Denise Paulme
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Denise Paulme | |
|---|---|
 Paulme in 1935 | |
| Born | May 4, 1909 |
| Died | February 14, 1998 (aged 88) |
| Notable work | Organisation social des Dogon Femmes d'Afrique Noire |
Denise Paulme (4 May 1909 – 14 February 1998) was a French Africanist and anthropologist.[1] Her role in African literary studies, particularly in regards to the importance of Berber literature, was described as "pivotal".[2]
Paulme initially studied law, and after a brief and unsatisfying stint as a secretary, went back to college in 1929 to finish her degree.[3] She became interested in anthropology due to Marcel Mauss.[4]
In 1932, she participated in the organization of the ethnographic museum of the Trocadero with Paul Rivet and Georges-Henri Rivière. She also worked as an assistant in the Museum of Man (Musée de l'Homme), an anthropological museum in Paris. In 1935, she started her first ethnographic experience, taking part a research project by Marcel Griaule. She spent nine months with the Dogon people in Sanga with Deborah Lifchitz. Ten years later, in 1945, she went to upper Guinea to observed rice farmers kissi with her husband André Schaeffner.
From 1938 to 1961, she was a member of the department of "Black Africa" of the ethnographic museum, where she met Michel Leiris. In 1957, with the support of Claude Lévi-Strauss[5] she was appointed director of research (and taught anthropology) at the École pratique des hautes études in Paris. She finally became the responsible of the technical committee of Anthropology at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in 1967.
