ABSTRACT
Biography remains a secondary genre in the social sciences, particularly in a Francophone environment. Certain Puritanism in academia gossip abounds about colleagues here and elsewhere but do not accept that a book about a scientist, writer or artist, should disclose the details of his private life. Wolf Lepenies notes that sociology stands at the confluence of two quite different modes of thinking and writing: science and literature. The natural tendency for the author of a biography is, as noted by historian Giovanni Levi, to draw upon a model that combines an ordered time sequence, a consistent and a steady personality, actions without inertia and decisions without uncertainties. Marcel Mauss pioneer of the humanities, Mauss founding father of modern anthropology, Mauss, another Durkheim but a 'better equipped one'. Emile Durkheim criticized his nephew's 'moral unconsciousness' and he feared, indeed, more than any, the 'domestic chaos', deploring in Suicide the poor situation of a single man.
