Adam Kuper
{{Short description|South African social anthropologist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=February 2015}}
{{Use British English|date=February 2015}}
{{Infobox scientist
| name = Adam Kuper
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| birth_date = {{birth date |1941|12|29|df=y}}
| birth_place = Johannesburg, Union of South Africa
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| fields = Anthropologist
| workplaces = London School of Economics
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| education = Parktown Boys' High School
| alma_mater = University of the Witwatersrand
University of Cambridge
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| children = Simon Kuper, Jeremy Kuper, Hannah Kuper
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{{Anthropology}}
Adam Jonathan Kuper (born 29 December 1941)[http://www.ukwhoswho.com/view/article/oupww/whoswho/U23469 KUPER, Prof. Adam Jonathan], Who's Who 2014, A & C Black, 2014; online edn, Oxford University Press, 2014 is a British social anthropologist.
Background
{{BLP sources section|date=June 2013}}
Kuper was the son of Simon Meyer Kuper and Gertrude Hesselson.{{cite book|last=Niehaus |first=Isak|title=Culture Wars: Context, Models and Anthropologists' Accounts|chapter=Adam Kuper: an Anthroplogist's Account|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sDQETNMtWsMC&pg=PA170|pages=170–188|year=2010|publisher= Berghan Books|isbn= 9780857456625 |editor1=Deborah James|editor2=Evelyn Plaice|editor3=Christina Toren}} Born in Johannesburg, he attended Parktown Boys' High School and took his first degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. His doctorate, from the University of Cambridge, was based on field research in the Kalahari Desert in what is now Botswana. After graduation Kuper did further field studies in Botswana, and Jamaica, and taught at Universities in Uganda, Britain, Holland, Sweden and the United States. The sociologist Leo Kuper and anthropologist Hilda Kuper were his uncle and aunt.
He married Jessica Cohen (1944-2013) of Johannesburg in 1966 and taught from 1967 to 1970 at Makerere University in Kampala. From 1970 to 1976 he taught at University College London. From 1976 to 1985 he was professor of African anthropology at Leiden University in the Netherlands. From 1985 to 2008 he was a professor at Brunel University, where he was the first head of the Department of Human Sciences, and latterly head of the Anthropology Department. In 2000 and in 2007 he was, respectively, awarded the Rivers Memorial Medal and the Huxley Memorial Medal of the Royal Anthropological Institute.{{Cite web|url=http://www.therai.org.uk/awards/honours-prior-recipients/rivers-memorial-medal-prior-recipients/|title=Rivers Memorial Medal Prior Recipients|website=www.therai.org.uk|language=en-gb|access-date=2017-11-14}}{{Cite web|url=http://www.therai.org.uk/awards/honours-prior-recipients/huxley-memorial-medal-and-lecture-prior-recipients/|title=Huxley Memorial Medal and Lecture Prior Recipients|website=www.therai.org.uk|language=en-gb|access-date=2017-11-14}} Kuper was the first president of the European Association of Social Anthropology. He was a visiting professor at Boston University, 2011–14, and a Centennial Professor, London School of Economics, from 2013-14 where he still holds a visiting appointment.{{Cite web|url=http://www.bu.edu/anthrop/people/faculty/a-kuper/|title=Adam Kuper » Anthropology » Boston University|website=www.bu.edu|access-date=2017-11-14}}{{Cite news|url=http://www.lse.ac.uk/anthropology/people/kuper.aspx|title=Professor Adam Kuper|work=London School of Economics and Political Science|access-date=2017-11-14|language=en-gb}}Personal correspondence
He has lived in Muswell Hill for over 40 years.{{cite web|url=http://www.thesouthafrican.com/business/sa-power-100-2012-adam-kuper.htm |title=SA Power 100 - 2013: Adam Kuper | the South African |accessdate=2013-06-16 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20130117173204/http://www.thesouthafrican.com/business/sa-power-100-2012-adam-kuper.htm |archivedate=17 January 2013 |df=dmy }}
Research
In the early 1970s Kuper did fieldwork in Jamaica, on attachment to the National Planning Agency in the Office of the Prime Minister. However his main ethnographic focus continued to be the societies of Southern Africa, on which he has published several books. In 1973 he published a history of British social anthropology, and since then he has continued to study and publish on the intellectual history of anthropology, including critical studies on the idea of "primitive society" and of "culture", and on the development of museums of anthropology. He was awarded a Leverhulme Major Research Grant for two years (2003-5) which allowed him to spend more time on research. The topic was cousin marriage and incest in nineteenth century England.
He has supervised many PhD students on Southern African ethnography, history of anthropology, family business, and kinship.
Retirement dispute
In January 2009 it was revealed that Brunel had reneged on an agreement to let him stay until 2010. Instead, he was forcibly retired in late 2008, just after the census date for publications submitted to the Research Assessment Exercise had passed. Kuper responded by suing the university for breach of contract.{{Cite news|url=http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=26&storycode=405176|title=Professor sues Brunel as 'promised' post is scrapped|date=2009-01-29|work=Times Higher Education (THE)|access-date=2017-11-14|language=en}} In 2011, employment laws were changed to permit phased retirements past the age of 65. This was because of changes to the 2006 Employment (Age) Regulations making mandatory retirement imposed by the employer unlawful.
Selected publications
- Wives for Cattle: Bridewealth and Marriage in Southern Africa, (Routledge, 1982)
- The Invention of primitive society: Transformations of an Illusion, (Routledge, 1988)
- The Chosen Primate: Human Nature and Cultural Diversity, (Harvard University Press, 1994)
- Anthropology and Anthropologists: The Modern British School, (Routledge, 3rd edn, 1996)
- The Social Science Encyclopaedia Adam Kuper, Jessica Kuper (eds.). (Taylor & Francis, 1996)
- Culture: The Anthropologists' Account, (Harvard University Press, 1999)
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=aoldc5fJeH8C Incest and Influence: The Private Life of Bourgeois England], (Harvard, 2009, {{isbn|978-0-674-03589-8}})
- The Museum of Other People. From Colonial Acquisitions to Cosmopolitan Exhibitions, (Profile Books, 2023, {{isbn|978-1-800810-91-4}})
References
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Category:Anthropology educators
Category:Social anthropologists
Category:South African anthropologists
Category:South African science writers
Category:Academics of Brunel University London
Category:Academic staff of Leiden University
Category:Academics of University College London
Category:People from Johannesburg
Category:University of the Witwatersrand alumni