Welcome to the world of anthropological ideas: fascinating, fun and fundamental. Who are we? Why are we the way we are? How did we get that way? Where are we going? How do we find out?
A new website that will eventually upload or link to some of the material on my old one (www.robinfoxbooks.com) and add new material.
I'm an anthropologist, poet, essayist and historian of ideas, currently University Professor of Social Theory at Rutgers University, where I founded the Department of Anthropology in 1967.
Perhaps best known professionally for my work on human and primate kinship systems, especially the incest taboo and the origins of human society. Kinship and Marriage, in all its editions and translations, is one of the most widely used anthropology texts in the world.
Known to the public for work with Lionel Tiger, especially The Imperial Animal, on the significance of evolution for an understanding of human behavior and society, I have continued to explore the implications for the human future of our knowledge of the evolutionary past, using not only science, but verse, drama, dialogue, satire, and more…
Don’t miss the Alpindians, the Verse and Art, the Radio Interviews and Reviews (under Biographical - including Chillean mine rescue, democracy in Iraq), and People (Colin Turnbull, Margaret Mead, Ashley Montagu etc) - all new.
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Perhaps best known professionally for my work on human and primate kinship systems, especially the incest taboo and the origins of human society. Kinship and Marriage, in all its editions and translations, is one of the most widely used anthropology texts in the world.
Known to the public for work with Lionel Tiger, especially The Imperial Animal, on the significance of evolution for an understanding of human behavior and society, I have continued to explore the implications for the human future of our knowledge of the evolutionary past, using not only science, but verse, drama, dialogue, satire, and more…
Don’t miss the Alpindians, the Verse and Art, the Radio Interviews and Reviews (under Biographical - including Chillean mine rescue, democracy in Iraq), and People (Colin Turnbull, Margaret Mead, Ashley Montagu etc) - all new.
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Bernard Chapais: Primeval Kinship: How Pair-Bonding Gave Birth to Human Society (Harvard, 2008) is a major reworking of the ideas on kinship and marriage of Robin Fox and Claude Levi-Strauss, in the light of modern evolutionary, especially primatological, studies.
Chapais and friend
See also: Maximillian Holland Social Bonding and Nurture Kinship: Compatibility between Cultural and Biological Approaches (LSE, 2012 - buy on Amazon) Another excellent and constructive discussion of matters in kinship and its cultural and biological components, handsomely reconciling what have been held to be incompatible positions. A welcome revival of the work of John Bowlby in the context of modern critical evolutionary theory.
Latest News!
National Academy of Sciences
April 30 2013
Robin Fox has been elected to the Academy: the highest honor the national scientific community can bestow.
National Academy of Sciences
April 30 2013
Robin Fox has been elected to the Academy: the highest honor the national scientific community can bestow.
Go to "Laws/Aphorisms" / "Laws and Generalizations" for some of his findings and conclusions over sixty years of research and ideas.
New Page
"Tribal Blogs".
Blogs from Psychology Today with expansions and updates from the book - "On Mediogamy" - and some surprises -"Sexy Santas."
In progress.
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New Books
Go to "Laws/Aphorisms" / "Laws and Generalizations" for some of his findings and conclusions over sixty years of research and ideas.
New Page
"Tribal Blogs".
Blogs from Psychology Today with expansions and updates from the book - "On Mediogamy" - and some surprises -"Sexy Santas."
In progress.
****************
New Books
Two new books are slated for publication this year or early2013, Details will follow on this site.
One is a collection of essays on the Shakespeare authorship theme titled Shakespeare's Education: Schools, Lawsuits, Theater and the Tudor Miracle, and published (in English) by Laugwitz Verlag. Now available!
(Go to "Books New and Old" select "New Book One")
The other is an anthology of essays tentatively titled: The Origins of Human Institutions: Essays on Culture and Society for Robin Fox, edited by Michael Egan, and published by the Edwin Mellen Press.There are some 22 contributors including Robert Trivers, Desmond Morris, Lionel Tiger, Sir Antony Jay, Kate Fox, Melvin Konner, Bernard Chapais, Frederick Turner and Howard Bloom.
(Go to "Books New and Old" select "New Book Two")
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"In an ideal world we would all marry second cousins."
"All primates have kin: only humans have in-laws."
One is a collection of essays on the Shakespeare authorship theme titled Shakespeare's Education: Schools, Lawsuits, Theater and the Tudor Miracle, and published (in English) by Laugwitz Verlag. Now available!
(Go to "Books New and Old" select "New Book One")
The other is an anthology of essays tentatively titled: The Origins of Human Institutions: Essays on Culture and Society for Robin Fox, edited by Michael Egan, and published by the Edwin Mellen Press.There are some 22 contributors including Robert Trivers, Desmond Morris, Lionel Tiger, Sir Antony Jay, Kate Fox, Melvin Konner, Bernard Chapais, Frederick Turner and Howard Bloom.
(Go to "Books New and Old" select "New Book Two")
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"In an ideal world we would all marry second cousins."
"All primates have kin: only humans have in-laws."
In-law (Alistair) with youngest critic (Alexander)
My latest anthropological book is The Tribal Imagination: Civilization and the Savage Mind (Harvard UP 2011.)
Studies on time, politics, religion, incest, marriage, literature, history, the perennial appeal of the tribal, and the origin and fragility of civilization. For details go to "Books New and Old " and look under "Latest Book."
"How does one follow a lifetime of writing? By writing, perhaps as though there were a lifetime ahead." Marilyn Strathern on The Tribal Imagination in Common Knowledge 19:1 2013
For earlier books click on "Old Books."
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"If it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a cultural construction of a duck."
from: Encounter with Anthropology and
The Challenge of Anthropology: (see "Aphorisms")
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The democratic roundabout
Makes sure the people never win,
For if they throw the rascals out
They put the other rascals in.
from: Participant Observer
(Click on "Memoir")
How to Copyright a Joke?
This is usually only an issue for comedic script writers I suppose. But for Christmases and birthdays I often give a present of a joke, and these jokes then get re-told and re-appear ascribed to "anonymous" or "everyone knows that one." Here is one shaggy dog story that I want to copyright.
Go to "Biographical"
The Story of Reb Greenberg
This is usually only an issue for comedic script writers I suppose. But for Christmases and birthdays I often give a present of a joke, and these jokes then get re-told and re-appear ascribed to "anonymous" or "everyone knows that one." Here is one shaggy dog story that I want to copyright.
Go to "Biographical"
The Story of Reb Greenberg