Serge Moscovici

Photograph of Professor Serge Moscovini
The late Professor Serge Moscovici (1925-2014)

It is with great sorrow that we acknowledge the death of Professor Serge Moscovici (1925-2014): an inspirational scholar and a great friend to the Department of Social Psychology.

“Prof Moscovici has been a huge intellectual presence in our Department, and played a key role in influencing the development of the distinctive brand of societal psychology that is the hallmark of our collective work. He will be sorely missed, but will continue to inform our theory and practice for many years to come.”

Professor Catherine Campbell, Head of Department, Psychology@LSE


We respectfully invite tributes to be made to him here, there is a comment box where you can enter your tributes (you can see this after all the other tributes to the Professor) . Thank you.

22 Replies to “Serge Moscovici”

  1. I first met Serge Moscovici at a wonderful PhD summer school in San Sebastian organised by Annamaria de Rosa many years ago. While somewhat terrified of his towering presence and intellect I did dare to discuss my PhD research on racialising representations and identity with him. The conversation we had is one I shall never forget – I felt transported into another world – a vibrant library of ideas, knowledge and intense creativity. Afterwards I produced pages and pages of notes – that I returned to many times in the course of my PhD. He had a dramatic impact on my approach to Social Psychology and gave me the courage to develop a critical stance in my own work. While I will always mourn his loss, his influence will not diminish. He changed the direction of Social Psychology, and many of us with it.

  2. Pedrinho Guareschi has organised a “memorial celebration” in his reading group for 25th November in Brazil. We will share thoughts and life of Moscovici, mainly the ethical dimension of the Theory of SR, and consequently the ethical commitment of Serge. In this group we read and discussed page by page ‘Social Representations’ (the one with Duveen), ‘Social Influence and Social Change’ (Psicologia Social das Minorias Ativas), ‘Natureza – para pensar a Ecologia’ – an extraordinary book -‘Nature – to think about ecology’ – originally I think in French, but we have translation into Portuguese; and finally, this past year, ‘The Invention of Society” and other writings.

  3. It is with great sadness that we say goodbye to Serge the man – but what he has left behind will stay with us always. With the deepest respect – Gail

  4. Even though it had to be expected for some weeks now, Serge’s demise makes me so sad. What a big loss for European Social Psychology and for our community: as a personality, as a scientist, as a colleague.

    In stiller Trauer,
    Wolfgang

  5. ¿Cómo poner en palabras este sentimiento?
    ¿Cómo narrar la tristeza y alegría de esta ausencia-presencia?
    …recordando al cálido, sensible y solidario ser humano;
    al respetuoso, exigente y generoso maestro “Mosco”
    que supo acompañar, interrogar y estimular nuestra mirada psicosocial
    y sus problemáticas búsquedas.
    Seguirá aportando a esta diversa y convulsa sociedad
    Sigue y seguirá andando con nosotros
    Saludemos la buena brisa y el sol para la ruta

  6. Unfortunately, I never met him, but his thoughts are part of my life. I spread his words around here, in South Brazil, because I believe his legacy must go on. He was interested, among other things, to recognise the different cultures instead of comparing them. He wanted to gather social psychologists around world instead of breaking us apart. Let’s not forget that. Go in peace, Moscovici… adriane roso

  7. ‘Reading and re-reading Moscovici’s work has remained a constant pleasure and inspiration since I was an undergraduate. His vision of what social psychology could look like (and could achieve) was remarkable in its intellectural breadth and depth, and his legacy to our discipline is truly exceptional.’
    Dr Juliet Foster, Lecturer in Social Psychology, University of Cambridge.

