Professor Adam Kuper

Professor Adam Kuper

Visiting professor

Department of Anthropology

Languages
English
Key Expertise
Southern Africa

About me

 

Professor Adam Kuper (FBA) is an anthropologist and public intellectual. Most recently a Centennial Professor in this department and a Visiting Professor at Boston University, and a recipient of the Huxley Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, he has authored or edited 19 books and published over 100 journal articles focusing on anthropological theory, the history of anthropology in the US and Britain, and southern African societies and cultures. He has made numerous appearances on BBC TV and radio, and reviewed regularly for the London Review of Books, the Times Literary Supplement, and the Wall Street Journal. His new book, The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions, Profile Books, was launched in February 2023.

 

Expertise Details

South Africa; intellectual history of anthropology; kinship; Southern Africa

Selected publications

2023 The Museum of Other People: From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan ExhibitionsProfile Books.

2009   Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England, Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.  

2005  The Reinvention of Primitive Society, London: Routledge. 2004   (Edited, with Jessica Kuper) The Social Science Encyclopedia, third edition, London: Routledge. 

1999 'Culture': The Anthropologists' Account. Cambridge MA:  Harvard University Press. 

1996 Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School. Third edition,  London: Routledge.  

1994 The Chosen Primate: Human Nature and Cultural Diversity. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press