Jack Goody

Sir John Rankine Goody FBA (1919–2015) was an English social anthropologist. He was a prominent lecturer at Cambridge University, and was William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology from 1973 to 1984.

Sir Jack Goody

FBA
Goody in 2009
Born
John Rankine Goody

(1919-07-27)27 July 1919
Hammersmith, England
Died16 July 2015(2015-07-16) (aged 95)
Cambridge, England
Spouses
  • Mary Joan Wright
    ​
    (divorced)​
  • Esther Newcomb Goody
    ​
    ​
    (m. 1956, divorced)​
    [1]
  • ​
    (m. 2000)​
Academic background
Alma mater
Doctoral advisorMeyer Fortes
Other advisorsE. E. Evans-Pritchard
Academic work
DisciplineAnthropology
Sub-disciplineSocial anthropology
InstitutionsSt John's College, Cambridge

Among his main publications were Death, property and the ancestors (1962), Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa (1971), The myth of the Bagre (1972) and The domestication of the savage mind (1977).[2]

Early life and education

Born 27 July 1919, His parents were Harold Goody (1885–1969) and Lilian Rankine Goody (1885–1962). Goody grew up in Welwyn Garden City and St Albans, where he attended St Albans School. He went up to St John's College, Cambridge to study English literature in 1938, where he met leftist intellectuals like Eric Hobsbawm, Raymond Williams and E. P. Thompson.

Military service

Goody left university to fight in World War II.[3] Following officer training, he was commissioned into the Sherwood Foresters (Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), British Army, on 23 March 1940 as a second lieutenant.[4] Fighting in North Africa, he was captured by the Germans and spent three years in prisoner-of-war camps.[5] At the end of the war he held the rank of lieutenant.[6] Following his release, he returned to Cambridge to continue his studies.[3]

He officially relinquished his commission on 19 January 1952.[6]

Academic career

Inspired by James George Frazer's Golden Bough and the archaeologist V. Gordon Childe, he transferred to Archaeology and Anthropology when he resumed university study in 1946. Meyer Fortes was his first mentor in Social Anthropology. After fieldwork with the LoWiili and LoDagaa peoples in northern Ghana, Goody increasingly turned to comparative study of Europe, Africa and Asia.

Between 1954 and 1984, he taught social anthropology at Cambridge University, serving as the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology from 1973 until 1984.[7] He gave the Luce Lectures at Yale University—Fall 1987.

Goody has pioneered the comparative anthropology of literacy, attempting to gauge the preconditions and effects of writing as a technology. He also published about the history of the family and the anthropology of inheritance. More recently, he has written on the anthropology of flowers and food.

Later life

Goody died on 16 July 2015, aged 95. His funeral was held on 29 July at the West Chapel, Cambridge City Crematorium.[5]

Honours

In 1976, Goody was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).[2] He was an associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. In the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Knight Bachelor "for services to Social Anthropology", and therefore granted the use of the title sir.[8] In 2006, he was appointed Commandeur dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic.[3]

Works

Jack Goody explained social structure and social change primarily in terms of three major factors. The first was the development of intensive forms of agriculture that allowed the accumulation of surplus – surplus explained many aspects of cultural practice from marriage to funerals as well as the great divide between African and Eurasian societies. Second, he explained social change in terms of urbanisation and growth of bureaucratic institutions that modified or overrode traditional forms of social organisation, such as family or tribe, identifying civilisation as "the culture of cities". And third, he attached great weight to the technologies of communication as instruments of psychological and social change. He associated the beginnings of writing with the task of managing surplus and, in a paper with Ian Watt (Goody and Watt 1963), he advanced the argument that the rise of science and philosophy in classical Greece depended on the invention of the alphabet. As these factors could be applied to any contemporary social system or to systematic changes over time, his work is equally relevant to many disciplines.[9]

Books
  • 1956 The Social Organisation of the LoWiili (London, HMSO), 2nd ed. 1976, London, published for the International African Institute by the Oxford University Press
  • 1962 Death, Property and the Ancestors: A Study of the Mortuary Customs of the LoDagaa of West Africa, Stanford, Stanford University Press ISBN 0422980803[10][11][12]
  • 1968 ed., Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press); translated into German and Spanish.[13][14]
  • 1971 Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa, Oxford, Oxford University Press
  • 1971 The Developmental Cycle in Domestic Groups, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521096607
  • 1972 The Myth of the Bagre, Oxford, Oxford University Press ISBN 0198151349[15][16][17]
  • 1973 ed., The Character of Kinship, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press[18][19]
  • 1974 with Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah, Bridewealth and Dowry, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521201698
  • 1976 Production and Reproduction: A Comparative Study of the Domestic Domain, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521290883
  • 1977 The Domestication of the Savage Mind, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Turkish.
  • 1982 Cooking, Cuisine and Class: A Study in Comparative Sociology, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; translated into Spanish, French and Portuguese.
  • 1983 The Development of the Family and Marriage in Europe, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; translated into Spanish, French, Italian, Portuguese.[20]
  • 1986 The Logic of Writing and the Organisation of Society, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; translated into Spanish, German, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese.
  • 1987 The Interface Between the Written and the Oral, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521337941
  • 1990 The Oriental, the Ancient and the Primitive: Systems of Marriage and the Family in the Pre-Industrial Societies of Eurasia (Studies in Literacy, the Family, Culture and the State), Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521367611
  • 1993 The Culture of Flowers, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; translated into French and Italian.
  • 1995 The Expansive Moment: The Rise of Social Anthropology in Britain and Africa, 1918–1970, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press[21]
  • 1996 The East in the West, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press; translated into French and Italian.
  • 1997 Representations and Contradictions: Ambivalence Towards Images, Theatre, Fictions, Relics and Sexuality, Oxford, Blackwell Publishers; translated into Spanish and French (Paris, La Découverte).
  • 1998 Food and Love: A Cultural History of East and West, London, Verso ISBN 185984829X
  • 2000 The European Family: An Historico-Anthropological Essay (Making of Europe), Oxford, Blackwell Publishers ISBN 978-0631201564
  • 2000 The Power of the Written Tradition, Washington and London, Smithsonian Institution Press ISBN 978-1560989622, Washington and London, Smithsonian Institution Press ISBN 978-1560989622
  • 2004 Islam in Europe, Cambridge, Polity Press ISBN 0-7456-3193-2[22]
  • 2004 Capitalism and Modernity: The Great Debate, Cambridge, Polity Press ISBN 978-0745631905; translated into French, Turkish.
  • 2004 Comparative Studies In Kinship, London and New York, Routledge ISBN 0415330106
  • 2006 The Theft of History, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 0521870690; translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Turkish.
  • 2008 Family and Inheritance: Rural Society in Western Europe, 1200-1800, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
  • 2010 Myth, Ritual and the Oral, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521768016 ; translated into French and Turkish
  • 2010 Renaissances: The One or the Many?, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press ISBN 978-0521768016 ; translated into Chinese, French, Italian, Polish, Turkish
  • 2012 Metals, Culture and Capitalism: An Essay on the Origins of the Modern World, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press
  • 2018 Changing Social Structure in Ghana: Essays in the Comparative Sociology of a New State and an Old Tradition, London and New York, Routledge

