David Graeber

David Rolfe Graeber (February 12, 1961 - September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist social and political activist.

David Rolfe Graeber (February 12, 1961 - September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist social and political activist.

David Rolfe Graeber (February 12, 1961 - September 2, 2020) was an American anthropologist and anarchist social and political activist.

Born in New York City to a working-class family, Graeber studied at Purchase College and the University of Chicago, where he conducted ethnographic research in Madagascar under Marshall Sahlins and obtained his doctorate in 1996.

He was an assistant professor at Yale University from 1998 to 2005, when the university controversially decided not to renew his contract.

His other mentor at Chicago was Terence Turner. == Academic career == Graeber taught at Haverford College in Pennsylvania for a year in 1997 and gave a course at New York University. === Yale University (1998-2005) === In 1998, two years after completing his PhD, Graeber became an assistant professor at Yale University, then an associate professor.

It was later edited into an essay, "Dead zones of the imagination: On violence, bureaucracy, and interpretive labor".

thesis on magic, slavery, and politics was supervised by Marshall Sahlins and titled The Disastrous Ordeal of 1987: Memory and Violence in Rural Madagascar.