Sally Falk Moore, Victor S. Thomas Professor of Anthropology, Emerita, died on May 2, 2021 at the age of 97. Professor Moore joined Harvard's Department of Anthropology in 1981. She was dean of the Graduate School from 1985 to 1989. In 2010, she was appointed affiliated professor of international legal studies at Harvard Law School.Before joining Harvard, Moore was chair of the anthropology section of the joint department of sociology and anthropology at the University of Southern California (1963–1977, 1969–1972) and a professor at University of California, Los Angeles (1977–1981) and Yale University (1975–1976).
Professor Moore was a giant in the fields of legal and political anthropology. She did her major fieldwork in Tanzania and published extensively on cross-cultural, comparative legal theory. Her books include Law as Process (1978, 2nd ed. 2000), Social Facts and Fabrications: “Customary” Law on Kilimanjaro 1880–1980 (1986), Anthropology and Africa (1994), Law and Anthropology, A Reader (2004), and Comparing Impossibilities (2016).
Read about Prof. Sally Falk Moore's life and research. Article here.