REST IN POWER

Farewell Jean-Jacques Cellier

anarchistnews.org

Jan 23, 2025



From International Center for Research on Anarchism (CIRA) & Éditions la Digitale
Info Sheet No. 260, November-December 2024

Jean-Jacques Cellier passed away on August 30, 2024 at the age of 78. For 40 years, he was a publisher, printer, typographer and bookbinder. In 1978, he founded Editions La Digitale in his Quimper workshop. Some fifty titles were published. All are printed the old-fashioned way: lead typography, on an old press. The catalog includes books on social struggles (Plogoff), anarchist texts (Erich Mühsam, Claire Auzias, Alexander Berkman, René Lochu, Claude Guillon, Abel Paz), poetry (Alain Jégou), literature (Jacques Josse).

Statement from his Éditions la Digitale:

We are deeply saddened to announce the death of Jean-Jacques Cellier on the morning of Friday, August 30, 2024, suddenly taken from a pulmonary embolism at the age of 78.

Jean-Jacques Cellier founded Éditions la Digitale in 1978 in his workshop on rue de la Fontaine in Quimper, and worked alone for over 40 years as a publisher, printer, typographer and bookbinder.
He paid particular attention to the quality of the papers, inks and bindings of the works he published. He composed his texts in lead typography on a Linotype or a Ludlow and made the prints with a Nebiolo Saturnia press. He was one of the last to use this technique and these machines.

In 1979 he published the first reissue of the book Solutions sociales by Jean-Baptiste André Godin, a remarkable work of more than 500 pages that he composed on Linotype and whose notebooks he assembled with a simple sewing machine.

Jean-Jacques Cellier has chosen to publish testimonies, historical texts and political essays in line with his convictions. His fight over the years has been to maintain this demanding editorial line and share these ideas.

He will publish numerous works on the history of social struggles both in France and in the world, the anarchist movement told by those who lived it, works with evocative titles such as Combats pour la liberté , Une vie de révolte or Souvenirs d'anarchie , will republish texts by Auguste Brizeux, Anatole le Braz, Jean Epstein and Bernard Kellerman, including one soberly entitled La Mer , an extraordinary text that he loved very much.

In 1981, Femmes de Plogoff was published, which recounts the victorious struggle against the construction of a nuclear power plant at the Pointe du Raz. He actively participated in this fight. He then published works of literature and poetry by contemporary authors, including Alain Jégou, poet and fisherman, Jacques Josse, Yves Le Manach and Claude Pélieu.

In 2014, a final work was published, Sartre et le colonialisme by Hervé Oulc'hen, then Jean-Jacques Cellier retired from his job as a printer but continued to run Éditions la Digitale.
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You can find all the publications from La Digitale editions here: https://cgecaf.ficedl.info/spip.php?mot463

Read a presentation of La Digitale editions on the Quilombo bookstore website: https://librairie-quilombo.org/La-Digitale,3134

And see him back at work thanks to this video produced by the Quimperlé Media Library: http://mediathequequimperle.blogspot.com/2011/04/linterieur-des-edition…

Thomas Hylland Eriksen has Died: A Rare Flower in Academia

anarchistnews.org

Jan 19, 2025



Thomas Hylland Eriksen has passed away
From Tobias Hübinette
November 29, 2024

So sad to read of the passing of the internationally known Norwegian anthropologist and anarchist Thomas Hylland Eriksen, who meant a lot to the research and discussion about ethnicity and nationalism that erupted after the end of the Cold War in the 90s and 00s and who always took up the fight against racism, right-wing extremism and right-wing populism.

I met Thomas on at least three occasions and the last time was in connection with a research internship in Drøbak in Norway together with about 15 other Nordic researchers (of which I was the only Swede) and I remember that Thomas, who had the same political background as myself, was fascinated by my research on adoptees and the "place" of the adoptees in relation to the theories of ethnicity, nationalism, diaspora and migration that Thomas was so knowledgeable about.

