Arnold van Gennep

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Arnold van Gennep (23 April 1873 - 1957) was a noted ethnographer and folklorist.

He was born in Ludwigsburg, Germany.

Van Gennep is best known for his work regarding rites of passage ceremonies and his significant works in modern French folklore. He is recognised as the founder of the field of folklore in France.

His most famous work is Les rites de passage (The Rites of Passage) (1909) which includes his vision of rites of passage rituals as being divided into three phases: preliminary, liminaire, postliminaire [1].

He died in 1957 at Bourg-la-Reine, France.

[edit] Influences

• The Rites of Passage was highly influential in the structuring of Joseph Campbell's 1949 text, The Hero with a Thousand Faces, as Campbell divides the journey of the hero into three parts, Departure, Initiation, and Return.
• The Rites of passage influenced anthropologist Victor Turner's research, particularly his 1969 text, The Ritual Process: Structure and Anti-Structure.

[edit] Works

• The Rites of Passage, 1909 [2].