Curriculum Vitaemay 2001Robert James Thornton
Curriculum VitaeMay 2001Robert James Thornton
Professor Robert James Thornton, Ph.D.
May 2001
Department of Anthropology
University of the Witwatersrand
Private Bag 3, Wits 2050
Johannesburg, South Africa
Telephone—(+27) (0) 11 717 4410; fax: (0)11 717 4419
Email—
EMPLOYMENT
January 1999-June 2001 - Head of Department of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand.
April, 1996 - present: Assoc. Prof., Department of Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand.
February, 1992-March, 1996: Assoc. Professor and Head of the Department of Social Anthropology, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa.
July,1991-Dec., 1992: consultant in academic software applications and southern African society, business and culture (as ‘Thornton Consulting’).
Jan.,1991-May,1991: Raoull Wallenberg Associate Professor of Human Rights, Department of History, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.
Sept.,1990-May,1991: Senior Fellow, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey, 08903, USA.
Sept.,1989-July,1990: Catherine T. and John D. MacArthur Fellow, (1989/90), School of Social Science, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ 08540, USA
January1987-Sept.,1990: Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Cape Town.
January1983-December1986: Senior Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Cape Town.
January1979-December1982: Lecturer, Department of Anthropology, University of Cape Town.
October1977-June1978: Course Development Assistant, Committee on African Studies, The University of Chicago. Half time.
October1977-June1978: Lecturer, Divisional Masters Program in the Social Sciences, the University of Chicago. Half time.
April1969-December1971: Instructor in geography and science, Rubaga Girls' Secondary School, Kampala, Uganda.
EDUCATION
Graduate
1972-1978 Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, USA. MA and PhD.
University
1971-1972 Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA. BA with Distinction.
1969-1970 Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda
1967-1969 Stanford University, Stanford, California, USA.
Secondary:
1965-1967 Grinnell Sr. High School, Grinnell, Iowa, USA.
1963-1964 St. Xavier's Sr. Secondary School, Delhi, India
ACADEMIC DEGREES AND THESES:
Ph.D.` The University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology. June 1978. Ph.D. Dissertation: "The Iraqw of Northern Tanzania: The Spatial Order of Culture and Society." 306 pp. [
MA The University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology. March 1974. MA. Thesis: "The Kibuga, Capital of Buganda: Spatial Symbolism in an African State." 90 pp.
BA (Cum Laude, Honors in Anthropology by thesis), Stanford University, June 1972. BA Thesis: "The Structure, Function and Historical Development of the Pastoral-Agricultural Economies of East Africa." 124 pp.
PUBLICATIONS
BOOKS
1993 THE EARLY WRITINGS OF BRONISLAW MALINOWSKI (With Peter Skalnik, Co-editor). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.
1980 SPACE, TIME AND CULTURE AMONG THE IRAQW OF TANZANIA. New York: Academic Press. xv + 266 pp., maps, illust., bibliography.
ARTICLES and REVIEW ESSAYS IN REFEREED JOURNALS
2002. "The Peculiar Temporality of Violence: A Source of Perplexity about Social Power". Kronoscope: Journal for the Study of Time, 2(1): 41-69. Also:
2000 “Ethnicity and the Geometry of Power: the aesthetics of ethnicity in the imagination of the polity.’ Critical Arts (Durban) 14(1): 16-43.
1999 ‘What is ‘Civil’ about ‘Civil Society’ in Africa?’ PreTexts: Literary and Cultural Studies 8(1): 93-112.
1998 'Culture-based management solves the street hawker problem at Village Walk, Sandton [Johannesburg, South Africa]'. Planning: rchitectural and planning review for Southern Africa 159 (September): 6-9.
1998 ‘Toward a Theory of Persons and things”, African Anthropology/Anthropologie Africaine (Publication of the Pan African Anthropology Association, Doualla, Cameroon) 4(1): 36-51, March.
1997 ‘Taphonomies of Topography: from the death of ‘place’ to its hyphenated apotheosis’. REVIEW ESSAY of Marc Augé’s Non-places. (1995), D. Pellow, editor, Setting Boundaries: The Anthropology of Spatial and Social Organization, Robert Rotenberg’s Landscape and Power in Vienna (1995) and R. Rutheiser, Imagineering Atlanta. American Anthropologist 99(3): 14-16.
1994South Africa: Countries, Boundaries, Enemies and Friends.’ Anthropology Today vol. 10(6):7-15.
1993"Chains of Reciprocity: The impact of Nietzsche's Genealogy on Malinowski's Crime and Custom in Savage Society” The Polish Sociological Bulletin (Warsaw) 1992(1).
1991"The End of the Future" [Guest Editorial]. Anthropology Today 7(1): 1-2
1990"The Shooting at Uitenhage, South Africa, 1985." American Ethnologist 17(2): 217-236.
