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Albert Brock-Utne

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Albert Brock-Utne (June 4, 1906 – around 1990) was a Norwegian scholar of religion and an anthropologist. He was born in Kristiania (now Oslo) to Albert Brock-Utne and Dagmar Gasmann-Hansen. He studied religious studies and earned a cand.theol. degree from the University of Oslo in 1932, and he also studied sociology in London under Bronisław Malinowski. From 1934 to 1939 he was a university fellow in the history of religion, and from 1940 to 1942 he lectured in the same field after Wilhelm Schencke left.

In 1943, because of his anti-Nazi activities, he fled to Sweden, where he helped Norwegian refugees and opposed the Quisling regime. After the war, he hoped to become a professor, but the chair went to Georg Johan Sverdrup, so he moved to Los Angeles to become a businessman and to support his research.

His research focused on primitive religions. His book Studiet av primitive folk (The Study of Primitive Peoples) is considered the first Norwegian anthropology textbook. He published several works on religion and its sources, including:

- An Examination of the Question of "Enemies" in the Individual Lamentations of the Old Testament (1931)
- Der Gottesgarten: A Comparative Study of the History of Religion (1936)
- Milieu and Religion (1939)
- Sources in the History of Religion: Ancient Egyptian Sources (before 700 BC) (1939)
- Studiet av primitive folk: samfundsliv og religion (The Study of Primitive Peoples: Community Life and Religion) (1939)

Albert Brock-Utne died in Oslo around 1990.


This page was last edited on 1 February 2026, at 22:00 (CET).