G. EDWARD MONTGOMERY Ph.D., Columbia University, 1972 Associate Professor Emeritus, Ethnology gemontgo[at]artsci.wustl.edu

Having retired at the end of my 36th year (2006-2007) at Washington University, I here reflect on the development of diverse academic interests in an idiosyncratic career.  I learned some cultural anthropology and sociology at Stanford (A.B., 1964), and some ethnology (and ecology, parasitology, nutrition science, physiology) in graduate studies at Columbia. My major field research was in Nevada with Washo Indians, in India in northern Tamil Nadu, and in Peru with the Machiguenga Indians. All research materials from those projects have now been archived at these institutions: Washo project at Special Collections, University of Nevada, Reno; Tamil Nadu projects at Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai (formerly Madras city), India; Machiguenga project at Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American Indian, Washington, D.C.  In my career at Washington University I explored five academic areas: human ecology; the old medical anthropology; southern Asian regional interests (especially southeastern India); food and nutritional anthropology; and, in the latter years particularly, analyses of the complexities of U.S. American cultures.  I repeatedly sought generalizations, both in my writings and in teaching, and some were "biocultural" (ecological evolutionary), others, more diffusely "cultural" (some cultural materialistic, and others, heavily descriptive human science). In 34 years of teaching, I taught 24 differently named courses, revealing my restlessness.  In my final several years of teaching  I was interested in life cycles and life stage progressions, subcultural diversification / fragmentation, postethnicity, food, nutrition, and the proliferation of alternative medicine---all within the context of U. S American culture.  Since retiring I have relocated to southern Oregon, and I continue to appreciate hearing from friends and former students.

Courses taught (1971-2005)

Undergraduate courses:  Anthropology of America.  Culture and Health.  Culture, Food, and Nutrition.  Life Cycles and Lifestyles.  Anthropology and the Modern World.  Social and Cultural Change.  Human Ecology: Cultural Aspects.  Human Ecology: Medical, Nutritional, and Demographic Aspects.  History of Anthropological Theory.  Nutritional Anthropology.  Medical Anthropology.  Medicine and Health in Modern Society [coordinator with faculty from History, Philosophy, Economics, Medicine, Sociology, Psychology, Health Administration in multidisciplinary course].  Systems Anthropology.  Anthropology of the Life Cycle.  Departmental Senior Seminar in Anthropology.  Ecological and Post-Ecological Man.  India's Society and Culture.  Culture and Cuisine.  American Culture(s).    Graduate courses:  Research Methods.  Human Ecology and Adaptation.  Seminar on South Asia.  Medical Anthropology.   Problems in Cultural Anthropology.