  8. Salut grand Mosco. Ton départ suscite un déluge de larmes d’encre. Tant brille ton aura que ceux qui t’ont connu sont fiers même de t’avoir entendu ou parlé. Nous sommes si nombreux à travers le monde à te devoir beaucoup, à nous réclamer de l’influence de ta pensée. Merci pour tout ce que tu as fait. Tu as montré qu’un homme décidé, résilient, même seul, même sans illusions, peut changer les choses. Tu as montré qu’ensemble nous pouvons faire encore plus et qu’un autre monde est possible. Tu as labouré dur, bravement, des champs difficiles ; tu as défriché des espaces nouveaux ; tu as semé sans trève et sans frontières, et la récolte est immense. Tu étais déjà si grand vivant, maintenant ta statue n’a pas fini de grandir.
    Salut grand Serge. Tu es enfin en paix après une si longue course. Il n’y a plus à se garder d’ennemis, d’adversaires, ni d’idolâtres. Tu n’étais pas toujours facile mais on t’aimait quand même ; peut-être parce que tu as toujours su rester debout et penser par toi-même. Il n’y a pas ici que des larmes d’encre. Ton départ pour les grandes plaines de l’au-delà laisse tes amis un peu plus seuls et sans héros. Mais nous avons entendu. La tâche n’est pas finie ici. Un autre monde est possible. Nous continuerons ton travail.

  9. At a time when psychology in general, and social psychology in particular, seems to have acquired the conventional language of the natural sciences, I miss Serge’s lessons and our conversations, his ability to open up new paths, to point to a multiplicity of perspectives, to introduce us to the human substance of culture.

  10. “Mosquita” me decía cariñosamente un compañero en sesiones doctorales de antaño, por ser seguidora y defensora de las ideas de Moscovici, vertidas sobre todo en la teoría de las Representaciones Sociales. Se siente un gran vacío por la pérdida irreparable de tan gran e ilustre personaje, pero afortunadamente sus ideas sembraron muchas inquietudes, además de alimentar la reflexión del acontecer cotidiano en sus muchas vertientes. De esa manera, no se ha ido, sigue con nosotros, y permanecerá por siempre.

  11. Serge Moscovici nos ha dejado el legado de un grande, y como tal estará siempre entre nosotros, entre nuestros estudiantes, en cada artículo, texto, conferencia, donde pongamos el acento en la Teoría de las Representaciones Sociales. Cómo olvidar sus intervcenciones en nuestras CIRS y JIRS !!!
    Para Serge Moscovici, mis mejores recuerdos, todo mi respeto y el dolor por la pérdida de un grande.

  12. Thank you dear Serge Moscovici for inspiring an outlook on life full of respect for difference and uniqueness, crossing boundaries and creating dialogue instead of comparison and rankings. Thank you as well for letting me realise that there is no limit in learning and opening up to novelty, especially for créating différence. Avec toutes mes condoléances,
    Alexandra Steinberg

  13. It is with deep sadness that I say goodbye to a respected thinker, an incredible scientist, and someone I considered a true friend. His passing is a great loss for us all. While he is no longer with us, his profound influence on the field of social psychology and the social sciences in general will last for a long time.
    Gina Philogene

    P.S. I have translated Le Monde’s obituary (16.11.2014) with some added clarifications.

    Serge Moscovici, figure of social psychology, is dead
    (Le Monde, 16.11.2014)

    Philosopher of science, anthropologist, major theoretician of ecology, finally eminent specialist of social psychology, Serge Moscovici considered nomadism as a necessity for research. He died during the night of Saturday to Sunday after a life that was anything but sedentary.

    Of his life he wrote in Chroniques des années égarées (1997), a book of souvenirs written for the attention of his sons one of whom is the current European Commissioner of Economic and Monetary Affairs Pierre Moscovici, that it started “in an absurd world” and still was “spellbinding which went to break itself on the rock of totalitarianism.”

    He was convinced that, without the war, he would ended up as a grain dealer on the banks of the Danube, like his father and grand-father. By contrast, he had a life “for which he had to remake himself, out of his own hands.” This geographic and intellectual odyssey, which took him from his birthplace in Bessarabia (Romania) to becoming a professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris and then also at the New School for Social Research in New York, explains without a doubt his great appetite for living and knowing, as well as the originality of his thought. Serge Moscovici played a key role in the birth of political ecology.

