Dwight Read

Distinguished Professor Emeritus
Department: Anthropology
dread@anthro.ucla.edu
Website
Keywords: Mexico

Dwight W. Read received his Ph.D. at UCLA in mathematics, with a focus on abstract algebras. He is a Distinguished Professor of Anthropology, Emeritus, at UCLA and publishes in all the subdisciplines of anthropology (transition from biological to cultural evolution, theory, and method of artifact classification, the mathematical representation of cultural constructs, especially kinship terminologies). His current research focuses on the interrelationship between the material and the ideational domains in human societies. He had a Visiting Scientist affiliation with the IBM Los Angeles Research Center from 1986 to 1989, and a Visiting Professor appointment with the University of Kent (UK) in 1999. He has recently published four books: Artifact Classification: A Conceptual and Methodological Approach (2007, Left Coast Press), How Culture Makes Us Human (Series: Big Ideas in Little Books. 2012, Left Coast Press), Human Thought and Social Organization: Anthropology on a New Plane (with Murray Leaf; 2012, Lexington Books), and Introduction to the Science of Kinship (with Murray Leaf; 2021, Lexington Books). In 2022, he was given the Conrad Arensberg Award for his contributions to anthropology as a natural science by the American Anthropological Association.