Profile
Professor Leaf holds a BA in Philosophy from Reed College and a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from the University of Chicago.
Dr. Leaf’s fundamental interest is the relationship between thought, including decision making, and social organization. His work has been consistently aimed a developing a theory of social organization that will show the relationships between institutional pluralism, individual choice and rationality, and evolutionary adaptation.
He also teaches courses in comparative religion, law and society, development, ethics, development theory and general social theory.
At the moment, his main teaching responsibilities are for Culture, Ethics, and Administrative Responsibilitly (PA/POEC 5308), Religions (ISSS 5347), and Issues and Theories of Development (POEC 6354). He has conducted research in India, Bangladesh, Japan and Southeast Asia.
Past Work Experience
1964‑65 Honorary Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, Punjab University, Chandigarh, India.
1966‑67 Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Pomona College, Claremont, California.
1967‑75 Assistant Professor of Anthropology, UCLA
1975‑81 Associate Professor of Anthropology and Political Economy, The University of Texas at Dallas.
1981-present. Professor of Anthropology and Political Economy, The University of Texas at Dallas.
July 87‑July 89. On leave from UT Dallas. Appointed as Social Scientist, Louis Berger International Inc., to serve as Senior Social Scientist on Irrigation and Water Management and Training Project, Government of India/ United States Agency for International Development. India.
Sept-Jan 89-Consultant to Irrigation Management and Training Project, USAID/India, to analyze areas of possible organizational and procedural change to improve irrigation management in Tamilnadu State, India. Under contract to Louis Berger International, Inc.
Dec 12, 1990 - Nov 1993--Senior Socio-Economist for Government of Bangladesh/USAID Flood Response Study (FAP-14).
October 12-Nov 20, 1993. Consultant to United Nations Centre for Regional Development, Nagoya, Japan.
Awards
Best paper of the Meeting Prize, European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research, University of Vienna, 2004.
Courses
Ethics, Culture and Public Responsibility (POEC 5308)
Religions (IS 5347)
Issues and Theories of Development (POEC 6354)
Cultural Regions: South Asia (IS 3336)
PA Dissertation Workshop
Research
- Books
1972 Information and Behavior in a Sikh Village. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. (South Asian edition published by Oxford University Press, Ltd.)
1974 Frontiers of Anthropology. Senior author and editor, with B.F. Campbell, C. Cronin, G. DeVos, W.A. Longacre, M. McClaran, F.T. Plog, J.H. Prost, and R. Wagner. New York: D. Van Nostrand Company.
1979 Man, Mind, and Science: A History of Anthropology. New York: Columbia University Press. (also published in Portugese).
1984 Song of Hope: The Green Revolution in a Panjab Village. Rutgers University Press.
1998 Pragmatism and Development: the Prospect for Pluralism in the Third World. New Haven: Bergen and Garvey.
- Book Chapters
1989 "Singer, Kant, and the Semiotic Self." in G. Urban and B. Lee, eds. Semiotics, Self, and Society. Approaches to Semiotics. T. Sebeok, general editor. The Hague: Mouton. pp. 171-192.
2003 “Ethnography and Pragmatism” in Alfonso Morales, ed. Renascent Pragmatism. Aldershot: Ashgate. Pp. 92:117.
2003 “Pragmatic Legal Norms” in Alfonso Morales, ed. Renascent Pragmatism. Aldershot: Ashgate. Pp. 72:91.
2005 “Romanticism, Meaning, and Science” in Language, Culture and the Individual: A Tribute to Paul Friedrich. Catherine O’neil (University of Denver), Mary Scoggin (Humbolt University), and Kevin Tuite (U. of Montreal), eds. Munich Lincom Europa. Pp. 9-23.
- Encyclopedia articles
1983 Articles on "Franz Boas," Lucien Levy-Bruhl," "G. H. Mead," "E. E. Evans-Pritchard," "Meyer Fortes," "Talcott Parsons," "A. R. Radcliffe-Brown," A. L. Kroeber," and "W. I. Thomas." in Elizabeth Levine, Michael Held, James Vinson and George Walsh, eds., Thinkers of the 20th Century: A Biographical, Bibliographical and Critical Dictionary. London: Macmillan.
1995 "Agricultural Societies and Farming Systems." In The Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology. Human Relations Area Files, Yale University. Lakeville: American Reference Publishing Co.
2002 “The Green Revolution: South Asia” in Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. David Levinthal, ed. Berkener/Scribners Publications.
2002 “Agriculture: South Asia” in Encyclopedia of Modern Asia. David Levinthal, ed. Berkener/Scribners Publications.
2004 Agricultural Societies. IN Encyclopedia of World History. David Levinthal, general ed. Berkshire Publishing Group.
2006 “Law and Society” in Encyclopedia of Anthropology. James Birx, editor. Sage Reference.
- Academic Journals
1971 "Baking and Roasting: A Compact Demonstration of a Cultural Code," in American Anthropologist, 70:5:1046.
1971 "The Punjabi Kinship Terminology as a Semantic System," in American Anthropologist, 73:3:545-554.
1981 "The Green Revolution in a Panjab Village: 1965-1978," in Pacific Affairs Quarterly, 53:4:617-625.
1983 "The Green Revolution and Cultural Change in a Panjab Village, 1965 - 1978." Economic Development and Cultural Change. 31:2:227--270.
1997 "Local Control versus Technocracy: The Bangladesh Flood Response Study." Journal of International Affairs, Summer 1997, 51, no. 1.: 179-200.
2004 “What is “Formal” Analysis?” In Mathematical Modeling and Anthropology: Its Rationale, Past Successes and Future Directions, published as special issue of Cybernetics and Systems: An International Journal, the journal of the Austrian Society for Cybernetics and Systems Theory. Dwight Read, editor. Taylor and Francis.
2004 “The Message is the Medium: Language, Culture and Informatics” In Cybernetics and Systems, Vol. 1. (Proceedings of the 17th European Meetings of Cybernetics and Systems Research). Austrian Society for Cybernetic Studies. This paper was awarded the Best Paper of Symposium prize for its symposium and Best Paper of the Meetings Prize.
1985 "The Punjab Crisis" in Asian Survey. 25:5:475-498.
1992 "Irrigation and Authority in Rajasthan" Ethnology. April:115-132.
Reviews (latest only)
2004 “Studying Mind by Simulation” Review article on cognitive modeling and neural networks. Reviews in Anthropology. 33:317-333. Lourdes Giordano, editor. Taylor and Francis.
- Updated: July 26, 2006