"Thomas Hylland Eriksen is dead, 62 years old. He was a professor of social anthropology, an author and an active community debater.”
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Professor Thomas Hylland Eriksen has died: – A rare flower in academia
From NRK
November 27, 2024

Thomas Hylland Eriksen has died, aged 62. He was a professor of social anthropology, author and active public debater.

Thomas Hylland Eriksen was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in the fall of 2016. He died tonight. His wife Kari J. Spjeldnæs confirmed this on Facebook.

" Our Thomas, my beloved husband and our kind dad left us peacefully and forever early this evening. We have long known that his unique and adventurous life could not last as long as we wished. Fortunately, we who were closest to him, Ole, Amanda, Kari and Ketil, have had a great time, good conversations and moments for eternity with Thomas in the last few days ."

– A rare flower

University Professor Thorgeir Kolshus, head of the Department of Social Anthropology at UiO, knew Hylland Eriksen well.

He describes his colleague as follows:

– A big international star, but also someone who first-year students could send emails to and get a response.

He says Hylland Eriksen was an anarchist by nature and skeptical of hierarchy.

– He lived it out so that good ideas were good ideas no matter where they came from. He had an enormous work capacity, even in the years when he was seriously ill he did much more than a hardworking employee would usually do.

Kolshus points out that Hylland Eriksen participated in debates, wrote books and chronicles.

– Eight years ago, he was diagnosed with a form of cancer that few survive more than a year. He has lived with a death sentence, and he has done what few manage to do, to let the doctor do his thing and continue living life.

– He was a rare flower.

Community-engaged family

Hylland Eriksen grew up in an intellectual and socially engaged family , which shaped him. He studied philosophy, sociology and social anthropology at the University of Oslo from 1981.

Eriksen was a researcher at the Norwegian Institute for Peace Research (Prio) for a short period (1990–1991), before being appointed to the University of Oslo. He was an associate professor from 1991, and was appointed professor in 1995, at the age of 33.

He has been the author and co-author of over 50 books.

In 2019 he received Akademikerprisen.

– As a researcher, you sit alone a lot and are unsure whether anyone cares about what you are working on. Winning this prize means that others find what I do interesting and has value. It is a great encouragement and makes me want to keep going, said Hylland Eriksen at the time.

– Remarkable thinker

Labour Party politician Hadia Tajik describes Hylland Eriksen as a prominent thinker in the public debate for a number of years.

– For me personally, a lot of what he has written has been quite instructive for my own view of identity, of globalization, of nationalism.

She continues:

– And when I, as an adult, have had the pleasure of meeting him a few times, I have experienced him as a very genuine person and intellectually curious.

Author and MDG politician Eivind Trædal writes that Hylland Eriksen was a fantastic mediator and broad-minded thinker.

– What a loss for Norway! We don't have too many of those, and now we have one less. Thank you for everything (and it was certainly not little!).

Svein Stølen, rector of the University of Oslo, says Hylland Eriksen was a brilliant communicator who has inspired many.

– He took social anthropology out of academia and into people's lives. So he contributed to the whole of Norway understanding the society we are a part of better, he says.

Fearless and popular

Minister of Research and Higher Education Oddmund Hoel (Sp) says the death is sad news.

– Thomas Hylland Eriksen was a true intellectual, who has impressed, irritated and engaged. He has combined research at the absolute top level with communicating his subject to a wide audience.

Hoel says Hylland Eriksen was a clear public voice, who never shied away from a discussion and was never afraid to be countercultural.

– Nevertheless, he became a popular and well-known researcher. I think that for many Norwegians, Hylland Eriksen was the very archetype of a professor.

– On behalf of the government, I would like to thank Thomas Hylland Eriksen for a long and incredibly impressive career as a researcher, teacher and communicator. Today, our thoughts go to his closest family and friends, and to colleagues and students at the University of Oslo.

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