Kent Maynard

Kent Maynard

GRANVILLE: Kent Maynard died on December 10th following a long illness with cancer.

Born in Lynwood, California in 1947, he completed his A.B. in Sociology, magna cum laude (1969) from the University of Redlands, and his M.A. (1975) and Ph.D. (1981) in anthropology from Indiana University. More recently he earned an M.F.A. (2010) in poetry at New England College. He joined the Denison faculty in 1981 and retired in May 2014. Whilst at Denison he served in a number of administration capacities, and was recognized as a gifted teacher. He received the Charles A. Brickman Teaching Excellence Award. (1996).

His scholarly work traversed disciplinary boundaries. It included classical and contemporary social theory, the social history of medicine, and the intersection of European based biomedicine and indigenous medicine, religion in society, ethnographic poetry and poetics, and the ethnography of Latin America and Cameroon, West Africa. He published widely. His most recent book, Coming Closer, the Epistemology of Ethnographic Poetics was accepted for publication in December 2014. Other publications include, Risking Liberation: Middle Class Powerlessness and Social Heroism, Making Kedjom Medicine: A History of Public Health and Well-being in Cameroon, and the edited collection, Medical Identities: Healing, Well Being and Personhood, among others.

Kent shared his intellectual passions with students, many of whom entered lives of public service. Kent will be missed for his equanimity, patience, and fairness. He was a committed pacifist as a young man, and did alternative service as a conscientious objector. He remained a self-effacing, quiet and glass-half-full father and friend. Kent leaves behind his wife, Susan Diduk, daughters, Jemma and Fu Xiang Maynard and sister-in-law, Barbara Diduk.

To sign an online guest book, please visit www.brucker-kishlerfuneralhome.com.