Roy Wagner is a cultural anthropologist who specializes in symbolic anthropology

Symbolic anthropology

Symbolic anthropology is the study of cultural symbols and how those symbols can be interpreted to better understand a particular society. It is often viewed in contrast to cultural materialism. According to symbolic anthropologists, the scientific method does not concern human behavior nor...

. He received a B.A. in Medieval History from Harvard University (1961), and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from the University of Chicago (1966), where he studied under David M. Schneider

David M. Schneider

David Murray Schneider was an American cultural anthropologist, best known for his studies of kinship and as a major proponent of the symbolic anthropology approach to cultural anthropology. He received his B.S. in 1940 and his M.S. from Cornell University in 1941...

. He conducted fieldwork among the Daribi of Karimui, in the Simbu Province

Simbu Province

Simbu, also known as Chimbu, is a Highlands Region province in Papua New Guinea. The province has an area of 6,100 km² and a population of 259,703 . The capital of the province is Kundiawa...

 of Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea

Papua New Guinea , officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea, is a country in Oceania, occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea and numerous offshore islands...

, as well as the Usen Barok of New Ireland. Wagner taught at Southern Illinois University

Southern Illinois University

Southern Illinois University is a state university system based in Carbondale, Illinois, in the Southern Illinois region of the state, with multiple campuses...

 and Northwestern University

Northwestern University

Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....

 before accepting the chairmanship of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Virginia

University of Virginia

The University of Virginia is a public research university located in Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, founded by Thomas Jefferson...

, where he currently teaches. He resides in Charlottesville, Virginia.

Wagner has been probably one of the world's most influential anthropologists.
Wagner is known for his eccentric teaching style. Many students love him. His book The Invention of Culture (1975; 1981) is considered a classic of ethnography and theory, and has been translated into Japanese, Portuguese and Italian. His work contains a very peculiar form of Hegelian-inspired anthropology. His concepts of symbolic obviation, figure-ground reversal, analogic kinship, holography and fractality of personhood have been critical in the development of anthropological theory in the last decades. Anthropologists influenced by Wagner include Marilyn Strathern

Marilyn Strathern

Dame Ann Marilyn Strathern, DBE, FBA is a British anthropologist who was Mistress of Girton College, Cambridge from 1998 until her retirement in 2009...

, Jadran Mimica, James Weiner, and Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

Eduardo Viveiros de Castro

Eduardo Batalha Viveiros de Castro is a Brazilian anthropologist and a professor at the National Museum of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro....

.

Major publications

• 2010 - Coyote Anthropology. University of Nebraska Press.
• 2001 - An Anthropology of the Subject. University of California Press.
• 1986 - Asiwinarong: Ethos, Image, and Social Power among the Usen Barok of New Ireland. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
• 1986 - Symbols That Stand for Themselves. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• 1981 - The Invention of Culture. University of Chicago Press.
• 1978 - Lethal Speech: Daribi Myth as Symbolic Obviation. Symbol, Myth and Ritual Series. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
• 1972 - Habu: The Innovation of Meaning in Daribi Religion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
• 1967 - The Curse of Souw: Principles of Daribi Clan Definition and Alliance in New Guinea. Chicago: University of Chicago Press
  University of Chicago Press
  The University of Chicago Press is the largest university press in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including The Chicago Manual of Style, dozens of academic journals, including Critical Inquiry, and a wide array of...
  
  .

Articles and book chapters

• 1977 - “Scientific and Indigenous Papuan Conceptualizations of the Innate”, in Bayliss-Smith, Timothy e Feachem, Richard (ed.), Subsistence and Survival (New York: Academic Press)

Works on Wagner

• "Reinventing the Invention of Culture" in Social Analysis. The International Journal of Cultural and Social Practice. Vol. 46, No. 1, Spring 2002. Edited by David Murray and Joel Robbins
• "The Double-Bind in the Obviation: The Sufficiency of Daribi Women and Bateson's 'Schizophrenic Mother'" by Elizabeth Stassinos given as an AAA paper at the George W. Stocking Jr. Symposium December 2nd, 2009 Organized by Andrew and Harriet Lyons, Discussants Herb Lewis and Kathy Fine. (Originally titled: "Obviating Roy Wagner: The Pidik of Science Fiction")
• John M. Ingham Simplicity and complexity in anthropology. On the Horizon 2007 Volume: 15 Issue: 1 Page: 7 - 14
• "Roy Wagner: Symbolic Anthropology and the fate of the New Melanesian Ethnography." Session organizers: Sandra Bamford, Joel Robbins, Justin Shaffner and James Weiner. Conference for the European Society for Oceanists (Verona, 2008).

External links

• Personal page at the University of Virginia
• An Anthropology of the Subject
• Roy Wagner interviewed by Alan Macfarlane 9th June 2008 (film)