Paul Bohannan | |
---|---|
Born | 5 March 1920 Lincoln, Nebraska |
Died | 13 July 2007 Visalia, California |
Residence |
United States United Kingdom |
Nationality | United States |
Fields | Cultural anthropology |
Institutions |
Oxford University Princeton University Northwestern University University of California, Santa Barbara University of Southern California Nigeria |
Alma mater |
University of Arizona Queen's College, Oxford |
Known for | Ethnography of the Tiv Spheres of exchange Divorce in the United States |
Notable awards |
Legion of Merit (1944) Herskovitz Prize (1969) |
Paul James Bohannan (5 March 1920 – 13 July 2007) was an American anthropologist known for his research on the Tiv people of Nigeria, spheres of exchange and divorce in the United States.
Bohannan was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, to Hillory Bohannan and Hazel Truex Bohannan. During the dust bowl his family moved to Benson, Arizona. World War II interrupted his college education, and he served in the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps from 1941 to 1945 reaching the rank of captain. In 1947 he graduated Phi Beta Kappa with his bachelor's degree in German from the University of Arizona. He attended Queen's College, Oxford, thereafter as a Rhodes scholar, receiving a Bachelor of Science in 1949 and his doctor of philosophy degree in 1951, both in anthropology.
Bohannan remained in England and was a lecturer in social anthropology at Oxford University until 1956 when he returned to the States taking up an assistant professorship in anthropology at Princeton University. In 1959, Bohannan left Princeton for a full professorship at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. From 1975 to 1982 he taught at the University of California, Santa Barbara. In 1982 he became dean of the social science and communications department at the University of Southern California (U.S.C.). He retired from full-time teaching in 1987, but remained at U.S.C. as professor emeritus until his death.