Augustin Berque

Augustin Berque (born 1942 in Rabat, Morocco), is a French geographer, Orientalist and philosopher. He is the son of the famous Egyptologist Jacques Berque. He is professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris (EHESS). His specialist field of interest is Japan. Berque has developed an extensive array of concepts in order to grasp the complex nature of relations between natural and physical objects and the way we conceive of nature. He insists on intermediation, introducing a new concept (Médiance). His more theoretical work relies on the concept of oecumene, which he uses after Plato and quite distinctly from the sense proposed by Derrida. He has also worked on landscapes by comparing the different visions of the world that are mirrored by a specific landscape. Augustin Berque's work has not been widely translated into English. Le Japon, gestion de l'espace et changement social, Paris, Flammarion, 1976, 340 p. La Rizière et la banquise, colonisation et changement culturel à Hokkaidō, Paris, Publications orientalistes de France, 1980, 272 p. Vivre l'espace au Japon, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1982, 222 p. Le Sauvage et l'artifice, les Japonais devant la nature, Paris, Gallimard, 1997 (1986), 314 p. Médiance, de milieux en paysages, Paris, Belin/Reclus, 2000 (1990), 161 p. Nihon no fūkei, Seiyō no keikan, soshite zōkei no jidai (Le Paysage au Japon, en Europe, et à l'ère du paysagement), Tokyo, Kōdansha, 1990, 190 p. Toshi no kosumorojii, Nichi-Bei-ō toshi hikaku (Cosmologie de la ville, comparaison des villes du Japon, des États-Unis et d'Europe), Tokyo, Kodansha, 1993, 236 p. Du geste à la cité, Paris, Gallimard, 1993, 264 p. Les Raisons du paysage, de la Chine antique aux environnements de synthèse, Paris, Hazan, 1995, 192 p. Nihon no fūdosei (La Médiance nippone), Tokyo, NHK Ningen Daigaku, 1995, 130 p. et 2 vidéo-cassettes (total 6 h) Être humains sur la Terre, principes d'éthique de l'écoumène, Paris, Gallimard, 1996, 212 p. Écoumène, introduction à l'étude des milieux humains, Paris, Belin, 2000, 271 p.