Albert Brock-Utne (June 4, 1906 – c. 1990)^[1] was a Norwegian scholar of religion and anthropologist.^[2][3]

Life

Albert Brock-Utne was born in Kristiania (now Oslo), the son of the attorney Albert Brock-Utne (1872–1925) and Dagmar Gasmann-Hansen (1876–1925). He studied religious studies under Wilhelm Schencke^[1] and received his cand. theol. degree from the University of Oslo in 1932. He also studied sociology under Bronisław Malinowski in London. From 1934 to 1939, he was a university fellow in the history of religion. From 1940 to 1942 he was a lecturer in the history of religion after Schencke's departure. Because of his anti-Nazi activities, in 1943 he fled to Sweden, where he participated in work for Norwegian refugees and opposed the Quisling regime.^[4]

After the war, Brock-Utne hoped to become Schencke's successor as a professor, but when the professorship was given to Georg Johan Sverdrup he relocated to Los Angeles, California^[5] to become a businessman and fund his further research.

Brock-Utne's research interests focused especially on primitive religions. His Studiet av primitive folk (The Study of Primitive Peoples, 1938) can be regarded as the first Norwegian anthropology textbook.^[6]