Jack Goody between Social Anthropology and World History: BOOK LAUNCH (online & in person), January 23, 2025

To mark publication of the 50th and final volume in the series “Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia,” there will be a book launch at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle (Saale), Main Seminar Room, Thursday 23 January 2025, 16:00-17:30 CET. This is an in-person event but those unable to participate in person may do so via this link: https://mpi-eth.webex.com/mpi-eth/j.php?MTID=mc71ecd9ada4b2c70a6b1d7c95e31250a.You will need to register with Anke Meyer: meyer@eth.mpg.de

Jack Goody (1919–2015) was a giant of social anthropology, who worked 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. 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. Many of his 46 books were translated into French, Italian, Turkish, etc.

The book presents twelve Goody Lectures delivered in Halle between 2011 and 2022, an unpublished lecture given in Halle in 2004 by Jack Goody himself, as well as three biographical and bibliographical essays by the editors. For further details and the Table of Contents, see the attached poster.

Chris Hann and Han F. Vermeulen (eds.) Jack Goody between Social Anthropology and World History. Berlin/Münster: LIT Verlag (Halle Studies in the Anthropology of Eurasia 50), 2024. x + 397 pp. ISBN 978-3-643-91598-6.