1989"Community: Concept and Practice in South Africa" (with Mamphela Ramphele) Critique of Anthropology9(1): 75-87.
1988"If Libraries Could Read Themselves" (review article). Anthropology Today, 4(2):20-22.
1988"The Rhetoric of Ethnographic Holism." Cultural Anthropology 3(3).
1987"The Discovery of South African Literatures: The Works of W.H.I. Bleek." Africa Seminar: Collected Papers, Vol. 3, Centre for African Studies, University of Cape Town.
1985"'Imagine yourself set down...’ Mach, Frazer, Conrad, Malinowski and the role of imagination in ethnography." Anthropology Today 1(5): 7-14.
1983"This dying out race: W. H. I. Bleek and the Bushman Literatures, 1869-1874” Social Dynamics 9(2): 1-10
1983"Narrative ethnography in Africa, 1850-1920: The creation and capture of an appropriate domain for Anthropology." Man 18(3): 502-520.
1983The elusive unity of Sir George Grey's Library." African Studies 42(1): 79-89.
1982"Modeling of spatial relations in a boundary marking ritual of the Iraqw of Tanzania." Man 17:528-545.
1980"Evolution, salvation and history: The early ethnography of southern Africa, 1860-1920. Social Dynamics 6(2): 14-23.
CHAPTERS IN BOOKS
2002Southern Africa: Sociocultural Aspects. International Encyclopaedia of the Social and Behavioural Sciences. Elsevier.
2002"Environment and Land in Bushbuckridge, South Africa", in Human Rights and the Environment, Conflicts and Norms in a Globalizing World, edited by Lyuba Zarsky. [A Project of The Earth Council, San José, Costa Rica and The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development, Berkeley, California, USA.] London: Earthscan.
2002‘Chiefs: Power in a Political Wilderness.’ Grassroots Governance: Chiefs in Africa and the Afro-Caribbean, edited by Donald Ray. IASIA (International Association of Schools and Institutes of Administration). University of Calgary Press. ISBN: 1-552380807.
2000The ‘Landspace’, Land and Landscapes in Contemporary South Africa.’ In Sociocultural Anthropology at the Turn of the Century: Voices from the Periphery, edited by Peter Skalník (Prague Studies in Sociocultural Antrhopology No. 1) Prague, Czech Republic: Set Out Press.
2000‘Finding Culture’. Senses of Culture: South African Culture Studies, edited by Sarah Nuttall and Cheryl-Anne Michaels. Cape Town and Oxford: Oxford University Press.
1997‘[South African] Society and its Environment’ (with Rita Byrnes, editor). in South Africa: A Country Study, edited by Rita M. Bynes. Series: Library of Congress Country Studies. Washington, DC: The Library of Congress. (65 pages. ISBN 0-844-0796-8; $32).
1996The Potential of Boundaries: Steps towards a theory of the social edge,’ in Postcolonial Identities in Africa, edited by Richard P. Werbner. London: Zed Press.
1996Malinowski and the birth of Functionalism. In Dimension of Time and Life: The Study of Time VIII. Edited by J. T. Fraser and Marlene Soulsby. Madison, Connecticut, USA: International Universities Press.
1995The Colonial, the Imperial, and the creation of ‘The European’ in southern Africa. Occidentalism: Images of the West. Edited by James Carrier. Oxford, UK: The Clarendon Press.
1993Die Rhetorik des ethnographischen Holismus. In Kultur, soziale Praxis, Text: die Krise der ethnographischen Repräsentation. Edited by Eberhard Berg and Martin Fuchs. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp-Tassenbuch Verlag.
1992Reprint of "The Rhetoric of Ethnographic Holism" in the Anthology Rereading Cultural Anthropology, edited by George Marcus. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press.
1990"On Accounts of Violence: The Human Process." Society Under Stress: The Influence of Violence on Children. Edited by Susan Collin. The Center for Intergroup Studies and the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Cape Town, South Africa.
1990"Recent trends in theory of culture." In Knowledge and Method in the Human Sciences, edited by J. Mouton and Dion Joubert. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.
1990"The Shooting at Uitenhage, 1985: The context and interpretation of violence” In Political Violence and the Struggle in South Africa, edited by André Du Toit and Chabani Manganyi. London: Macmillan and New York: St. Martin's Press. (Identical to article in American Ethnologist 17(2), 1990,
1989"Time Scales and Social Thought." In Time and Mind: The Study of Time, VI. Edited by J. T. Fraser. Madison, CT, USA: International Universities Press.
1988"The Quest for Community." co-author with Mamphela Ramphele. In South African Keywords: The Uses and Abuses of Political Concepts, pp. 17-28.. Edited by Emile Boonzaier and John Sharp, Cape Town: David Philip.
