Papers of Sir Jack Goody

The collections consists primarily of academic material pertaining to Goody’s professional life, including:
● Correspondence with colleagues
● Correspondence with publishers
● Administrative material
● Field notes and field recordings
● Archival reproductions
● Diaries and notebooks
● Loose-leaf notes, lectures, articles
● Reviews by Goody
● Reviews of Goody
● Offprints of papers by Goody and others
Personal correspondence and documentation also appear, as do a book-length and perhaps fictionalised war narrative, Goody’s war diary, and a typescript of his autobiography. Five boxes contain writings by or pertaining to Goody’s colleague J.A. Braimah; three boxes of papers towards a history of social anthropology contain correspondence with, and writings by, other colleagues, particularly Meyer Fortes.
Approximately half of the material relates to Goody’s research into Ghana, with particular attention paid to the Gonja, the LoDagaa and the Bagre myth. There are notes, archival indices, photographs, concordances, interviews, slides, survey data and sound recordings, as well as microfilms of material consulted in archives circa 1964.
There is also material on West Africa and on the continent more broadly, on the Mediterranean, on China, and on Gujarat, India.
In addition to these geographical groupings, there are files of notes, lectures, essays and suchlike on various subtopics (pertaining to Ghana and elsewhere). Some run to multiple boxes, and some fill only slim folders; in total these subtopics take up no more than 20% of the physical space of the collection, but in other respects they cover much ground. Among the many labels Goody chose are: beverages; class; domestication; drugs; economics (including the economics of slavery); family; flowers; folk tales; food; gender; hats; iconography; kalabule and African socialism; kinship; knowledge; limits; literacy; love and law; marriage; the mind; modernity; modes of production; monastic households; nature and culture; nudity; oral culture; politics/law/war; property; puritanism; religion; riots and rebellions; science; semiotics; senses and sensations; social evolution; sorcery; terror; thought; trade; travel; the week; widows; and the written word.
Creation dates range from the 1930s to the 2010s.

John Rankine Goody was born in 1919 in Hammersmith, London, the son of an electrical engineer. Following schooling at Handside and St Albans School, Goody entered St John's in 1938 to study English. His undergraduate career was interrupted by the Second World War, in which he served as a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, Sherwood Foresters. He was captured at Tobruk in June 1942 and was subsequently a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany. Upon his return to Cambridge, Goody completed his degree, graduating in 1946. Following a spell of work with the Hertfordshire Education Authority, Goody undertook research, receiving his PhD in 1954. He subsequently served Cambridge University as Lecturer in Archaeology and Anthropology (1959-71), Director of the African Studies Centre (1966-73), Smuts Reader in Commonwealth Studies (1971-8), and William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology (1973-84). He became a Fellow of St John's College in 1961. Goody has written numerous books and articles, and has received many awards and honours, including a knighthood in 2005.

Much of the material arrived at the Library in labelled files, in which it has remained; thematic arrangement was retained as items were transferred into boxes.
While the task of arranging these boxes’ contents and listing them in item-level detail lies ahead, the current arrangement allows for an overview of the papers’ scope, and the possibility of directing enquirers towards sections of interest.

Open for consultation

Much of the collection was presented to the Library by Professor Goody, March 2008. Further material was deposited by the Goody family following Professor Goody's death in 2015.

John Rankine Goody was born in 1919 in Hammersmith, London, the son of an electrical engineer. Following schooling at Handside and St Albans School, Goody entered St John's in 1938 to study English. His undergraduate career was interrupted by the Second World War, in which he served as a lieutenant in the 1st Battalion, Sherwood Foresters. He was captured at Tobruk in June 1942 and was subsequently a prisoner of war in Italy and Germany. Upon his return to Cambridge, Goody completed his degree, graduating in 1946. Following a spell of work with the Hertfordshire Education Authority, Goody undertook research, receiving his PhD in 1954. He subsequently served Cambridge University as Lecturer in Archaeology and Anthropology (1959-71), Director of the African Studies Centre (1966-73), Smuts Reader in Commonwealth Studies (1971-8), and William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology (1973-84). He became a Fellow of St John's College in 1961. Goody has written numerous books and articles, and has received many awards and honours, including a knighthood in 2005.

Preferred citation: St John's College Library, Papers of Sir Jack Goody

28 May 2009

Published