Thomas Gregor

Professor Emeritus

Professor Gregor is interested in psychological anthropology, gender roles and sexuality, peace and aggression, psychoanalysis and culture, anthropological ethics, and native peoples of South America and anthropological film. He is the author of Mehinaku: The Drama of Daily Life in a Brazilian Indian Village and Anxious Pleasures: The Sexual Lives of an Amazonian People. His edited books include A Natural History of Peace and The Anthropology of Peace and Nonviolence (coedited)and Gender in Amazonia and Melanesia: An Exploration of the Comparative Method (coedited). He has worked as a film maker for the BBC, Grenada Television and NET in making the television films Mehinaku, We are Mehinaku, Feathered Arrows and Dreams from the Forest. Professor Gregor recently conducted a field season among the Mehinaku focused on the system of peace that obtains in the region, culture change, and the degradation of the ecosystem due to the encroachment of Brazilian society. He is the co-author of a recent article on ethics and contemporary anthropology (American Anthropologist 2004) and he is currently completing a book on peaceful relations among tribes in Central Brazil. Professor Gregor, along with the Perls Foundation, is also assisting the Mehinaku in the production and merchandising of organic honey as part of an environmentally sustainable development project.