Jan Christian Brøgger (January 13, 1936, in

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– February 28, 2006, in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

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) was a Norwegian

professor Professor (commonly abbreviated as Prof.) is an Academy, academic rank at university, universities and other tertiary education, post-secondary education and research institutions in most countries. Literally, ''professor'' derives from Latin ...

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

and a clinical

psychologist A psychologist is a professional who practices psychology and studies mental states, perceptual, cognitive, emotional, and social processes and behavior. Their work often involves the experimentation, observation, and explanation, interpretatio ...

. He was one of the most well-known Norwegian academics of his generation. He first worked together with the internationally more notable Fredrik Barth at the

University of Bergen The University of Bergen () is a public university, public research university in Bergen, Norway. As of 2021, the university had over 4,000 employees and 19,000 students. It was established by an act of parliament in 1946 consolidating several sci ...

. Brøgger later travelled to

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

where he studied under

Victor Turner Victor Witter Turner (28 May 1920 – 18 December 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals, and rite of passage, rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often ...

. He received his

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in 1970 at the University of Oslo. From 1969 to 1974 he was curator at the Ethnographic museum of Oslo. Jan Brøgger became full professor in social anthropology at the University of Trondheim (later NTNU) in 1975, a position he held until he died in 2006. He was also

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of studies at the Faculty of humanities at NTNU. He did fieldwork in

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, the

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, and

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. Jan Brøgger was probably most known as an active participant in the Norwegian

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for several decades. He was a popular lecturer and regular columnist in national newspapers. His initial notability was due to his strongly anti-Communist/anti-radical stance in a university environment where this was unconventional, with several books (in Norwegian only ) published. Brøgger also published on a variety of topics.

Selected publications

* * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Brogger, Jan 1936 births 2006 deaths Norwegian anthropologists Norwegian psychologists University of Oslo alumni Academic staff of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology 20th-century anthropologists 20th-century psychologists