Biogenetic structuralism

Charles D. Laughlin, Jr. (born 1938) is a neuroanthropologist known primarily for having co-founded a school of neuroanthropological theory called Biogenetic Structuralism. Laughlin is an emeritus professor of anthropology and religion at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada.

Following service in the American air force, Laughlin completed his undergraduate work in anthropology with a concentration in philosophy at San Francisco State University. He then did graduate work in anthropology at the University of Oregon, beginning in 1966. His doctoral dissertation was based on fieldwork conducted among a small tribe in northeast Uganda called the So (aka Tepeth, Tepes; see Laughlin and Allgeier 1979). Laughlin's choice of the So was influenced by conversations he had with Colin Turnbull, who had worked with nearby peoples. Laughlin completed his dissertation, Economics and Social Organization among the So of Northeastern Uganda, and received his Ph.D. in 1972 while he was assistant professor of anthropology at the State University of New York at Oswego. He continued his studies during a postdoctoral fellowship at the Institute of Neurological Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania (see Laughlin's autobiographical notes)

While teaching at Oswego, Laughlin pursued his interest in the neurobiological bases of human sociality, which led to his developing, in collaboration with Eugene G. d'Aquili of the University of Pennsylvania, the theory of biogenetic structuralism—a perspective that sought to merge the structuralism of Claude Lévi-Strauss with neuroscience. Laughlin and his colleagues, first at SUNY Oswego and later at Carleton University, continued to develop biogenetic structuralism and applied it to gain insight into a wide range of human social phenomena, including ritual, myth, science, consciousness, and transpersonal experience (see Laughlin 1991).

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