    “WHAT I SAW INTERFERED FOREVER WITH THE VISION I HAD OF MAN”

    Born in 1925 into a Jewish family in Braila, marked by the divorce of his parents and abandonment by his mother, he had a difficult childhood forever pulled between different homes. Excluded from high school in 1938 by anti-semitic laws, he barely survived the great progrom perpetrated in 1941 by the fascist militias of the Iron Guard in the streets of Bucarest. “What I saw,” he wrote ”interfered forever with the vision I had of man.”

    Several years of forced labor before arrival of the Red Army, years during which he became friends with Isidor Goldstein, the future Isidor Isou, with whom he spoke French and launched an ephemeral journal of art and literature called Da. He worked subsequently in a factory as a qualified tool-and-die maker, then getting involved in a movement of assistance for camp survivors through whom he becomes aware of the magnitude of the extermination of Jews. He ends up in Paris in 1948.

    Paris, where he divides his life between work and university studies in Psychology. Paris where he keenly pursues the hot spots of the city’s night life in the company of two other Romanian exiles Paul Celan and Isac Chiva. When a refugee stipend opens the door to pursue a career in research, he picks as his thesis supervisor the psychoanalyst Daniel Lagache and defends his thesis in 1961 entitled La psychanalyse, son image et son public, where he explored the social representations of psychoanalysis in France. Moscovici’s theorie of social representations has had a strong diffusion throughout the world. He also studied epistemology and the history of sciences with philosopher Alexandre Koyre, who wrote on the history and philosophy of sciences.

    The 1960’s marked the beginning of his time in the United States. He was first invited by the Princeton University’s Institute for Advanced Study. He also taught at Stanford University and Yale. He then became a Professor at the New School for Social Research in New York, until the late 1990’s and crystallized a strong friendship with Leon Festinger.

    His first publications date from the 1970s when he is professor in the Anthropology Department of Paris 7, at Jussieu. He participates in transforming that place into a stronghold of the ecological movement about to born and breeding ground for a group known as “The Friends of the Earth” in which he plays a leading role. Profoundly marked by the role of science and technology in the mass killings of the Second World War, he wonders about the meaning of our modernity and progress. He contributes to turn “nature,” a word then almost taboo as he recounted later, into a program of research and politics: the question of nature would become, following the question of the social, the central issue for the 21st century.

    Influential Theoretician of the Young Environmentalist Movement

    His teachings combined with his trilogy Essai sur l’histoire humaine de la nature (1968), La Societé contre nature (1971), and Hommes domestiques et hommes sauvages (1974) to mark, through their path-breaking content, a whole generation coming out of the May 1968 revolt. Serge Moscovici rejects the boundaries each theory of society draws between nature and culture. For him nature has a history which does not juxtapose itself to the history of humanity. We can on the contrary choose the nature we want and “reenchant the world,” provided we rebel against this bipolarity.

    This “active naturalism,” of which certain aspects trigger the interests of feminists, turns him into one of the most influential theoreticians of the budding environmentalist movement. He even gets politically involved in that movement, rightful successor of socialism in his eyes, and thus, he said, “on the left of the left;” close ally of Brice Lalonde, he runs on the environmentalists’ platform in parliamentary and European elections. Tied to certain trans-disciplinary works under the auspices of Edgar Morin, his path crosses with the reflections of Alain Touraine and the second left.

    His works then push him towards social psychology, a subfield which examines the mechanisms of influence of the other on individual behavior. Here too he rejects a strong intellectual division, that between the individual and the collective. To this ill-known, often mistrusted discipline in France he manages to bestow words of noblesse, notably by publishing L’Age des foules (1981), and even before that Psychologie des minorités actives (1979), an innovative work drawn in part from his experiences as militant. For Serge Moscovici, who in 1976 became the director of the European Laboratory of Social Psychology, the key to influence is to strive, not on the side of authority or for numbers, but for the capacity of a group to express its convictions in a coherent and persistent manner.

    “Strange,” is how he described his life in 1997. The trajectory of Serge Moscovici had nonetheless a certain form of coherence inasmuch as he stayed always away from the beaten paths. This man with his sparkling eyes said that he had “the tenacity and the cunning of a naïve.” It is without doubt that quality which allowed him to explore new domains.

