ABSTRACT
This chapter chronicles the key events that led to David Émile Durkheim academic appointment at the University of Bordeaux. Despite a serious illness during his final year, Durkheim completed his academic requirements at the Ecole Normale, graduating in 1882 with a specialization in philosophy. Eligible now for a university appointment, Alfred Espinas accepted a post at the University of Bordeaux, where in 1881 he became "titular professor of philosophy". Espinas graduated from the École Normale in 1867 but viewed his training in social philosophy as mentally stultifying. Yet, Espinas did just that by training himself in natural history and writing a dissertation on the origin, nature, and development of animal societies. The rest of Animal Societies is devoted to how animals associate with an analysis of the types, continuity, and organic connections among different types of societies. For anyone interested in sociology, the Revue philosophique was among a handful of French journals publishing articles in sociology.
