Stone, Linda 1947- (Linda S. Stone)

PERSONAL:

Born April 14, 1947. Education: Washington State University, B.A., 1969; Brown University, M.A., 1971, Ph.D., 1977.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Department of Anthropology, P.O. Box 644910, Washington State University, Pullman, WA 99164-4910. E-mail—lstone@wsu.edu.

CAREER:

Cultural anthropologist. University of California, Berkeley, International Population and Urban Research Institute, research anthropologist, 1977; Tribhuvan University, Nepal, Research Center for Nepal and Asian Studies, reader in anthropology, 1978-1980; Washington State University, Pullman, department of anthropology, assistant professor, 1981-89, associate professor, 1989-1999, full professor, beginning 1999, professor emeritus. Served as visiting professor University of Naples, 1989-1990; University of South Carolina, 1996-97; Eastern Michigan University, 1996-97;

MEMBER:

American Anthropological Association, Society for Applied Anthropology, Nepal Studies Association.

AWARDS, HONORS:

National Institute of Mental Health Training Fellowship, Brown University, 1969-1971, 1972-73; Social Science Research Council Foreign Area Fellowship, 1973-75; Fulbright Senior Scholar Fellowship, 2004.

WRITINGS:

(With J. Gabriel Campbell and Ramesh Shrestha) The Use and Misuse of Social Science Research in Nepal, Research Centre for Nepal and Asian Studies (Kirtipur, Nepal), 1979.

Illness Beliefs and Feeding the Dead in Hindu Nepal: An Ethnographic Analysis, E. Mellen (Lewiston, NY), 1988.

Kinship and Gender: An Introduction, Westview Press (Boulder, CO), 1997, 3rd edition, 2005.

(With Nancy P. McKee) Gender and Culture in America, Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 1999, 2nd edition, 2002.

(Editor) New Directions in Anthropological Kinship, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (Lanham, MD), 2001.

(Editor, with Nancy P. McKee) Readings in Gender and Culture in America, Prentice Hall (Upper Saddle River, NJ), 2002.

(Editor, with Robert Parkin) Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader, Blackwell (Malden, MA), 2004.

(With Paul F. Lurquin) A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey: The Life and Work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Columbia University Press (New York, NY), 2005.

(With Paul F. Lurquin) Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2007.

(With Paul F. Lurquin) Genes, Culture, and Human Evolution: A Synthesis, Blackwell (Malden, MA), 2007.

Contributor to various academic journals, including Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Human Organization, Social Science and Medicine, Himalayan Research Bulletin, Ethnos, and Human Ecologist.

SIDELIGHTS:

Anthropologist, writer, and educator Linda Stone earned her undergraduate degree in anthropology from Washington State University, then went on to continue her education at Brown University, earning both her master's degree and her doctorate. Now a professor emeritus, she spent most of her teaching career on the faculty of Washington State University, starting in 1981 as an assistant professor. Stone's primary areas of research and academic interest include kinship and gender, family relations, religion, genes and culture, and South Asia in particular. She lived in Nepal for five years, the last two of which she spent studying and researching at the Research Center for Nepal and Asian Studies at the Tribhuvan University, where she gained great insights into the culture and became fluent in Nepalese. In addition, she served as a visiting professor at several universities, including the University of South Carolina, Eastern Michigan University, and the University of Naples in Italy. Beyond her academic and research duties, Stone has spent considerable time writing in her field, and has contributed to a number of academic journals, such as Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Human Organization, Social Science and Medicine, Himalayan Research Bulletin, Ethnos, and Human Ecologist. She is also the author or coauthor of a number of books, including The Use and Misuse of Social Science Research in Nepal, which she wrote with J. Gabriel Campbell and Ramesh Shrestha, Kinship and Gender: An Introduction, A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey: The Life and Work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond, and Genes, Culture, and Human Evolution: A Synthesis, the last three of which she wrote with Paul F. Lurquin.

Gender and Culture in America, written with Nancy P. McKee, provides a strong historical overview of the topic of gender and culture, and as such often serves as a standard supplementary text book for many university anthropology courses on the subject. In particular, the book focuses on the ways in which genders relate within the context of different ethnic groups within the United States, taking into account cultural beliefs that often place the rights of one gender over those of the other in various situations. Later editions of the book add information on the additional difficulties that arise when incorporating individuals of different sexual orientation into the mix.

Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader, for which Stone served as the editor, with Robert Parkin, was written in order to provide readers with an overview of the concept of kinship theory and to trace its roots back to their inception in order to see how the idea developed. The book is divided into sections according to the two major comparisons being made, the first being how kinship functions as a social structure, and the second addressing kinship primarily in relation to culture. In the first section, the contributors refer to kinship at its earliest inception up until approximately 1970, and the latter section picks up at that point to trace what was considered to be a decline in kinship during the seventies and its eventual renewal. Writing for the Anthropological Quarterly, contributor Martin Ottenheimer commented of this division that "although loosely organized along histori- cal lines, the readings do not provide the reader with a full historical tracing of influential thoughts and concerns in kinship. The selection of materials is fairly restricted." Regarding the choices of the material included in the volume, Ottenheimer was fairly critical, acknowledging that it is inevitable that some material be left out, but noting that Stone and Parkin might have made some substitutions. He remarked: "While the editors have included some interesting readings by authors not as well known, the absence of the writings of important contributors to the history of kinship … seems inexcusable." Ottenheimer concluded his review by reiterating his general dissatisfaction with Stone and Parkin's approach to their subject, stating: "If you hope to find an answer in the readings or editorial comments to the question, ‘What is the future of kinship?’ you will be disappointed. This is further exacerbated by the absence in the glossary of an entry for ‘kinship.’ In the contemporary sea of rapidly changing human social relationships, we are left rudderless."

A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey is a biography of the famed biologist Luigi Cavalli, later known as L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza. Cavalli-Sforza attended medical school in Italy during World War II, one of the few students of his age not drafted into the war, as those training for a career in medicine were considered too valuable to risk to the armed forces. He owed his continued studies, in part, to chance, as he debated during enrollment whether or not to switch to the newly popular natural sciences, but ultimately decided to stick with medicine, as he had already filled out the proper forms. Following the war, Cavalli-Sforza spent time as a bacterial geneticist before moving on to population genetics. As a major part of his work, he examined the role that chance has in evolution, ultimately making his mark in the natural sciences after all. Stone and Lurquin's effort is the first biography of Cavalli-Sforza to be released. Oren S. Harman, reviewing the book for the American Scientist, praised the biography overall, but commented that "some of Cavalli-Sforza's claims and models remain contested, and a more detailed analysis of the criticisms would have been welcome in this book, which was written, perhaps to a greater extent than it should have been, under Cavalli-Sforza's guidance." Jonathan Marks, writing for the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, remarked that the work "unfortunately has little interest in situating Cavalli's work within the history of human genetics, or of genetic-based anthropology."

In Evolution and Religious Creation Myths, Stone once again teams with Paul F. Lurquin. The two scientists address the issues of evolution and the various religious theories of creation, and discuss their own points of view based on their own scientific fields, those being anthropology and genetics. The book does not set out to put down religion or faith, nor even to rule out the standard religious myths pertaining to creation. Rather, Stone and Lurquin simply maintain that religious enthusiasts should give science the same rights and place of importance that science is willing to give religion, and not protest the sharing of information from all perspectives.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Journal of Human Genetics, January, 2006, Steve Olson, review of A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey: The Life and Work of L. Luca Cavalli-Sforza, p. 171.

American Scientist, September 1, 2005, Oren S. Harman, "A Master Synthesizer," p. 457.

Anthropological Quarterly, spring, 2007, Martin Ottenheimer, review of Kinship and Family: An Anthropological Reader.

Biography, fall, 2005, Oren S. Harman, review of A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey.

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, November, 2005, J.A. Hewlett, review of A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey, p. 508; November, 2007, D.A. Rintoul, review of Evolution and Religious Creation Myths: How Scientists Respond, p. 486.

Heredity, April, 2007, "Dr. Cavalli's Wild Ride," p. 243.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, March, 2004, Warren Shapiro, review of Kinship and Gender: An Introduction, p. 187; December, 2006, Jonathan Marks, review of A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey, p. 1001.

New England Journal of Medicine, January 5, 2006, Nyamkhishig Sambuughin, review of A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey, p. 99.

Reference & Research Book News, August, 1997, review of Kinship and Gender, p. 49; May, 2001, "New Directions in Anthropological Kinship," p. 71; May, 2002, review of Gender and Culture in America, p. 119; May, 2006, review of Kinship and Gender; May, 2007, review of Gender and Culture in America.

Science Books & Films, September 1, 2005, review of A Genetic and Cultural Odyssey, p. 211.

SciTech Book News, December, 2006, "Genes, Culture, and Human Evolution"; September, 2007, review of Evolution and Religious Creation Myths.

ONLINE

Washington State University Department of Anthropology Web site,http://libarts.wsu.edu/ (February 19, 2008), faculty profile.