Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology Paperback - 2015

David W. McCurdy has been a professor of Anthropology at Macalester since 1966, acting as chair of the department for extended periods since 1969. He was the first recipient of the American Anthropological Association/ Mayfield Award for Undergraduate Teaching (1997), and he was the subject of an article in 1977 by Change Magazine for innovative teaching in anthropology. Professor McCurdy received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1957, a Masters in Anthropology from Stanford University in 1959, and a Ph.D. in Anthropology from Cornell Univeristy in 1964.

He completed a major ethnography (1961-1963), then restudy (1985, 1991, 1994) of a Bhil tribal community in Rajasthan, India. He has also conducted a cross-cultural study of spirit possession (1966-1967). His ethnographic studies have examined corporate managers (1983), stockbrokers (1980), Jehovah witnesses (1973), as well as members of an environment movement (1968-1969). He has also performed continued ethnography (1988-1999) on a national motorcycle association.

Dianna Shandy is Professor of Anthropology at Macalester College, where she has been teaching since 1999. She earned a Ph.D. and Masters in Anthropology at Columbia University and a B.S. in Languages and Linguistics with Certificates in African Studies and Russian Area Studies at Georgetown University. Her work spans U.S. and international settings, with broad research and teaching interests in gender, migration, political conflict and violence, and research methods. Specific research projects have explored college-educated women negotiating work and family in the United States, African asylum seekers in Ireland, and the Nuer (South Sudanese) diaspora.

James Spradley was a professor of Anthropology at Macalester College from 1962 until his passing in 1982. He was a prolific author who wrote or edited 20 books in 12 years. He made especially notable contributions to the literature on ethnography and qualitative research.