20 Facts About Michel Maffesoli

Michel Maffesoli was born on 14 November 1944 and is a French sociologist.

Michel Maffesoli is a former pupil of Gilbert Durand and Julien Freund, and an emeritus professor at Paris Descartes University.

In 1972, Michel Maffesoli was co-director the ESU urban sociology research team in Grenoble.

Michel Maffesoli developed a reflection on space which he continued in his work on nomadism.

In 1978, Michel Maffesoli became the teaching assistant of Julien Freund, a conservative political theorist and follower of Vilfredo Pareto, while he was lecturing in Strasbourg.

Michel Maffesoli was awarded the Grand Prix des Sciences de l'Academie francaise in 1992 for La transfiguration du politique.

Michel Maffesoli is the director of the Cahiers Europeens de l'imaginaire and Societes journals, as well as a member of the editorial board of Space and Culture and.

Michel Maffesoli called to vote for Nicolas Sarkozy in the French presidential election of 2012.

Michel Maffesoli is sometimes associated with freemasonry, although there is no way to prove that he ever was a member of it.

On this issue, Michel Maffesoli presented arguments on his methods, in particular through a new edition of his epistemological book, La connaissance ordinaire, in 2007.

Michel Maffesoli's work has achieved acclaim from authors including Serge Moscovici, Edgar Morin, Patrick Tacussel, Philippe-Joseph Salazar or Patrick Watier who regularly cite him.

Michel Maffesoli has received a chair that was named after him in Brazil, and a honoris causa doctorate from the University of Bucharest.

The accounts of books written by foreign sociologists were less forthright, but sometimes stressed that Michel Maffesoli's approach was subjective and had a lack of reflexivity.

One sociologist even stated that Michel Maffesoli's sociology was a "sociology of club".

Michel Maffesoli came to the attention of the general public in April 2001 when he defended the thesis of Elizabeth Teissier about the ambivalence of the social reception of astrology, highly contentious theory that he directed and whose jury was chaired by Serge Moscovici at the Paris Descartes University.

Michel Maffesoli's email minimized the importance of these errors and denounced a fierceness against Elizabeth Teissier and him.

However, criticism of Michel Maffesoli came from both research schools, though positivist critics received more publicity.

The petitioners protested both against the non-respect for parity and the appointment of Michel Maffesoli, deemed as disrespectful of "the need for scientific credibility of the board".

In late 2007, when Michel Maffesoli was appointed to the Conseil National des Universites, section 19, the Association des Sociologues Enseignants du Superieur and the Association Francaise de Sociologie protested against this decision, as well as many other social scientists.

Michel Maffesoli was one of the persons appointed to the Institut Universitaire de France by a decree issued by the Ministere de l'Enseignement superieur et de la Recherche, Valerie Pecresse, in August 2008.