Social Theorists
James George Frazer
Anthropology
Citation Formats
General Reference
APA Style
BibTeX
James George Frazer was a Scottish social anthropologist and folklorist, born in Glasgow in 1854 and a fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, for most of his working life. He is best known for The Golden Bough, a comparative study of ancient cults, rites and myths and their parallels in early Christianity, first published in 1890 and expanded to twelve volumes by 1915. Frazer proposed a three-stage model of cultural development moving from magic through religion to science, and was among the first scholars to describe in detail the relationship between myths and rituals. His work influenced Sigmund Freud and inspired T. S. Eliot's poem The Waste Land. He was knighted in 1914, and the Frazer Lectureship in Social Anthropology was established in his honor in 1921 at Cambridge, Oxford, Glasgow and Liverpool. He died in Cambridge in 1941.
Facts
Birth YearSourced to the subject's own account Death YearSourced to the subject's own account BirthplaceSourced to the subject's own account Death PlaceSourced to the subject's own account Defining ContributionSourced to the subject's own accountThree-stage theory of cultural evolution moving from magic through religion to science, and the comparative study of myth and ritual 1 Notable WorkSourced to the subject's own accountThe Golden Bough (1890-1915) 1 Cross-Tradition Connections
Practices Studied
Frazer surveyed taboo customs worldwide in Taboo and the Perils of the Soul (1911), published as Part II of The Golden Bough, Volume III.
In the Other Atlases
Sources
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.