Adolf Ellegard Jensen

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Adolf Ellegard Jensen (born January 1, 1899 in Kiel , † May 20, 1965 in Mammolshain , Taunus ) was one of the most important German ethnologists of the post-war period . He continued the culture morphology established by Leo Frobenius .

Life

Jensen completed his physics studies in Kiel and Bonn in 1922 with a dissertation on Max Planck and Ernst Mach . A year later he made the acquaintance of Leo Frobenius , whose devoted student he became. As a member of the Institute for Cultural Morphology (today: Frobenius Institute ) founded by Frobenius , he undertook research trips to South Africa, Libya, Southern Ethiopia and Seram , he undertook at least one trip in 1934 together with the artist Alf Bayrle . He received his habilitation in Frankfurt in the subject of culture and ethnology with a thesis on circumcision and ripening ceremonies. After Frobenius' death in 1938 he was to take over the management of the Institute for Cultural Morphology and the Municipal Museum of Nations . However, this plan failed because of the objection of the National Socialist rulers, who in 1940 also withdrew Jensen's venia legendi at Frankfurt University. Jensen was big enough not to part with his Jewish wife - from whom he had already become estranged - in order to protect her from destruction by the National Socialists.

In Frankfurt he was appointed first professor of ethnology after the war. He was also given the management of the museum and the research institute, which the Nazis had denied him. In personal union he held these offices until his death. Jensen founded the German Society for Ethnology (DGV) together with the Hamburg ethnologist Professor Franz Termer after the Second World War; 1947-54 he acted as its chairman.

His daughter Ellinor Jensen worked as an actress.

Create

Besides Frobenius, Jensen is considered to be the most important representative of cultural morphology . The focus of his theoretical work is the sequence of “emotion”, “expression” and “application” that he tries to depict in the religious productions of indigenous peoples. He criticized above all evolutionism and other theories in ethnology . From him the term Dema deities , which he took from the language of the Marind-anim in New Guinea , was introduced into ethnology. In addition, he made important contributions through his ethnographies, especially about southern Ethiopia and the Moluccan island of Seram .

In the 1950s, Jensen and Hermann Baumann had a substantive dispute: While Jensen regarded the old planters as the forerunners of the peasant cultures, for Baumann the old planting grave-stick cultures were not the predecessors, but the offshoots of the plow cultures.

The ethnologists Adolf Friedrich (Mainz), Helmut Straube (Munich), Meinhard Schuster (Basel), Barbara Frank (Munich), Horst Nachtigall (Marburg), Wolfgang Rudolph (Berlin), Peter Snoy (Heidelberg) and Eike Haberland ( Frankfurt).

Publications (selection)

  • Circumcision and ripening ceremonies among primitive peoples. Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1933 (= Studies in Cultural Studies. Volume 1), DNB 580278735 ; Reprinted by Johnson, New York, NY / London 1968, DNB 457097094 .
  • In the land of Gada. Hikes among the debris of southern Abessia. Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1936
  • Hainuwele . Folk tales from the Moluccan island of Ceram. Klostermann, Frankfurt 1939 (Results of the Frobenius Expedition 1937-38 to the Moluccas and Dutch New Guinea, Volume 1)
  • The three rivers. Traits from the spiritual and religious life of the Wemale, a primitive people in the Moluccas. Harrassowitz, Leipzig 1948 (Results of the Frobenius Expedition 1937-38 to the Moluccas and Dutch New Guinea, Volume 2)
  • The religious worldview of an early culture. Schröder, Stuttgart 1948. Revised new edition: The dead god. World view of an early culture. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1966
  • Was there a maternal culture? In: Studium Generale. Volume 3, 1950, pp. 418-433.
  • Myth and cult among primitive peoples. Religious studies. Steiner, Wiesbaden 1951, NA 1960, 1991
  • as editor: Altvölker South Ethiopia. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 1959
  • with Rhotert, H. and Frobenius, L .: Course and results of the 12th German Inner-African Research Expedition (DIAFE) 1934/35 under the leadership of Leo Frobenius. Strecker & Schröder, Stuttgart 1938
  • The slain deity. World view of early culture. Stuttgart u. a. 1966.

literature

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Jensen, Adolf Ellegard
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German ethnologist
DATE OF BIRTH January 1, 1899
PLACE OF BIRTH Kiel
DATE OF DEATH May 20, 1965
Place of death Mammolshain , Taunus