Melvin Konner

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Melvin Konner is Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Anthropology and Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at Emory University.[1] He studied at Brooklyn College , CUNY (1966), where he met Marjorie Shostak, whom he later married and with whom he had three children.[2] He earned his PhD in biological anthropology from Harvard University in 1973. He spent two years doing fieldwork among the Kalahari San or Bushmen, studying infant development and the hormonal mechanism of lactational infertility. After six years on the Harvard faculty, he returned to school and received his MD from Harvard Medical School in 1985. He then moved to Emory as department chair.

He has held grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and National Science Foundation, and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, and the Foundations Fund for Research in Psychiatry.

Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, Konner has stated that he lost his faith at age 17.[3] His views on religion, however, are complex, as he has also discussed the function of counseling by chaplains in the hospital where he worked, saying that while as a scientist he did not endorse their views, as an anthropologist he recognized the value of their services.

Konner aroused some controversy in 2006 when he wrote an article contesting the claims in former US President Jimmy Carter's book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. [4] Carter responded quoting from his December 15 press release entitled "Letter to the Jewish Citizens of America". In a lengthy follow-up letter, Konner disputed Carter's claims and called the book and its title inflammatory.

He attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief symposium on November 2006.

[edit] External Links

[edit] References

  1. ^ Melvin J. Konner, Ph.D
  2. ^ Miscellaneous Obituaries of Anthropologists
  3. ^ So Was It Odd of God? - New York Times
  4. ^ http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/stories/2006/12/21/1222edkonner.html

[edit] Selected Bibliography

  • Konner, Melvin J. (2003) Unsettled: an anthropology of the Jews. New York : Viking Compass.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (2002) The Tangled Wing: Biological Constraints on the Human Spirit, 2nd ed. (original 1982) New York: Times Books.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (1999) "Darwin's truth, Jefferson's vision: Sociobiology and the politics of human nature." American Prospect 45:30-38.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (1993) Medicine at the Crossroads: The Crisis in Healthcare. Pantheon Books.
  • Konner, Melvin J. (1987) Becoming a Doctor: A Journey of Initiation in Medical School. New York: Viking.
  • Konner, Melvin J. and C. Worthman. (1980) Nursing frequency, gonadal function and birth spacing among !Kung Hunter-Gathers. Science.
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