1988"Culture: A Contemporary Definition." In South African Keywords: The Uses and Abuses of Political Concepts, pp. 18-29.Edited by Emile Boonzaier and John Sharp, Cape Town: David Philip.
CONSULTING REPORTS (unpublished private-circulation reports from contract research work)
2002. HIV/AIDS, Tradtional Healers and the Biomedical Health System in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces, South Africa. Summary Report. Commissioned by The Margaret Sanger Centre International South Africa, under the ‘Expanded Traditional Healers Project’, by Medical Care Development International. (December). 31 pages.
2002. HIV/AIDS, Tradtional Healers and the Biomedical Health System in Gauteng, Mpumalanga, and KwaZulu-Natal Provinces, South Africa. Field Research Report (Oct 16, 2002). Commissioned by The Margaret Sanger Centre International South Africa, under the ‘Expanded Traditional Healers Project’, by Medical Care Development International. 50 pages.
2001. Report on the Land Claim over parts of the Kruger National Park made by the Makuva People, Northern Province, South Africa; for Legal Resources Centre, Pretoria, representing the claimants.
1999. Social Impact Assessment for a Lodge at Tondooni, Pemba, Zanzibar’. Report for Arup Environmental, a division of Arup International Consulting Engineers. Johannesburg, September 1999.
1998. ‘Environment and Land in Bushbuckridge, South Africa’. Report for the The Earth Council ( (San José, Costa Rica) and The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Developmen t (1831 Second Street, Berkeley, CA 94710-1902 USA). To be published in A Human Right/Environmental Ombudsperson: Case Study Lessons and Design Recommendations edited by Lyuba Zarsky The Nautilus Institute for Security and Sustainable Development.
1998. ‘Central Asian and Caspian Area Research on Culture and Communication Technologies’ Confidential Report submitted to Consumer Business Office, Motorola Incorporated, Schaumburg, USA.
1998. ‘Motorola Corporate Culture and the South African Market: An Ethnographic Study’. Confidential Report submitted to Motorola South Africa, Johannesburg, 25 May 1998.
1998. ‘Street Traders associated with the Village Walk Shopping Centre’. Report to Village Walk Shopping Centre Management, Rivonia Blvd., Sandton, South Africa. .
REVIEWS AND OTHER PUBLICATIONS
1998 ‘Info-Age Values: Computers and human capital’. Financial Mail (July 24 1998), p. 11.
1995 ‘Letter from Braamfontein’ [on educational transformation at Wits University]. Southern African Review of Books 37, pp. 13-14 (May/June, 1995).
1995 ‘A Critique of the Wits Mission Statement.’ Wits Reporter 13(1) February 1995.
1995 ‘In FFACT, the end of academic freedom.’ Wits Reporter 13(6):6, April 24, 1995.
1995 ‘Great hopes for battling Wits. Sunday Times (Johannesburg) 1/1/95.
1994Review of THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF WAR, edited by Jonathan Haas (New York: Cambridge University Press). American Ethnologist 21(2): 426-427.
1992Comment on "Tensions within Culture" by Jean-Loup Amselle, Social Dynamics 18(1):42-65 (inclusive pagination; my comment appears on pages 60-64).
1991[republication of review] WAITING, THE WHITES OF SOUTH AFRICA (by Vincent Crapanzano). Co-author with E. Boonzaier, M. West, P. Skalnik. In Truth be in the Field: Social Science Research in Southern Africa, Edited by Pierre Hugo. Pretoria: Human Sciences Research Council.
1990"Rethinking US Sanctions on South Africa." Letter to The New York Times, Saturday, March 31, 1990, p.24.
1990Comment on Paul Roth's, "Ethnography without Tears" (Current Anthropology. 30(5): 555-570, December, 1989), Current Anthropology31(1): 56-57, February.
1989South Africa and India [reply to 'South Africa and India' by D Gellner in Anthrop today 1988 (4:6) 24 (comments on 'Noah's second son. A Lady Day sermon at King's College, Cambridge' by Sir Edmund Leach in Anthrop today 1988 (4:4) 2-5)]Anthropology Today. pp 23-5
1986Review of WAITING, THE WHITES OF SOUTH AFRICA (by Vincent Crapanzano). Co-author with E. Boonzaier, M. West, P. Skalnik. Social Dynamics 12(1).
1983Review of GUARDIANS OF THE LAND: TERRITORIAL CULTS IN CENTRAL AFRICA (Edited by Martin Schofeleers). African Studies 42(1): 96-97.
1981Review of RUBBISH THEORY: THE CREATION AND DESTRUCTION OF VALUE (by Michael Thompson), Social Dynamics 8(1).
