Anthropologist David Graeber is dead

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David Graeber (1961-2020)

Photo: Pier Marco Tacca / Getty Images

His books made him popular, and in autumn he wanted to moderate a culture festival.

Now the anthropologist David Graeber is dead. Graeber died on Wednesday in Venice, his wife announced on Thursday on Twitter.

A spokeswoman for his German publisher confirmed the news.

Further details of his death have not yet been known.

Graeber, born in the USA in 1961, taught as an anthropologist at Yale University until his controversial dismissal in 2007 and at Goldsmith College in London until 2013.

Eventually he moved to the London School of Economics.

Graeber, who lived in a community practicing direct democracy in Madagascar for almost two years, described himself as an anarchist.

Inside view of Occupy

Graeber became famous for his provocative books - and for initiating the Occupy movement, of which he is considered to be the mastermind.

With "Inside Occupy" he described the inside view of the protest movement.

"Since the outbreak of the financial crisis, Wall Street has been the epitome of selfishness. The most revolutionary thing we could do was to found a small commune right next to the bank towers, where everyone is always incredibly nice to each other," he said in a SPIEGEL -Interview.

In his book "Debt. The First 5000 Years" he explained laconically that our current political and economic system, which lives on the indebtedness of people and states, should be abolished.

It became one of the most important non-fiction books in recent years.

In 2018 the capitalism critic wrote "Bullshit Jobs" about the fact that many people perceive their work to be largely pointless.

About his own job, working with students, Graeber said in an interview with SPIEGEL: "I love my job. Part of it is bullshit, but I really enjoy working with my students."

In October Graeber and his partner Nika Dubrovsky should have moderated a zoom conference on care at the Styrian Autumn art festival - the "Care Units Visual Assembly".

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