On the Waterfront 13

On the Waterfront : newsletter from the Friends of the IISH

Authors: Jan Lucassen, Mieke IJzermans

Place of publication: Amsterdam

Year: 2006 / Issue: 13 / Format: 16 pp.

Including Touraj Atabaki - 'Invoking the Past: the Use of History in Modern Iran'

Lecture held on 22 June 2006, p. 10-13

Introduction

In these introductory lines, we reflect on the memory of Lawrence Krader (1919-1998), a great friend of the Institute. This eminent German-American anthropologist was a professor at and director of the Institut für Ethnologie at the Freie Universtät Berlin (1972-1982), the editor of works including The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx (1972), and the author of classic studies such as Civil Society (1976) and A Treatise of Social Labor (1979). In 2003, his manuscript of a study on labour and value was published posthumously.

Krader transcribed, edited, and contributed introductions to the ethnological notebooks of Karl Marx. This work was inspired by discussions with his friend Karl Korsch. In the course of this project he visited the IISH several times in the late 1960s and early 70s to conduct research and discuss publication of the notebooks.

The generous bequest that Lawrence Krader made to the IISH in 1998, in memoriam of his friend Karl Korsch, finally became available in 2006 (see On the Waterfront 12, p. 15).