Kerala society and Malayalam culture, that I intend to publish either in print or on the web at a later time. I am predominantly exploring the following domains and issues: ethnoscience (medicinal plants), environmental ethics and water management in the backwaters and the gardens of spices, pathocenosis in the Ashtavaidya tradition of Ayurvedic medicine, the one-century long historical and sociological process conducing to the eradication of matriliny and to the advent of Communism, and so on. HTLM files on Kerala and Malayalam are located at various places on the websites mentioned below, according to their thematic relevance.
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Anthropology and Science History in South Asia
The “Direction d'études” which I represent — the chair I am holding — at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales is named «Anthropologie et histoire des sciences dans le monde indien»; within this larger framework, I have been acquainted more specifically with Kerala society and Malayalam culture, and in my research all along the years, social and cultural anthropology has been associated with classical philosophy and the history of logic, medicine and botany in India.
As shown on this cluster of websites, my current interests are divided between (1) Ecology and bioethics, Ayurvedic medicine, ethnoscience (medicinal plants and Galenic pharmacy), and natural philosophy in Sanskrit sources; (2) Cultural linguistics, iconicity and figures of speech in the mother tongue, verbal art in performance, Vāc and the philosophy of the Voice in Indian and Buddhist sources; and (3) Malayalam contemporary literature.
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Les Angles de l'Asie
http://ehess.anglesdelasie.fr
A cluster of websites dedicated to “South and East Asia: Places, Textualities and the Social Sciences.”
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Linguistic Anthropology, Voice and Verbal Art in Performance
http://anthropologielinguistique.fr
A new research programme on “Scenographies of the human voice,” combining anthropology, linguistics and performance studies, is being developed in my research seminar, which takes place at EHESS every Thursday morning from November through June. Relevant files, including downloadable documents, are published as pages of this cluster of websites.
to newbies (like me) and digital natives (our children):
You might like to visit http://ehess.dynamiques.fr to know the technical details regarding design, development and maintainance of my websites on a virtual dedicated server.
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Francis Olivier ZIMMERMANN
Directeur d'études à l'Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
Anthropologie et histoire des sciences dans le monde indien
Office address:
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
54, boulevard Raspail
F—75006 Paris
E-mail addresses:
zimmermann < a > ehess.fr
fr.zimmermann < a > orange.fr