Hugh Gusterson is an anthropologist currently at George Mason University

George Mason University

George Mason University is a public university based in unincorporated Fairfax County, Virginia, United States, south of and adjacent to the city of Fairfax. Additional campuses are located nearby in Arlington County, Prince William County, and Loudoun County...

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His expertise is in nuclear culture, international security

International security

International security consists of the measures taken by nations and international organizations, such as the United Nations, to ensure mutual survival and safety. These measures include military action and diplomatic agreements such as treaties and conventions. International and national security...

 and the anthropology of science.

His work appeared in American Scientist

American Scientist

American Scientist is the bimonthly science and technology magazine published since 1913 by Sigma Xi. Each issue includes four to five feature articles written by scientists and engineers. These authors review research in all fields of science...

. He is a regular contributor to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nontechnical online magazine that covers global security and public policy issues, especially related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction...

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Biography

Hugh Gusterson grew up in England. He has a B.A. in history from Cambridge University, a Master's degree in anthropology from the University of Pennsylvania, and a PhD in anthropology from Stanford University. He taught at MIT

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts. MIT has five schools and one college, containing a total of 32 academic departments, with a strong emphasis on scientific and technological education and research.Founded in 1861 in...

 from 1992-2006 before moving to George Mason University. One of the founders of the anthropology of science, his early work was on the culture of nuclear weapons scientists and antinuclear activists. More recently he has written on counterinsurgency in Iraq and Afghanistan. A leading critic of attempts to recruit anthropologists for counterinsurgency work, he is one of the founders of the Network of Concerned Anthropologists

Network of Concerned Anthropologists

The Network of Concerned Anthropologists is an independent ad hoc network of anthropologists seeking to promote an ethical anthropology.The network is concerned that the "war on terror" threatens to militarize anthropology in a way that undermines the integrity of the discipline...

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He is married to Allison MacFarlane and has two children.

Works

• Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War, University of California Press, 1998, ISBN 9780520213739
• People of the Bomb: Portraits of America's Nuclear Complex, University of Minnesota Press, 2004, ISBN 9780816638604

Editor

• Why America's top pundits are wrong: anthropologists talk back, editors Catherine Lowe Besteman, Hugh Gusterson, University of California Press, 2005, ISBN 9780520243569
• The insecure American: how we got here and what we should do about it, editors Hugh Gusterson, Catherine Lowe Besteman, University of California Press, 2009, ISBN 9780520259690
• Cultures of Insecurity: States, Communities, and the Production of Danger, editors Jutta Weldes, Mark Laffey, Hugh Gusterson, and Raymond Duvall, University of Minnesota Press, 1999.
• The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual: Or, Notes on Demilitarizing Anthropology, edited by Network of Concerned Anthropologists, Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009

Chapters

• "Remembering Hiroshima at a Nuclear Weapons Laboratory", Living with the bomb: American and Japanese cultural conflicts in the Nuclear Age, editors Laura Elizabeth Hein, Mark Selden,M.E. Sharpe, 1997, ISBN 9781563249679
• "Nuclear Weapons Testing", Naked science: anthropological inquiry into boundaries, power, and knowledge, editor Laura Nader, Psychology Press, 1996, ISBN 9780415914659
• "Becoming a Weapons Scientist", Technoscientific imaginaries: conversations, profiles, and memoirs, editor George E. Marcus, University of Chicago Press, 1995, ISBN 9780226504445
• "A Pedagogy of Diminishing Returns: Scientific Involution across Three Generations of Nuclear Weapons Science", Pedagogy and the practice of science: historical and contemporary perspectives, editor David Kaiser, MIT Press, 2005, ISBN 9780262112888
• "Missing the End of the Cold War in International Security", Cultures of insecurity: states, communities, and the production of danger, editor Jutta Weldes, U of Minnesota Press, 1999, ISBN 9780816633081