  14. Faut-il faire l’apologie de ce que, sans jeu de mots, j’appellerai la nature de Serge Moscovici ?

    Mosco, maître exceptionnellement fondateur qui a ouvert, lors de ses séminaires de recherche, avec sérieux et désinvolture, les portes et les fenêtres du savoir, permettant à chacun de respirer un air vivifiant, de découvrir de nouveaux horizons où déployer des réflexions hors des sentiers battus ; de l’oxygène à l’état pur.

    Oui, bien sûr, il faut la faire !

    Son engagement dans les théories de la connaissance, fait d’esprit critique et d’usage approfondi des sources, son implication dans ce travail de déconstruction et reconstruction, mené avec vigueur ne l’empêchait pas d’être non seulement courageux mais lucide. C’était un grand maître, du grand art.

    Il a toujours gardé l’ambition d’une psychologie européenne fondée sur un ancrage culturel spécifique et qui, se faisant, pourrait essaimer à l’échelle globale, tout en conservant comme exigence : les intuitions de recherche doivent être construites en problématique habile et mises à l‘épreuve avec respect des méthodes scientifiques. Mais les méthodes sont secondaires aux idées et ont comme justification de les servir. La psychologie sociale s’attache à des questions transdisciplinaires, elle s’y spécifie par le regard porté sur ces objets, elle excelle dans l’élaboration des méthodes mais ne s’y réduit pas.

    Centré sur la pertinence des propos davantage que sur leur forme, Serge Moscovici a suscité cette articulation entre questions de société et psychologie sociale favorisant de fait une approche sociétale.

    C’était un penseur à l’esprit critique et novateur qui excellait avec audace par sa perspicacité clairvoyante quant aux problématiques porteuses.

    Mon premier sentiment est bien un sentiment de respect pour l’ homme de science engagé , écologiste, conscient des questions de société et d’environnement , du caractère politique de l’action publique et de l’impact potentiel des sciences , circonspect quant à la nature humaine, ses pratiques , ses rumeurs et ragots.

    Sa démarche, faite de pudeur et de rigueur, se doit d’être saluée d’autant qu’il pouvait lui même en sourire ; ce qui lui conférait un statut de personnage complexe.

    Lors de ses séminaires, il disait : l’Homme est un loup pour l’Homme. Plus tard, il traitait à la fois avec complaisance et mépris les appétits divers et les appropriations dont il était l’objet.
    Il me semble que sa méfiance envers l’idée d’une association, ou de communautarisme tenait aux risques d’appropriation qu’une telle démarche suppose. Il préférait que les chemins des chercheurs inscrits sur ses traces ouvrent de nouvelles perspectives.
    Le meilleur service que l’on pourrait lui rendre est dès lors ni de vouer à lui et à l’ oeuvre un culte, ni de le décrier et ouvrir ainsi un débat, ni encore de le traiter avec grossière familiarité.

    Serge Moscovici, humble et fier, personnage hors du commun, ne devrait pas être traité selon le sens commun. En ce sens il me semble qu’il faut éviter une récupération déplacée, et choquante. S’en est assez pour certain(e)s de chercher à tirer parti, de se vanter de mérites qui reviennent au maître; de « tirer la couverture à soi », « se pousser du faux col » en se présentant comme son fils ou sa fille, sa sœur spirituelle, ….

    A cette compromission intéressée préférons le respect et le silence du deuil.

    A l’encontre ce que veut la coutume, je ne sacrifierai donc pas aux pratiques qui consistent à évoquer nombre d’anecdotes (des dizaines et plus) de moments partagés en tant que doctorante et en tant que chercheur. Chacun me revient à l’esprit : la scène, le dialogue, l’audience. Et puis cet attachement et cette fidélité aux amis. Un bien grand homme …
    J’ai confiance en la motivation qu’il a pu générer à mener des approches en psychologie sociale, sociétale et politique « out of the box ».
    Il n’était pas, je pense, un croyant ni même un mécréant ; aux églises et aux institutions il préférait l’état nascendi d’effervescence créatrice, la fête, l’art vivant.
    Et si nous sommes tous là, ses élèves, ses collègues, ses amis c’est, le saluer et mieux rebondir en interrogeant, avec désirs et raisons, les liens entre nature et société.
    A l’ époque des réseaux sociaux et des plagiats, aller à l’encontre du mainstream apparaît plus que jamais nécessaire.

