Book Launch: Jack Goody between Social Anthropology and World History

A giant of British social anthropology, Jack Goody (1919–2015) laboured for sixty years to transcend the view that anthropology was the study of “other cultures”. He wanted to move it in the direction of a more sociological, postcolonial, comparative social science. The most important precondition for this science was the freeing of world history from centuries of Eurocentric bias.

Jack Goody was admitted to St John’s College in 1938 to read English and became Fellow in Social Anthropology in 1961. He was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology between 1973 and his retirement in 1984. From his base in Cambridge, Goody’s influence and inspiration spread out internationally. In Germany, as a long-term adviser to the Max Planck Society, he played a key role in the establishment of the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (Saale) in 1999. This volume presents twelve Goody Lectures delivered in Halle between 2011 and 2022, together with an unpublished lecture given in 2004 by Goody himself, and biographical and bibliographical essays by the editors.

The link to the publication is here.

Chris Hann is Emeritus Director and Han F. Vermeulen is Research Associate at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology.

This event has been organised by Chris Hann and Helen Watson.