French Literature Reviews - 2026
Tobie Nathan, Abécédaire. Mots et rites d’ailleurs
Philosophy, Anthropology and Ideas
I dedicate this primer of concepts from distant cultures to the memory of Marcel Mauss. To me, they are all pieces of the gigantic puzzle that a directory of humanity could constitute.
Marcel Mauss knew better than anyone how to distinguish, in distant worlds, the specific concepts of a given culture—this one and no other—and to restore their meaning and usage. He did this so well that some have entered our language, such as taboo or mana, both originating in Polynesia. I have drawn nourishment from his erudition and his intelligence, which were entirely devoted to understanding others.
In turn, I have attempted to capture concepts from distant worlds that seemed to me both specific and fertile. I have thus dwelt at length on the djinn of the Maghreb or the Middle East, the zar of Ethiopia or Sudan, and the voodoo of Benin and Togo, because I needed these notions to make my clinical work with patients from these worlds more coherent.
T. N.
This volume belongs to a long tradition of anthropological and ethnopsychiatric inquiry dedicated to mapping the specific conceptual worlds of diverse cultures. By engaging with terms originating outside Western frameworks, the work follows in the footsteps of thinkers who sought to understand human experience through the localized meanings and practices of distinct societies.
The text specifically examines phenomena such as the djinn, the zar, and voodoo, connecting these traditional concepts directly to the challenges of clinical encounters with patients from the Maghreb, the Middle East, Ethiopia, Sudan, Benin, and Togo. Readers interested in ethnopsychiatry, cross-cultural psychology, and the anthropology of healing may find this exploration of distant cultural categories relevant to their understanding of contemporary therapeutic practices.