  15. L’immense privilège d’avoir rencontré Serge Moscovici je les dois à mes professeurs Michel-Louis Rouquette (France) et Adrian Neculau (Roumanie). Tous les deux sont probablement en train de refaire un réseau RS avec Mosco et Jean-Claude Abric, tous les quatre, avec leurs grands coeurs, tristement invisibles à nous. Voici comment ces chères voix des souvenirs parlent, quand il n’y a plus de mots ici.
    Michel-Louis Rouquette avait été recommandé auprès de Serge Moscovici à la fin des années 60, par Jean Bouillut (issu du laboratoire de Robert Pagès), pour une inscription en thèse sur la créativité. Il l’évoque dans son autobiographie intellectuelle (non-publiée) : « Une dizaine d’années auparavant, Moscovici avait travaillé sur la créativité des groupes, précisément en termes de réseaux de communication et de types de problèmes. Il ne s’y intéressait plus guère, mais il me dirigea avec la fermeté nécessaire pour m’éviter de m’égarer et la bienveillance suffisante pour me laisser aller à peu près où je voulais. Comme il partageait alors son temps entre Paris et New York, et comme la communication par internet n’existait pas, nous correspondions beaucoup. Le style épistolaire, par ce qu’il implique de méditation préalable et de réflexion subséquente, convenait parfaitement à cette direction : “en avant, calme et droit”, on ne se presse pas mais on sait où l’on va. J’ai conservé jusqu’à aujourd’hui toutes ces lettres » (Rouquette, 2011, p. 26).
    Adrian Neculau avait connu Serge Moscovici après la chute du communisme, en 1991, lors de son premier voyage en Occident. Il connaissait quelques-uns de ses écrits, sans en imaginer ni l’envergure, ni la notoriété. Il y est allé à l’improviste. « Serge Moscovici m’a regardé avec suspicion, il ne savait pas mon passé, ni comment j’étais arrivé chez lui, ni qui je représentais, et moi je lui parlais d’une réalité qu’il avait quittée depuis longtemps, qu’il s’était efforcé d’oublier, qu’il ne pouvait, ni ne voulait, comprendre… Nous étions deux mondes à part… Mais il m’a offert quelques-uns de ses livres, m’a conseillé des lectures, m’a permis de faire des rencontres… Au fur et à mesure de nos rencontres, il devenait de plus en plus intéressé, voulait en savoir plus, craignant toutefois la confrontation avec des idées et attitudes qui l’avaient jadis meurtri. Etais-je, à ses yeux, porteur de ce passé qui l’avait rejeté ? » (Neculau, 2002, p. 10). L’amitié a grandi entre les deux hommes et c’est ainsi que, plus tard, Serge Moscovici confiait à Adrian Neculau sa vision de l’avenir de la psychologie sociale. Un programme – un « manifeste » comme l’appelait Adrian Neculau – où « le développement des recherches en psychologie sociale se fera dans les pays de l’Est. C’est là qu’est l’avenir de notre science » (Neculau, 2002, p. 8).

