|
View the h-africa Discussion Logs by month
View the Prior Message in h-africa's December 1996 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] View the Next Message in h-africa's December 1996 logs by: [date] [author] [thread] Visit the h-africa home page.
<tspear@facstaff.wisc.edu>
James Lewton Brain, Jim to all who knew him, died of
a heart attack early in the morning December 2nd in
Pougkeepsie, New York. Born in England, Jim went out to
what was then Tanganyika in the early 1950s as a young
Community Development Officer, where he became enamored with
the Swahili language and soon was teaching it to his
colleagues and interpreting for senior government officials.
With the end of colonial rule, Jim moved in 1963 to Syracuse
University, where he enthusiastically trained many of the
earliest Peace Corps volunteers to Tanzania and,
simultaneously, undertook graduate work in Anthropology.
After finishing his Ph.D., Jim took up a position at the
State University of New York at New Paltz, where he
continued to teach anthropology until he retired. Jim's
academic interests spanned the tumultuous forces of his
lifetime, from colonialism to Ujamaa, the forces of life and
death, and women's studies. He published a number of
studies of Swahili together with articles and books on
matrilineal descent, initiation, ancestors, witchcraft, sex,
cosmology, and death among the Luguru and related peoples of
eastern Tanzania, and was working on a number of colonial
novels and children's books when he died.
A memorial service will be held Sunday, December 8th, at the
Alumni Center, State University of New York at New Paltz at
4:00. Those unable to attend the service may fax their
memories of Jim to his wife, Karen Robertson, at
201-836-3845.
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
|