JGA Pocock

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John Greville Agard Pocock , ONZM (born March 7, 1924 in London ) is a New Zealand historian and political scientist specializing in the history of ideas . This includes research into early Republicanism and the Enlightenment .

Life

Pocock is a son of Lewis Greville Pocock (1890-1975) from Cape Colony and his wife, who is from the Channel Islands . When his father was appointed professor of classical philology at Canterbury College in Christchurch ( New Zealand ) in 1927 , the family moved with him. Pocock studied in New Zealand, where he first obtained a bachelor's degree and then a master’s degree in 1946.

This was followed by a study visit to the University of Cambridge and a doctorate with the historian Herbert Butterfield . In 1959 he founded and directed the Department of Political Science at Canterbury University. In 1966 Pocock emigrated to the USA. From 1975 to 1994 Pocock taught as a professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore . In 1975 he was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1994 to the American Philosophical Society . Since 1990 he has been a corresponding member of the British Academy .

Teaching

Pocock is considered a pioneer in the history of political ideas. He is a co-founder of contextualism . This is a stream of the history of ideas that interprets historical sources primarily in the context of their time and the spirit. Together with Quentin Skinner , he laid the foundation for the Cambridge School . His methodological approach includes analyzing the political language of its time. Building on this, discourse groups and trends can be identified. He was instrumental in researching the protagonists of early modern political theory such as James Harrington , Thomas Hobbes and John Locke .

Publications

  • The Ancient Constitution and the Feudal Law. Revised version of the dissertation. 1957
  • The other civil society. On the dialectic of virtue and corruption. Translated from the English by Klaus Blocher. Campus, Frankfurt am Main 1993, ISBN 3-593-34836-5
  • Barbarism and Religion. 5 volumes
    • Volume 1: The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon , 1737-1794. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999
    • Volume 2: Narratives of Civil Government . Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 1999
    • Volume 3: The First Decline and Fall. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2003
    • Volume 4: Barbarians, Savages and Empires. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2005
    • Volume 5: Religion: the First Triumph. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2011

literature

  • Preston King: Historical Contextualism. The New Historicism? . In: History of European Ideas 21 (1995), No. 2, pp. 209-233.
  • William Walker: JGA Pocock and the History of British Political Thought. Assessing the state of the art . In: Eighteenth-Century Life 33 (2009), No. 1, pp. 83-96

Web links

  • JGA Pocock . (PDF 54 kB)Johns Hopkins University, Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts & Sciences,accessed on February 6, 2016(English).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Peter Vogt: Ideas that spread. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung of March 7, 2014, No. 55, p. 12.
  2. ^ Member History: John GA Pocock. American Philosophical Society, accessed January 24, 2019 (with biographical notes).
  3. ^ Fellows: John Pocock. British Academy, accessed January 24, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Pocock, JGA
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Pocock, John Greville Agard (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION New Zealand historian, political scientist and university professor
DATE OF BIRTH March 7, 1924
PLACE OF BIRTH London