  16. Tribute to Serge Moscovici from the ANPEPP’s Working Group: Social Representations (Brazil)
    To the community of researchers, colleagues and friends who study Social Psychology and the Social Representations,
    Our working group (WG): Social Representations, of the National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Psychology (ANPEPP), founded in 1990, received with great sadness the news of Serge Moscovici’s death.
    His scientific contribution to Social Psychology, Social Sciences, and the applied fields of Health, Education, among others, was and has been very important in the world, and particularly in Brazil. This WG of Social Representations of ANPEPP along with the tireless work of Denise Jodelet, and the realization of International Social Representations Journey (JIRS) are central to the spread of this theoretical perspective in our country.
    We emphasize his generosity, encouraging the creation of centers and a research network, through the Balzan Prize, which made reality the International Centre for Studies in Social Representations and Subjectivity – Education (Centro Internacional de Estudos em Representações Sociais e Subjetividade – Educação, CIERS-ed – São Paulo) and the International Center for Research on Representations and Social Psychology “Serge Moscovici” (Centro Internacional de Pesquisa em Representações e Psicologia Social “Serge Moscovici”, in Brasília, Brazil); and also the International Research Network on Social Representations of Health (Rede Internacional de Pesquisas sobre RepresentaçõesSociais da Saúde (RIPRES- Évora, Portugal), which although it is formally located in Portugal, has a majority of Brazilian participants and representation in the coordination.
    Serge Moscovici (1925-2014) originally published in 1961 “La Psychanalyse, son image et son public” offering to Social Psychology the Social Representations Theory (SRT), book recently fully translated in Brazil. Published several other books, also translated into Portuguese, among them: “La société contre nature” (1972) which contributed to the ecologist thought; “Psychologie des minorites actives” (1979) that brought more societary elements to the Experimental Social Psychology; and “La machine à faire des dieux” (1988) that offered a great epistemological contribution to the Social Sciences.
    We send our sincere condolences especially to his family, but also to all the colleagues who participate in this scientific community around the bright ideas Serge Moscovici.
    Homenagem do GT Representações Sociais da ANPEPP (Brasil) a Serge Moscovici
    À comunidade de pesquisadores, colegas e amigos que estudam a Psicologia Social e as Representações Sociais,
    Nosso grupo de trabalho (GT): Representações Sociais, da Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-graduação em Psicologia (ANPEPP), fundado em 1990, recebeu com muita tristeza a notícia do falecimento de Serge Moscovici.
    Sua contribuição científica para a Psicologia Social, Ciências Sociais, e para os campos aplicados da Saúde, Educação, dentre outros, foi e tem sido muito importante em todo o mundo, e particularmente no Brasil. Este GT de Representações Sociais da ANPEPP, juntamente com o incansável trabalho de Denise Jodelet, e a realização das Jornadas Internacionais de Representações Sociais (JIRS) são centrais na difusão desta perspectiva teórica no nosso país.
    Ressalta-se sua generosidade, incentivando a criação de centros e de uma rede de pesquisas, por meio do Prêmio Balzan, o que tornou realidade o Centro Internacional de Estudos em Representações Sociais e Subjetividade – Educação (CIERS-ed – São Paulo) e o Centro Internacional de Pesquisa em Representações e Psicologia Social “Serge Moscovici” (Brasília); e também a Rede Internacional de Pesquisas sobre Representações Sociais da Saúde (RIPRES – Évora),que embora esteja localizada formalmente em Portugal, tem uma maioria de participantes brasileiros e representação na sua coordenação.
    Serge Moscovici (1925-2014) publicou originalmente em 1961 “A Psicanálise, sua imagem e seu público” oferecendo à Psicologia Social a Teoria das Representações Sociais (TRS), obra recentemente traduzida de forma completa no Brasil. Publicou vários outros livros, também traduzidos para o português, dentre eles: “Sociedade contra natureza” (1972) que contribuiu para o pensamento ecologista; “Psicologia das minorias ativas” (1979) que trouxe elementos mais societários à Psicologia Social Experimental; e “A invenção da sociedade” (1988) que ofereceu uma grande contribuição epistemológica para as Ciências Sociais.
    Enviamos nossas sinceras condolências aos seus, sobretudo aos seus familiares, mas também aos colegas que participam desta comunidade científica em torno das brilhantes ideias Serge Moscovici.
    Por ordem alfabética:
    Adriane Roso, Alcina Maria Testa Braz da Silva, Alda Judith Mazzotti, Andréa Barbara Bousfield, Angela Arruda, Antônia Oliveira Silva, Brigido Vizeu Camargo, Clélia Maria Nascimento-Schulze, Daniela B. S. Freire Andrade, Edna Chamon, Edson de Souza Filho, Pedrinho Guareschi, Pedro Humberto Faria Campos, Silvana Carneiro Maciel e Tarso Mazzotti.
    Membros do GT “Representações Sociais” da Associação Nacional de Pesquisa e Pós-graduação em Psicologia (ANPEPP – Brasil).
    In alphabetical order:
    Adriane Roso, Alcina Maria Testa Braz da Silva, Alda Judith Mazzotti, Andrea Barbara Bousfield, Angela Arruda, Antonia Oliveira Silva, Brigido Vizeu Camargo, Clélia Maria Nascimento-Schulze, Daniela Freire Andrade, Edna Chamon, Edson de Souza Filho, Pedrinho Guareschi, Pedro Humberto Faria Campos, Silvana Carneiro Maciel and Tarso Mazzotti.
    Work Group: Social Representations‘ members of the National Association for Research and Graduate Studies in Psychology (ANPEPP – Brazil).

