This article provides a critical introduction to the first English translation of Durkheim's Saturday, 2 December 1899, lecture that he entitled ‘Course Outline: On Penal Sanctions’. It was written for the first class of the final year of his course ‘General Physics of Law and Morality’. We provide some context to the lecture, a description of the four-year long course at Bordeaux of which it was a part, offer notes on our translation, and discuss the salience of its content. Of particular note is Durkheim's sociological reasoning, and the critical impact of antisubjectivism on the development of his special theory of sanctions and conception of morality as part of social reality.
Ronjon Paul Datta is a Sabbaticant Researcher at Canterbury College and Associate Professor and Graduate Faculty Member in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology & Criminology at the University of Windsor. He is a co-founder and member of the Organising Committee of the Canadian Network of Durkheimian Studies/Réseau canadien d'études durkheimiennes. A range of his publications develop radical Durkheimian positions in contemporary social theory while offering analyses of power and politics, religion and the sacred, suicidality statistics, the political economy of debt, popular culture, and cosmopolitanism. At present he is writing a book entitled Durkheim on Religion for Routledge. Email: rpdatta@uwindsor.ca
François Pizarro Noël is Professor of Classical Sociological Thought in the Department of Sociology at the University of Quebec in Montreal. His work focuses on the sociology of reception and the sociological use of classical theories, starting with that of Durkheim and Mauss. He founded and heads, with Jean-Marc Larouche, the Laboratoire d'études durkheiennes (LED-UQAM) and is also a co-founder and member of the Organising Committee of the Canadian Network of Durkheimian Studies/Réseau canadien d'études durkheimiennes. Some of his papers address Durkheimian thematic such as the reception and use of The Elementary Forms of Religious Life (2016, 2019), the use of Durkheim by Parsons and Alexander (2014, 2017) or Mauss’ Durkheimian criticism of economics (2011). He is the co-author, with Jean-François Fortier, of La sociologie de A à Z (Pearson/ERPI 2018 [2013]). Email: pizarro-noel.francois@uqam.ca