David M.

Schneider David Murray Schneider (November 11, 1918, Brooklyn, New York October 30, 1995, Santa Cruz, California) was an American cultural anthropologist, best known for his studies of kinship and as a major proponent of the symbolic anthropology app roach to cultural anthropology. He received his B.S. in 1940 and his M.S. from C ornell University in 1941. He received his PhD in Social Anthropology from Harva rd in 1949, based on fieldwork on the Micronesian island of Yap. After completing his graduate work, he first taught at the University of Califor nia, Berkeley. In 1960, he accepted a position at the University of Chicago, whe re he spent most of his career, teaching in Anthropology and the Committee on Hu man Development. He was Chairman of Anthropology from 1963 to 1966.[1] While at Chicago, Schneider was director of the Kinship Project, a study support ed by the National Science Foundation that looked at how middle-class families i n the United States and Great Britain respond to their kinship relations. His fi ndings challenged the common-sense assumption that kinship in Anglo-American cul tures is primarily about recognizing biological relatedness. While a rhetoric of "blood" ties is an important conceptual structuring device in US and British ki nship systems, cultural and social considerations are more important. The discov eries he demonstrated through a series of books, most famously American Kinship: a cultural account, revolutionized and revitalized the study of kinship within anthropology, on the one hand, and contributed to the theoretical basis of femin ist anthropology, gender studies, and lesbian and gay studies, on the other. As a teacher, Schneider was also known for taking on and encouraging students st udying nontraditional topics, and as a mentor to women and lesbian or gay gradua te students, who often otherwise had difficulty finding mentors.[2] After retiring from Chicago in 1986, he joined the anthropology department at th e University of California, Santa Cruz, where he remained until his death in 199 5. Contents [hide] 1 Notable students 2 References 3 Select bibliography 4 Secondary literature Notable students[edit] James Boon Vern Carroll Raymond J. DeMallie Richard Feinberg, kinship, navigation, Polynesia Richard Handler Susan Montague, cultural anthropologist, Trobriand Islands Esther Newton, cultural anthropologist, gay and lesbian communities in U.S. Charles Nuckolls, psychocultural anthropologist Bradd Shore, psychological anthropologist Roy Wagner Gary Witherspoon. Triloki Nath Pandey, anthropology professor at UC Santa Cruz References[edit] 1. ^ Obituary: David Schneider, Anthropology 2. ^ Newton, Esther. (2000) Margaret Mead Made Me Gay: personal essays, pub lic ideas. Durham, NC: Duke University Press. p. 217 Select bibliography[edit] A Critique of the Study of Kinship American Kinship : A Cultural Account Matrilineal Kinship Personality in Nature, Society, and Culture Dialectics and Gender: Anthropological Approaches History of Public Welfare in New York State: 1867-1940 The Micronesians of Yap and Their Depopulation (1949)

1995. Schneider on Schneider: The Conversion of the Jews and Other Anthropologic al Stories by David Schneider, as told to Richard Handler. Ed. Richard Handler. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press. 1997. "The Power of Culture: Notes on Some Aspects of Gay and Lesbian Kinship in America Today." Cultural Anthropology 12 (2): 270-74. Secondary literature[edit] Bashkow, Ira. 1991. The Dynamics of Rapport in a Colonial Situation: David Schne ider's Fieldwork on the Islands of Yap. In Colonial Situations: Essays on the Co ntextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge. George Stocking, ed. pp. 170 242. Madis on: University of Wisconsin Press. Feinberg, Richard and Martin Ottenheimer, eds. The Cultural Analysis of Kinship: The Legacy of David M. Schneider. Urbana: University of Illinois Press. 2001.