1980"Texts of Iraqw oral literature", submission to the Archives of Traditional Music, University of Indiana, Bloomington, Indiana, USA (Tape-recorded field collection with notes, discussion and transcripts in Iraqw and English.)
1980CA Comment on G. Mounin "The Semiology of Orientation in Urban Space," Current Anthropology21(4): 499-500.
1979Review of CULTURE AND PRACTICAL REASON (by Marshall Sahlins) and DOMESTICATION OF THE SAVAGE MIND (by Jack Goody) Social Dynamics 5(1): 84-90.
1979Review of RESEARCH METHODS IN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY (by Allen Johnson). Social Dynamics 5(1): 95.
1977"A Note on the frontier among the Iraqw of Northern Tanzania." Comparative Frontier Studies Newsletter, No. 6 (Spring).
1974Review of INEQUALITY (by L.A. Fallers). The Chicago Literary Review (Review supplement to the Chicago Maroon, University of Chicago).
BOOKS IN MANUSCRIPT
AFTER APARTHEID, AFTER THE MODERN: Culture and Power in South Africa at the end of the Century. This book explores the cultural bases of power and politics in post-Apartheid South Africa. I expect the manuscript will be finished by the end of 1996 or early 1997.
THE FOUNDATIONS OF SOUTH AFRICAN SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY. Edited with an introduction by R. Thornton. [Edited, indexed and introduced reprints of articles from the journal Bantu Studies/African Studies from 1923-1960s]. Commissioned by Wits University Press, but not published due to financial difficulties in the Press.
SOUTH AFRICA'S FIRST ANTHROPOLOGIST, WILHELM HEINRICH IMMANUEL BLEEK. Approximately 150 pages. An edited and introduced volume of W. H. I. Bleek’s (b.1827, d.1874) unpublished or inaccessible writings on Bushman, Bantu, and Khoi linguistics and literature, language classification, mythology, religion and ethnology.
CAPTURE BY DESCRIPTION:A CRITICAL AND HISTORICAL STUDY OF ETHNOGRAPHY IN SOUTHERN AFRICA, 1850-1900. Approximately 200 pages. [An historical study of nineteenth century ethnology and linguistics in southern Africa. The study examines the moral, political and intellectual motives and results of writing in Africa about African people, language and culture. The response of the European scientific, ecclesiastical and lay readership is considered together with the situation of the writers in southern Africa.] Currently in active revision.
EVENTUALITIES: TIME AND THE SHAPE OF VIOLENCE. Essays; approximately 350 pages. This volume treats violence not as a social "instrument" but rather as an anomalous event in the presence of which causal and structural accounts often fail. I argue, rather, that it is the interpretation and representation of violent events, after they happen, that is politically and culturally relevant. Currently in revision. No publisher.
Other seminar and conference papers (unpublished)
'Flows of 'sexual substance' and representation of the body in South Africa'. Seminar Series ‘ON THE SUBJECT OF SEX’, WISER and the Graduate School for the Humanities & Social Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand. 11 March 2003. Paper available at:
MEMBERSHIP IN PROFESSIONAL SOCIETIES AND ORGANIZATIONS
American Anthropological Association (USA).
American Ethnological Society (autonomous sub-section of AAA, USA).
Association for Anthropology in Southern Africa (South Africa). Member of the Executive Board.
International Society for the Study of Time. Fellow (by election); Membership Secretary.
Pan African Association of Anthropologists. Founder Member.
Royal Anthropological Institute (UK).
Society for Cultural Anthropology (autonomous sub-section of AAA, USA).
South African Archaeological Society.
South African Institute of Race Relations.
LANGUAGES
AFRIKAANS -- moderate speaking and reading comprehension.
FRENCH -- reading, writing, speaking.
IRAQW -- unwritten field language, speaking competence during fieldwork (1974-76).
SWAHILI -- conversational fluency, reading, writing.
ZULU--some comprehension and speaking ability.
EDITORIAL
Natal Museum Journal of Humanities. Member of the editorial board, Natal Museum, Pietermaritzburg, Natal.
African Studies (Wits University Press, Johannesburg) Member of the Editorial Committee.
Anthropology Today (Royal Anthropological Institute, London) Member of the Editorial Board, 1986-1992.
Publications Series of the Center for African Studies,University of Cape Town. Editor, 1983-1986.
Social Dynamics (Center for African Studies, University of Cape Town). Guest Co-Editor of Volume 9(2), 1983.
Editor with A. B. Smith of Where are the Ju/Wasi of the Nyae Nyae, by John Marshall and Claire Ritchie. Communications of the Center for African Studies, No. 9. Center for African Studies, University of Cape Town, 1984.
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