R A Shweder

Biographic Data

ID20730
NAMER A Shweder
GIVEN NAMESR A
FAMILY NAMEShweder
SIGNATURESHWEDER R A
AFFILIATIONSUniversity of Chicago
ORCID0000-0003-0364-877X
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS73
TOTAL CITATIONS591
AUTHOR COUNT73
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR1972
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2025
H-INDEX13

  • Harms of the current global anti-FGM campaign

    Open AccessFuambai Ahmadu, Fuambai Sia Nyoko Ahmadu et al.ARTICLEJournal of Medical Ethics2025

    Traditional female genital practices, though long-standing in many cultures, have become the focus of an expansive global campaign against ‘female genital mutilation’ (FGM). In this article, we critically examine the harms produced by the anti-FGM discourse and policies, despite their grounding in human rights and health advocacy. We argue that a ubiquitous ‘standard tale’ obscures the diversity of practices, meanings and experiences among those …

  • Is multiculturalism as American as apple pie? A survey of attitudes toward ethnic and religious diversity in the United States

    Open AccessSéamus A Power, Crystal Shackleford et al.ARTICLEEthos2025Cited by: 2References: 17

    What percentage of American citizens believe that the real America is a White Christian America? How many would prefer to live in a more homogeneous or singular country, one occupied primarily by members of their own ethnic, racial, or religious group? In the face of contemporary changes in the composition of the population, to what extent have the White Christian citizens of the United States become fearful of demographic replacement? Alternativ…

  • The illusions of “magical thinking”: Whose chimera, ours or theirs

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEHau Journal of Ethnographic Theory2022

  • Permitting gender equality in Abrahamic circumcision: The central argument – in retrospect and reply

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEGlobal Discourse2022Cited by: 1References: 13

    To the extent that the Dawoodi Bohra custom of circumcising girls as well as boys (1) has broad support among Dawoodi Bohra women, (2) is motivated by a gender-equal interpretation of the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 17 of the Hebrew Bible) traceable to the views and sayings of the Prophet Mohammed, (3) is less physically invasive than a legal male circumcision as practised by Jews and Muslims, and (4) there is scant evidence of serious harms asso…

  • The prosecution of Dawoodi Bohra women: Some reasonable doubts

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEGlobal Discourse2021Cited by: 7References: 5

    Muslim women of the Dawoodi Bohra community have recently been prosecuted because they customarily adhere to a religiously based gender-inclusive version of the Jewish Abrahamic circumcision tradition. In Dawoodi Bohra families it is not only boys but also girls who are circumcised. And it is mothers who typically control and arrange for the circumcision of their daughters. By most accounts the circumcision procedure for girls amounts to a nick, …

  • The Goose and the Gander: The Genital Wars

    R A ShwederARTICLEHawwa2017References: 1

    Should there be gender equity in genital cutting? In Germany (and much of Europe), the native inhabitants tend to argue there is moral equivalence between customary male circumcision and customary female circumcision and both should be proscribed. In Sierra Leone (and several other countries in Africa), the native inhabitants tend to argue there is moral equivalence between customary male circumcision and customary female circumcision and both sh…

  • SPA Lifetime Achievement Awardee: Richard Shweder

    Open AccessR A Shweder, Richard ShwederARTICLEAnthropology News2017

  • The End of the Modern Academy: At the University of Chicago, for Example

    R A ShwederARTICLESocial research2017

    The End of the Modern Academy:At the University of Chicago, for Example Richard A. Shweder (bio) PREAMBLE The title of this essay is meant to suggest a particular understanding of the mission or end of the modern academy as exemplified by certain ideals associated in the minds of many academics around the world with the University of Chicago. The title is also meant to signal and raise concerns about contemporary threats to that mission, even at …

  • Channeling the super-natural aspects of the ethical life

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEHau Journal of Ethnographic Theory2016References: 8

    Comment on Keane, Webb. 2016. Ethical life: Its natural and social histories. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press

  • Anthropology and the study of contradictions

    Open AccessDavid C Berliner, David Berliner et al.ARTICLEHau Journal of Ethnographic Theory2016Cited by: 46References: 36

    Contradictions constitute one fundamental aspect of human life. Humans are steeped in contradictory thoughts, feelings, and attitudes. In this debate, five anthropologists adopt an individual-centered and phenomenological perspective on contradictions. How can one live with them? How to describe them from an anthropological point of view? Should we rethink our dear notion of the "social agent" through that of contradiction

  • Cultural Psychology

    Open AccessR A ShwederCHAPTERInternational Encyclopedia of the…2015

  • Culture: Contemporary Views

    Open AccessR A Shweder, Les BeldoCHAPTERInternational Encyclopedia of the…2015

  • Anthropology and the non-natural properties of human nature: Relax and enjoy them

