Jean Comaroff
Encyclopedia
Jean Comaroff is Bernard E. & Ellen C. Sunny Distinguished Service Professor of Anthropology and of Social Sciences at the University of Chicago
and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town. She is an expert on the effects of colonialism on people in Southern Africa.
She received her B.A. in 1966 from the University of Cape Town
and her Ph.D. in 1974 from the London School of Economics
. She has been a University faculty member since 1978.
In collaboration with her husband John Comaroff
, as well as on her own, Comaroff has written extensively on colonialism, healing, liberation struggles, and the problems of modernity, based on fieldwork conducted in southern Africa and Great Britain.
Comaroff also serves as a member of the Editorial Collective of the journal Public Culture
.
moved to Great Britain to pursue a PHD in anthropology. Both Jean and John Comaroff have been faculty members at the University of Chicago
since 1979.
Joint Publications (with John Comaroff):
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
and Honorary Professor of Anthropology at the University of Cape Town. She is an expert on the effects of colonialism on people in Southern Africa.
She received her B.A. in 1966 from the University of Cape Town
University of Cape Town
The University of Cape Town is a public research university located in Cape Town in the Western Cape province of South Africa. UCT was founded in 1829 as the South African College, and is the oldest university in South Africa and the second oldest extant university in Africa.-History:The roots of...
and her Ph.D. in 1974 from the London School of Economics
London School of Economics
The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...
. She has been a University faculty member since 1978.
In collaboration with her husband John Comaroff
John Comaroff
John L. Comaroff is a Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service professor of Anthropology and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He is also Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation....
, as well as on her own, Comaroff has written extensively on colonialism, healing, liberation struggles, and the problems of modernity, based on fieldwork conducted in southern Africa and Great Britain.
Comaroff also serves as a member of the Editorial Collective of the journal Public Culture
Public Culture
Public Culture is a reviewed interdisciplinary academic journal of cultural studies, founded in 1988 by anthropologists Carol Breckenridge and Arjun Appadurai...
.
Personal life
Jean Comaroff comes from a Jewish family that had fled the pogroms in Eastern Europe and had emigrated to South Africa. In late 1960s, she and her husband, anthropologist John ComaroffJohn Comaroff
John L. Comaroff is a Harold H. Swift Distinguished Service professor of Anthropology and Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He is also Research Professor at the American Bar Foundation....
moved to Great Britain to pursue a PHD in anthropology. Both Jean and John Comaroff have been faculty members at the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
since 1979.
Personal Quotes
"The fascinating thing is that anthropology is anti-hegemonic in many of the questions it asks, and is threatened in many places. But the ideas produced within anthropology are still generative far beyond the discipline." Nov. 2008Publications
- 1985 Body of Power, Spirit of Resistance: The Culture and History of a South African People. Chicago: University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
. - 2007 Beyond the Politics of Bare Life: AIDS and the Global Order. Public Culture, 19(1): 197-219.
Joint Publications (with John Comaroff):
- 1991 Of Revelation and Revolution Vol I: Christianity, Colonialism, and Consciousness in South Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
- 1992 Ethnography and the Historical Imagination. Boulder: Westview Press.
- 1997 Of Revelation and Revolution Vol II: The Dialectics of Modernity on a South African Frontier. Chicago: University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
. - 2000 Millennial Capitalism: First Thoughts on a Second Coming. Public Culture, 12(2): 291-343.
- 2006 Law and Disorder in the Postcolony (eds.) University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
. - 2006 The Portraits of an Ethnographer as a Young Man: The Photography of Isaac Schapera in "Old Botswana." Anthropology Today. 22(1):10-17.
- 2007 Picturing a Colonial Past: The African Photographs of Isaac Schapera. (eds. w/ D.A. James) University of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
. - 2009 Ethnicity, Inc. (Chicago Studies in Practices of Meaning), University Of Chicago PressUniversity of Chicago PressThe University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
(July 15, 2009) - 2009 Dixit: Violencia y ley en la poscolonia: una reflexión sobre las complicidades Norte-Sur, Buenos Aires y Madrid, Katz Barpal Editores, ISBN 9788496859562 (En coedición con el Centro de Cultura Contemporánea de Barcelona)
- 2011 Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America is Evolving Toward Africa (The Radical Imagination). [Paradigm Publishers].