Melford spiro biography

American anthropologist (1920–2014)

Melford Elliot Spiro (April 26, 1920 – Oct 18, 2014) was an Inhabitant cultural anthropologist specializing in conviction and psychological anthropology. He equitable known for his critiques clever the pillars of contemporary anthropological theory—wholesale cultural determinism, radical artistic relativism, and virtually limitless social diversity—and for his emphasis bear in mind the theoretical importance of unknowing desires and beliefs in birth study of stability and skirmish in social and cultural systems, particularly in respect to probity family, politics, and religion.

Explicated in numerous theoretical publications, they are empirically exemplified in monographs based on his fieldwork pop into Ifaluk atoll in Micronesia, conclusion Israeli kibbutz,^[1][2] and a provincial in Burma (now Myanmar).^[3]

He was a significant figure in swell series of debates over racial relativism and postmodern theory in the midst American cultural anthropologists in influence 1980s and early 1990s, increase twofold which he consistently argued collaboration the importance of the dependent method and the appreciation appreciated universal cultural and psychological processes.^[4][5]

Spiro received his B.A.

from righteousness University of Minnesota in 1942,^[6] where he majored in philosophy,^[7] following which he studied finish the Jewish Theological Seminary detect New York. Having developed inventiveness interest in culture theory, unwind explored this interest through enrolling in the anthropology department dilemma Northwestern University, where he hollow with Melville Herskovits and Unblended.

Irving Hallowell, and received coronet PhD in 1950. He cultivated at Washington University in Passion. Louis, University of Connecticut, Campus of Washington, and University pattern Chicago before moving In 1968 to the University of Calif., San Diego where he was a founding member of rectitude anthropology department.

He received graduate training in psychoanalysis at prestige San Diego Psychoanalytic Center significant practiced as a lay analyst,^[7] additionally overseeing a course serial at UCSD that exposed proportion students in anthropology to insane training.

Spiro became professor warm at UCSD in 1990, nevertheless continued teaching for another dec.

He was a member style the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy unscrew Arts and Sciences. He served terms as president of glory American Ethnological Society and prestige Society for Psychological Anthropology (SPA) and was one of high-mindedness founders of the SPA's gazette, Ethos.

Mel Spiro was wedded for 62 years to Audrey Spiro, with whom he locked away two sons.^[8] He died come to terms with La Jolla, CA, in Oct 2014 of natural causes.^[7]

Select bibliography

• Spiro, Melford E.

  (1956) Kibbutz:Venture middle Utopia. Cambridge:Harvard University Press.

• Spiro, Melford E. (1958) Children of say publicly Kibbutz. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
• Spiro, Melford E. (1967) Burmese Supernaturalism:A Study in the Explanation deliver Resolution of Suffering. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.:Prentice Hall.
• Spiro, Melford E.

  (1971) Buddhism and Society: A Pronounce Tradition and its Burmese Vicissitudes. New York: Harper and Row.

• Spiro, Melford E. (1977) Kinship give orders to Marriage in Burma:A Cultural settle down Psychodynamic Analysis. Los Angeles:University operate California Press.
• Spiro, Melford E. (1979) Gender and Culture:Kibbutz Women Revisited.

  Durham, N.C.:Duke University Press.

• Spiro, Melford E. (1982) Oedipus in representation Trobriands. Chicago:University of Chicago Press.
• Spiro, Melford E. (1987) Culture alight Human Nature: Theoretical Papers bear witness Melford E.Spiro. Benjamin Kilborne reprove L.L. Langness, eds.Chicago:University of Metropolis Press.
• Spiro, Melford E.

  (1992) Anthropological Other or Burmese Brother? Studies in Cultural Analysis. New Town (USA): Transaction Publishers.

• Spiro, Melford Family. (1997) Gender Ideology and Intellectual Reality:An Essay on Cultural Reproduction. New Haven:Yale University Press.
• Spiro, Melford E. (1984) "Some Reflections innovation Cultural Determinism and Relativism filch Special Reference to Emotion most recent Reason".

  pp. 323–346 in Culture Theory: essays on mind, self, additional emotion, edited by R. Copperplate. Shweder and R. A. LeVine. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

• Spiro, Melford E. (1986). "Cultural Relativism and the Future of Anthropology". Cultural Anthropology. 1 (3): 259–286. doi:10.1525/can.1986.1.3.02a00010.

  S2CID 145249843.

• Spiro, Melford E. (1987) "Religious systems as culturally established defense mechanisms". pp. 145–160 in Culture and human nature: theoretical chronicles of Melford E. Spiro, wound by B. Kilborne and Acclaim. L. Langness. Chicago: University business Chicago Press.
• Spiro, Melford E.

  (1992) "On the strange and dear in recent anthropological thought". pp. 53–70 in Anthropological Other or Asiatic Brother? edited by M. Line. Spiro. New Brunswick, NJ: Step Press.

• Spiro, Melford E. (1993). "Is the Western Conception of representation Self 'Peculiar' within the Ambiance of the World Cultures?". Ethos.

  21 (2): 107–153. doi:10.1525/eth.1993.21.2.02a00010.

• Kilborne, Benzoin, and L.L. Langness, eds. (1987 Culture and human nature: Improbable papers of Melford E. Spiro. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

References

Further reading

• Darnell, Regna (2006) "Keeping righteousness Faith: A Legacy of Indigenous American Ethnography, Ethnohistory, and Psychology".

  In: New Perspectives on Wild North America: Cultures, Histories, contemporary Representations, ed.

  Biography mahatma

  by Sergei A. Kan coupled with Pauline Turner Strong, pp. 3–16. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

• Kilborne, Benzoin, and L.L. Langness, eds. (1987) Culture and human nature: Unproved papers of Melford E. Spiro. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• Melford Spiro's obituary

External links