Ernest Becker

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Ernest Becker (born September 27, 1924 in Springfield , Massachusetts , † March 6, 1974 in Vancouver , British Columbia ) was a social anthropologist and interdisciplinary thinker and writer.

Life

Ernest Becker was born in Massachusetts to a Jewish family. After completing his military service, in which he helped, among other things, with the liberation of a concentration camp at the end of World War II, he attended Syracuse University in the US state of New York. After graduating, he worked as an embassy employee in Paris before returning to university to study cultural anthropology. His degree with a Ph.D. he made in 1960.

Becker's work "Denial of Death" can be seen in a short scene in Woody Allen's film Der Stadtneurotiker .

Ernest Becker became known when he won the Pulitzer Prize for his book "Denial of Death" in 1974, two months after his death from cancer . He named Otto Rank and Erich Fromm as the strongest role models for his thinking . His ideas, which went far beyond the field of cultural anthropology and psychology, influenced, among other things, the research on terror management theory by S. Solomon, J. Greenberg and T. Pyszczynski at the end of the 1980s.

The documentary Flight From Death is largely based on the ideas and research inspired by Ernest Becker's books. He was funded by the Ernest Becker Foundation.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ S. Solomon / J. Greenberg / T. Pyszczynski, the worm in our heart. Munich 2016. p. 300.

Publications

  • Ernest Becker: Revolution in Psychiatry. The New Understanding of Man. The Free Press, 1964, ISBN 0-02-902510-9
  • Ernest Becker: The structure of evil; an essay on the unification of the science of man . G. Braziller, New York 1968.
  • Ernest Becker: The Birth and Death of Meaning. 1971, ISBN 0-02-902190-1
  • Ernest Becker: The Denial of Death. Collier-Mac, 1973, ISBN 0-02-902310-6 ; German: dynamics of death. Overcoming the fear of death. Goldmann TB.
  • Ernest Becker: Escape from Evil. Free Press, 1975, ISBN 0-02-902340-8

literature

  • D. Liechty (Ed.): The Ernest Becker Reader. University of Washington Press, 2005, ISBN 0-295-98470-8 (anthology with excerpts from older publications and articles)
  • D. Liechty (Ed.): Death and Denial. Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Legacy of Ernest Becker. Praeger, 2002, ISBN 0-275-97420-0
  • D. Liechty: Transference & Transcendence. Ernest Becker's Contribution to Psychotherapy. Aronson, 1995, ISBN 1-56821-434-0

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Becker, Ernest
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American cultural anthropologist and interdisciplinary thinker and writer
DATE OF BIRTH September 27, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH Springfield , Massachusetts
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1974
Place of death Vancouver , British Columbia