Selected articles

Notes
  1. "In Remembrance of Dr Esther Goody". Department of Social Anthropology - University of Cambridge. 19 January 2018.
  2. "The Fellowship – Fellows Archive". British Academy. Archived from the original on 20 December 2007. Retrieved 11 July 2007.
  3. "Sir Jack Goody, social anthropologist - obituary". The Daily Telegraph. 30 July 2015. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  4. "No. 34821". The London Gazette (Supplement). 29 March 1940. pp. 1900–1902.
  5. "Professor Sir Jack Goody: 1919 – 2015". St John's College, Cambridge. 17 July 2015. Archived from the original on 3 January 2017. Retrieved 31 July 2015.
  6. "No. 39442". The London Gazette (Supplement). 15 January 1952. p. 380.
  7. Venn database of Cambridge University offices and officers Archived 14 June 2010 at the Wayback Machine
  8. "No. 57665". The London Gazette (Supplement). 11 June 2005. p. 1.
  9. David R. Olson, ed. (2006). Technology, Literacy and the evolution of society: implications of the work of Jack Goody. Michael Cole. Mahwah, New Jersey – London: Lawrence Erlbaum Associated, Publishers. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007.
  10. Hoebel, E. Adamson (1 January 1966). "Review of Death, Property and the Ancestors: A Study of the Mortuary Customs of the LoDagaa of West Africa". American Anthropologist. 68 (4): 1039–1040. doi:10.1525/aa.1966.68.4.02a00330. JSTOR 670436.
  11. Hoebel, E. Adamson (1966). "Death, Property and the Ancestors: A Study of the Mortuary Customs of the Lo Dagaa of West Africa . Jack Goody". American Anthropologist. 68 (4): 1039–1040. doi:10.1525/aa.1966.68.4.02a00330.
  12. Keesing, Hilary (2012). "Death, Property, and the Ancestors: A Reconsideration of Goody's Concepts". Africa: Journal of the International African Institute. 40 (1): 40–49. doi:10.2307/1157567. JSTOR 1157567. S2CID 145582091.
  13. Foster, Philip (1970). "Review of Literacy in Traditional Societies". The School Review. 78 (4): 577–580. doi:10.1086/442938. JSTOR 1084095.
  14. Goody, Jack (19 December 1975). Literacy in Traditional Societies. Cambridge University Press.
  15. Grindal, Bruce (1 January 1975). "Review of The Myth of the Bagre". American Anthropologist. 77 (4): 952. doi:10.1525/aa.1975.77.4.02a00830. JSTOR 674868.
  16. Call, Daniel F. Mc (1 January 1973). "Review of The Myth of the Bagre". The International Journal of African Historical Studies. 6 (4): 708–711. doi:10.2307/217243. JSTOR 217243.
  17. Grindal, Bruce (1975). "The Myth of the Bagre . Jack Goody". American Anthropologist. 77 (4): 952. doi:10.1525/aa.1975.77.4.02a00830.
  18. Graburn, Nelson H. H. (1 January 1977). "Review of The Character of Kinship". American Journal of Sociology. 82 (5): 1156–1159. doi:10.1086/226456. JSTOR 2777839.
  19. Graburn, Nelson H. H. (1976). "The Character of Kinship . Jack Goody". American Anthropologist. 78 (2): 400. doi:10.1525/aa.1976.78.2.02a00740.
  20. Zaretsky, Eli (1 January 1985). Goody, Jack; Mitterauer, Michael; Sieder, Reinhard; Segalen, Martine (eds.). "New Work on the History of the Family". Theory and Society. 14 (3): 371–379. doi:10.1007/bf00161283. JSTOR 657120. S2CID 144075629.
  21. Moore, Sally Falk (1 January 1997). "Review of The Expansive Moment: The Rise of Social Anthropology in Britain and Africa, 1918-1970". American Ethnologist. 24 (1): 211–212. doi:10.1525/ae.1997.24.1.211. JSTOR 646577.
  22. Maroša, Petra (2005). "Islam in Europe". Journal of International Relations and Development. 8 (3): 311–314. doi:10.1057/palgrave.jird.1800049. S2CID 144225510.
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