French Literature Reviews - 2026

Weaving the Social Fabric
History, Politics and Society

SUPIOT, Alain (ed.) - Tisser le lien social. An anthology of ten years of lectures at the Ange Guépin Maison des sciences de l'homme. Paris, Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, 2004

Regardless of its significance in the works of the founding fathers of sociology, the notion that every human being is caught up in a web of ties that simultaneously restrain and support them, constrain them and keep them standing, is by no means the exclusive domain of the social sciences. From the binding gods of mythology to the empire exerted by the internet over "plugged-in" individuals, from Plato's metaphor of the weaver used to conceptualize language or the City to the bonds of love and power staged in classical theatre, and from the *vinculum iuris* of Roman law to our modern concept of the network, the metaphor of the bond seems indispensable to all who seek to conceptualize life in society. The social bond does not point to a concept that can be confined to a specific field of knowledge; rather, it is an image in which the most diverse civilizations have recognized a defining trait of the human condition.

CONTRIBUTORS: Márcio ALVES DA FONSECA, Perry ANDERSON, Luc ARRONDEL, Mireille CORBIER, Roger CHARTIER, Benoît DE CORNULIER, Jean-Pierre DUPUY, Muriel FABRE-MAGNAN, Altan GOKALP, Cornelia ISLER-KERENYI, André LAKS, Yannick LEMARCHAND, André MASSON, Jacques-Henri MICHEL, Osamu NISHITANI, François OST, Clemens PORNSCHLEGEL, Philippe VAN PARIJS, Luca PARISOLI, Alain SUPIOT, Robert TARTARIN, Françoise WAQUET, Alain WIJFFELS

The volume gathers contributions originating from a decade of lectures at the Ange Guépin Maison des sciences de l'homme. Readers interested in the intersections of law, sociology, philosophy, and cultural history may find it relevant. The notion that every human being is caught up in a web of ties that simultaneously restrain and support them, constrain them and keep them standing, is by no means the exclusive domain of the social sciences. The metaphor of the bond seems indispensable to all who seek to conceptualize life in society, serving as an image in which diverse civilizations have recognized a defining trait of the human condition.