Professor Emeritus
Email: tmevens(@)email.unc.edu
Phone:
407 Alumni Bldg
Area of Interest:
Social Anthropology, Social Theory, Phenomenology, Ethics, Philosophical Anthropology, Collectivist Settlements
Education:
Ph.D., Manchester, 1970
Research & Activities:
Research Background: Extended field research on the social life of an Israeli kibbutz. Archaeological and anthropological field research in India. Extensive research in the literature on the Nuer of East Africa. Career-long research in phenomenology and social theory.
Present Research: Monographic study of anthropology as ethics, reason and human agency. Comparative study of conflict, sacrifice, and the self in transcendental social movements. Monographic study on the phenomenology of the Nuer. Various essays on anthropological theory.
Selected Publications:
1999 “Bourdieu and the Logic of Practice: Is All Giving Indian-Giving or is ‘Generalized Materialism’ Not Enough.” Sociological Theory, v. 37, n. 1, pp. 3-31
1997 “Phenomenology.” In The Dictionary of Anthropology, (ed.) Thomas Barfield. Blackwell Publishers, pp. 353-356.
1997 “Eve: Ethics and the Feminine Principle in the Second and Third Chapters of Genesis.” In The Ethnography of Moralities, (ed.) Signe Howell. Routledge Press, pp. 203-228.
1996 “Witchcraft and Selfcraft.” European Journal of Sociology, v.37, n.1, pp. 23-46.
1995 Two Kinds of Rationality: Kibbutz Democracy and Generational Conflict. University of Minnesota Press. 252 pp.