Lauriston Sharp
| Lauriston Sharp | |
|---|---|
| Born | March 24, 1907 Madison, Wisconsin |
| Died | December 31, 1993 Ithaca, New York |
| Citizenship |
 United States |
| Nationality |
United States |
| Fields | Anthropology of Aboriginal Australia (ie Yir Yoront) Anthropology of South-East Asia (especially Bang Chan, Thailand) |
| Institutions |
Cornell University State Department, Division for Southeast Asian Affairs |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Notable students | G. William Skinner |
| Known for | Applied Anthropology Founded Cornell University's South-East Asia Program Founding member of the Society for Applied Anthropology |
| Notable awards |
Bronislaw Malinowski Award Guggenheim Fellowship Fulbright Fellowship National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship |
Lauriston Sharp (March 24, 1907 – December 31, 1993) was a Goldwin Smith Professor of Anthropology and Asian Studies at Cornell University. He was the first person appointed in anthropology at the university, and he created its Southeast Asia Program, research centers in Asia and North and South America, a multidisciplinary faculty and strong language program. He was a founding member of the Society for Applied Anthropology and a founding trustee of the Asia Society.
Sharp was born in 1907 in Madison, Wisconsin, where he grew up. His father was a professor of philosophy at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Sharp attended this same institution, studying for a Bachelor of Arts (BA). While majoring in philosophy, Sharp went with friends Clyde Kluckhohn and John J. Hanks on summer treks to archaeological sites on the Kaiparowitz Plateau in Arizona and Utah. These expeditions sparked his interest in the concrete, culturally informed anthropologist's perspective on human nature, in contrast to the more abstract, universalizing view of a philosopher.
After graduating with his BA in 1929, Sharp identified anthropology and Southeast Asian studies as his career focus. He encountered Berber culture while on an expedition to Algeria in 1930 with the Beloit-Logan Museum. Sharp moved to Austria to study Southeast Asian Ethnology under Robert Heine-Geldern, receiving the Certificate in Anthropology from the University of Vienna in 1931. He enrolled in the PhD program at Harvard University in 1932 and completed his thesis in 1937, after two years of fieldwork studying Australian Aborigines.
...
Wikipedia