Polly Weissner

The Cultural Context of Conflict

Dr. Pauline Weissner, Professor of Anthropology at University of Utah

Monday, January 26, 2015,  7 p.m., Jepson Alumni Center

Dr. Weissner received her undergraduate degree from Sarah Lawrence College and her PhD. from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in 1977. She has held positions at the Research Group for Human Ethology in the Max-Planck-Society, Andechs, the Ecole des Hautes Etudes, Paris, the Collegium Budapest, Budapest, Hungary, and the University of Aarhus, Denmark. She is currently a Professor Anthropology at the University of Utah. . Between 1973 and 1977 she worked on reciprocity, exchange networks and style in artifacts among the !Kung San and since 1985 she has been doing ethnohistorical work on environment, exchange networks, warfare and cults among the Enga of Papua New Guinea.

Her books include Historical Vines: Enga Networks of Exchange, Ritual and Warfare in Papua New Guinea, From Inside the Women’s House: The lives and traditions of Enga women, and A View of Enga Culture, and her scientific papers have been published in such journals as American Antiquity, Current Anthropology, Journal of Anthropological Research, Human Nature, and Science.  Dr. Wiessner was recently elected to the National Academy of Sciences.   

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• Background:  Dr. Wiessner’s webpage, provides considerable resources for educators and students, including links to her work with the San and the Enga: http://www.anthro.utah.edu/faculty/wiessner.html.

• Online lectures: A number of Dr. Wiessner’s public presentations are available online, including:
  • Violence in Human Evolution – What’s Culture Got to Do with It?: In this presentation Dr. Wiessner discusses studies of intergroup conflict, drawing on her work with the Ju/’hoan hunter-gatherers of the Kalahari and Enga horticulturalists of Papua New Guinea.
  • Extreme Affordability: In this presentation Dr. Wiessner discusses cultural differences in views of health, and the implications for medical innovations.

• Profiles:  Dr. Wiessner’s work has been profiled in the New York Times and in Science.
  • Conversation with Pauline Wiessner: Where gifts and Stories are Crucial to Survival by Claudia Dreifus, New York Times, Science, 25 May 2009.
  • Anthropologist Brings Worlds Together: Profile Pauline Wiessner by Michael Balter,  Science Vol. 329, pp. 743-5.