  17. A propos de Serge Moscovici, en hommage , le 18 novembre 2014
    Chers amis et collègues,
    “Mosco” est parti avant-hier soir.
    Allez ! il vit encore,
    voyez :
    ses livres principaux sont en ligne en accès direct gratuit
    via cette page http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/moscovici_serge/moscovici_serge.html
    sur le site “Les Classiques des sciences sociales” de Jean-Marie Tremblay.
    Amicalement
    Jocelyne Ohana

    PS1: parmi les nombreuses interviews,
    celle dans Eco’Rev republiée hier :
    http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/stephanelavignotteorg/161114/serge-moscovici-pere-de-lecologie-la-plupart-des-changements-sociaux-sont-l-oeuvre-des-mi

    et celle-ci avec Erwan Lecœur « Créer une nouvelle forme de vie » :
    http://www.cairn.info/revue-multitudes-2006-1-page-29.htm
    où l’on peut lire
    “Ses recherches en psychologie sociale comprennent trois « découvertes » fondamentales : la théorie des « représentations sociales » (ces constructions de l’esprit où une réalité n’est plus ce qu’elle est mais la représentation que s’en fait une société humaine) ; la théorie de « l’influence sociale des minorités » (plus incisive que celle de la majorité et à la base de changements sociaux et mentaux) ; et enfin la théorie du consensus social et des décisions collectives. On lui doit également une sensibilité écologique, qui l’a conduit à réinsérer la nature dans les programmes politiques (après l’avoir insérée parmi les nouveaux objets des sciences sociales). Il a publié notamment : Psychologie des minorités actives, PUF, 1979 (rééd. 1996) ; L’Âge des foules : un traité historique de psychologie des masses, Fayard, 1981 (rééd. Complexe, 1991) ; De la nature. Pour penser l’écologie, Métailié, 2002”.
    ainsi que Hommes domestiques, hommes sauvages (1974) et Essai sur l’histoire humaine de la nature (1968).

    PS2 : voir dans la revue Communications, numéro anniversaire des 50 ans de la revue (n° 91 / 2012, p. 113-122), les réflexions enthousiastes de Jean-Marie Schaeffer du CRAL découvrant celles pionnières de Serge Moscovici – publiées dans Communications (n° 22 / 1974, “La nature de la société”)
    http://www.cairn.info/resume.php?ID_ARTICLE=COMMU_091_0113

  18. La notte tra il 15 e il 16 novembre si è spento Serge Moscovici, figura di grandissimo valore e rilevanza nello sviluppo della psicologia sociale europea del Novecento. Il Dottorato in Scienze Sociali e l‘intero Dipartimento FISPPA dell’Università di Padova si uniscono al cordoglio per la sua perdita e alla celebrazione del suo pensiero e della sua opera. Lo “sguardo psicosociale” proposto dall’Autore, con l’invito a sviluppare un’antropologia della vita quotidiana e a promuovere nuovi mondi possibili, ha costituito un asse portante del Dottorato fin dalla sua prima istituzione. Ai colleghi, agli amici, ai familiari va il nostro messaggio di partecipazione, con un sentito tributo alla forza generatrice delle idee di questo straordinario Studioso.