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLESocial Anthropology2015

  • Old questions for the new anthropology of morality: A commentary

    Open AccessR A Shweder, Usha MenonARTICLEAnthropological Theory2014Cited by: 7References: 29

    The return of anthropological interest to the descriptive study of the moral foundations of social life is a very welcome development. Nevertheless, if there is going to be a new anthropology of morality, it must have something new to say about some very old questions. The first is the analytic question: what counts as a morality? The second and third are descriptive questions: is some idea of an objective moral charter a feature of human social …

  • Understanding souls: A commentary on Anna Wierzbicka's natural semantic metalanguage

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEThe Australian Journal of…2013

  • The goose and the gander: The genital wars

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEGlobal Discourse2013Cited by: 12References: 4

    Should there be gender equity in genital cutting? In Germany (and much of Europe), the native inhabitants tend to argue there is moral equivalence between customary male circumcision and customary female circumcision and both should be proscribed. In Sierra Leone (and several other countries in Africa), the native inhabitants tend to argue there is moral equivalence between customary male circumcision and customary female circumcision and both sh…

  • Cultural Psychology: Essays on Comparative Human Development

    Gilbert H Herdt, R A Shweder et al.BOOKCultural Psychology2012

  • Contents, Vol. 34, 1991

    Open AccessR A Shweder, Sheldon H White et al.ARTICLEHuman Development2010

  • Commentary

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEHuman Development2010

    Commentaries| January 15 2010 Commentary Subject Area: Psychiatry and Psychology , Women's and Children's Health Richard A. Shweder Richard A. Shweder University of Chicago Ill. USA Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Human Development (1991) 34 (6): 353–362. https://doi.org/10.1159/000277071 Article history Published Online: January 15 2010 Content Tools Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Vid…

  • "Intellectuals and "Humanity as a Whole

    R A ShwederARTICLECommon Knowledge2010

    In the aftermath of the events of September 11, 2001, Stanley Katz (who now chairs the editorial board of this journal) invited the intellectual community to reflect on its own history of involvement in public affairs and to make good on its mistakes. This essay examines a single case of intellectuals involving themselves in public affairs and some of the difficulties in saying and evaluating exactly what happened. Critical attention is given to …

  • Shouting at the Hebrews: Imperial Liberalism v Liberal Pluralism and the Practice of Male Circumcision

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLELaw Culture and the Humanities2009Cited by: 5

    The aim of this essay is to distinguish between two types of liberals: imperial liberals versus liberal pluralists. The two types I have in mind are those who assume that liberal ways of life are objectively more valuable than illiberal ways of life and should replace them (for the sake of making the world a better place), and those (such as myself) who don't make that universalizing assumption and believe instead that you can't live by liberalis…

  • Disputing the myth of the sexual dysfunction of circumcised women: An interview with Fuambai S. Ahmadu by Richard A. Shweder

    Open AccessFuambai Ahmadu, Fuambai S Ahmadu et al.ARTICLEAnthropology Today2009Cited by: 4

    Fuambai S. Ahmadu is both a professional anthropologist and an initiated member of the Bondo society of Sierra Leone. This interview with Ahmadu by Richard A. Shweder on the subject of female genital cutting serves to contextualize a submission by Carlos D. Londoño Sulkin, who describes the changes of perception he and other members of the audience experienced after a lecture by Fuambai Ahmadu on this subject at the University of Regina on 19 Mar…

  • Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations

    R A ShwederREVIEWCommon Knowledge2008

    Book Review| August 01 2008 Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations João Biehl, Byron Good, and Arthur Kleinman, eds., Subjectivity: Ethnographic Investigations (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 464 pp. Richard A. Shweder Richard A. Shweder Search for other works by this author on: This Site Google Common Knowledge (2008) 14 (3): 504–505. https://doi.org/10.1215/0961754X-2008-031 Cite Icon Cite Share Icon Share Twitter Permissio…

  • Riding the Third Wave: A Commentary on Men Doing Anthropology of Women

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEMen and Masculinities2008References: 4

  • The Cultural Psychology of Suffering: The Many Meanings of Health in Orissa, India (and Elsewhere)

    Open AccessR A ShwederARTICLEEthos2008Cited by: 10References: 9

    In this article, I honor Jerome Bruner's meaning-centered and person-centered approach to the study of cultural psychology by describing aspects of the cultural psychology of suffering in and around a Hindu temple town in Orissa, India. I also outline the "big three" explanations of illness (biomedical, interpersonal, and moral) on a worldwide scale and recount some of the many meanings associated with the wordhealth, as in the English language s…