MICHAEL D.

JACKSON
Michael D. Jackson (born 1940) is a New Zealand poet and anthropologist who has
taught in anthropology departments at Massey University, the Australian National
University, Indiana University Bloomington, and the University of Copenhagen. He is
currently distinguished professor of world religions at Harvard Divinity School.
CONTRIBUTIONS
 Jackson is the founder of existential anthropology, a non-traditional sub-field of
anthropology using ethnographic methods and drawing on traditions of
phenomenology, existentialism, and critical theory, as well as American
pragmatism, in exploring the human condition from the perspectives of both
lifeworlds and worldviews, histories and biographies, collective representations
and individual realities.
 Jackson's recent books have explored diverse topics such as well-being in one of
the world's poorest societies (Life Within Limits), the relation between religious
experience and limit situations (The Palm at the End of the Mind), the interplay
between egocentric and sociocentric modes of being (Between One and One
Another), and writing as a technology for creating connections that transcend the
limits of ordinary communication (The Other Shore).
 ARJUN APPADURAI
Arjun Appadurai was born in 1949 and raised in Bombay, India, and went to the United
States where he obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago. He was the former
University of Chicago professor of anthropology and South Asian Languages and
Civilizations, Humanities Dean of the University of Chicago, director of the city center and
globalization at Yale University, he was a senior tutor at New College of the Global
Initiative, and the Education and Human Development Studies professor at NYU
Steinhardt School of Culture.

CONTRIBUTIONS
 Recognized as a major theorist in globalization studies.
 In his anthropological work, he discusses the importance of the modernity of nation
states and globalization.
 In 2008 it was announced that Appadurai was appointed Goddard Professor of
Media, Culture, and Communication at the NYU Steinhardt School of Culture,
Education, and Human Development.
 He has served as a consultant or advisor to a wide range of public and private
organizations, including the Ford, Rockefeller and MacArthur foundations;
UNESCO; the World Bank; and the National Science Foundation.
 GEORGES CANGUILHEM
Georges Canguilhem was born on June 4, 1904 was a French philosopher and
physician who specialized in epistemology and the philosophy of science (in particular,
biology). Canguilhem entered the École Normale Supérieure in 1924. He took up a post at
the Clermont-Ferrand based University of Strasbourg in 1941, and received his medical
doctorate in 1943, in the middle of World War II. Using the pseudonym "Lafont"
Canguilhem became active in the French Resistance, serving as a doctor in Auvergne.

CONTRIBUTIONS
 Canguilhem's principal work in philosophy of science is presented in two books,
Le Normal et le pathologique, first published in 1943 and then expanded in 1968,
and La Connaissance de la vie (1952).
 As Inspector General and then President of the Jury d'Agrégation in philosophy,
Canguilhem had a tremendous and direct influence over philosophical instruction
in France in the latter half of the twentieth century and was known to more than a
generation of French academic philosophers as a demanding and exacting evaluator
 NORBERT ELIAS
Elias was born on 22 June 1897 in Breslau (today: Wrocław) in Prussia's Silesia
Province to Hermann and Sophie Gallewski. His father was a businessman in the textile
industry. After passing the abitur in 1915 he volunteered for the German army in World
War I and was employed as a telegrapher, first at the Eastern front, then at the Western
front. After suffering a nervous breakdown in 1917, he was declared unfit for service and
was posted to Breslau as a medical orderly.

CONTRIBUTIONS
 Elias' theory focused on the relationship between power, behavior, emotion, and
knowledge over time. He significantly shaped what is called process or figurational
sociology.
 Elias had long remained a marginal author, until being rediscovered by a new
generation of scholars in the 1970s, when he eventually became one of the most
influential sociologists in the history of the field.