    The night between the 15th and 16th of November, Serge Moscovici, scholar of greatest significance and importance in the development of European social psychology, passed away. The PhD in Social Sciences and the whole Department of Philosophy, Sociology, Education and Applied Psychology of the University of Padova share their condolences for his loss and celebrations of his thinking and endeavours.
    “Le regard psychosocial” advanced by the Author, with his invitation to develop an anthropology of everyday life and to promote possible new worlds, constituted a central pillar of the PhD Program in Social Sciences since its early beginning. To colleagues, friends and family our message is of great participation, with a tribute to the generative strength of the ideas of this unique Scholar.

    On a more personal side, i would like to express my deep sorrow and to share my admiration and gratitude for the ‘movement’ of ideas, people and contexts that Serge Moscovici started and that grew from his enlightened foundations.

  19. I would like to remember the importance of the impulse that Serge Moscovici gave to developmental social psychology, in particular in Switzerland: Serge Moscovici brought social psychology to the University of Geneva in the late sixties. He introduced Willem Doise to Jean Piaget. His work then has inspired the newly emerging line of research: “genetic social psychology”.
    Serge Moscovici, together with Willem Doise and the Laboratoire européen de psychologie sociale, offered an important support to the first French language conference in social psychology of education convened by Michel Gilly, Augusto Palmonari and Anne-Nelly Perret-Clermont in Aix-en-Provence (1-3 December, 1981). This was an important milestone as it gave birth to a very active network of European researchers concerned with development and education from a psychosocial perspective. It also gave a start to the launching of the European Journal of Psychology of Education.
    The Moscovician triangle (subject-subject-object) lies so much at the roots of these lines of research that his own important initial impulse could be forgotten. It shouldn’t!

  20. Mis condolencias a la Familia Moscovici por la pérdida de un gran ser humano. Querido Serge, no serás olvidado como Maestro de Maestros (de muchos que tuve en el Doctorado), como Amigo de Amigos y propio. Gracias por las grandes enseñanzas verdaderas que pudiste transmitirnos a todos los que algún momento te acompañamos en tu empresa de conocimiento cientifico, y formal. Personalmente te agradezco por aceptar un Ingeniero en tu campo de conocimiento, pero sobre todo, por hacerme saber un día que entre muchos de los Psicólogos de mi País te sorprendía que el sentido común de un Ingeniero te conociera mejor. Esas palabras me hicieron valer más que haber leído cualquier cantidad de tus artículos, tus libros, tus metas científicas.

    grazie mille Cher Serge, grazie Prof de Rosa.
    Au revoir.
    A-

  21. My “Ciao” to Serge, as well the messages received from friends, colleagues and doctoral trainees, appear in a Cahier of Greetings, included in the website: “A tribute to Serge Moscovici”, created to honor his memory and to share feelings with his sons and the many people around the world who loved and estimated him. It will be updated, being still in a provisional form especially for the third part (timeline of shared memories, yet very incomplete):
    http://www.europhd.eu/html/cahiers/moscovici.html
    However I am posting here, as well in the Remosco website, few words taken from an invited Key lecture “An award that honours us all: Serge Moscovici and the Balzan Foundation” presented at the 7th International Conference on Social Representations (Guadalajara, Mexico) ten years ago (2004), that I had completely forgotten, but that I find even more appropriate now facing to his memory and his intellectual and human heritage:
    “Only our respect for the man (Serge) and his thought preserves us from the vain temptation to bask in his reflected light. We are well aware that one does not become tall by gazing at a tall man. However, we can broaden the horizon of our own view of things if we can visualize them through the eyes of someone who is taller than we are. His stature is indeed as monumental as his work. One day, Clotile Pontecorvo, a colleague to whom I had introduced him, said: He is like a “monument” as well as a “document” and both belong to history!” (http://www.europhd.eu/pdf/moscovicibalzanderosa.pdf )

    Ciao Serge, with love and respect
    annamaria

  22. Lucky to have taken his social psychology course at The New School For Social Research. He was the most original thinker I encountered in graduate school and in psychology generally. I transcribed his lectures and the effort was worth it. His articles in the journal Social Research The Myth of the Lonely Paradigm and especially The Return of the Unconscious were particularly insightful and stimulating.
    I know he had a close relationship with Leon Festinger and perhaps that was one of the reasons he taught at the New School. The obituary he wrote following Festinger’s death was very moving as well. What a great mind.

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