Tanya Marie Luhrmann (born 1959) is an American psychological
anthropologist known for her studies of modern-day
witches,
charismatic Christians, and studies of how culture shapes psychotic, dissociative, and related experiences. She has also studied culture and morality, and the training of
psychiatrists
A psychiatrist is a physician who specializes in psychiatry, the branch of medicine devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, study, and treatment of mental disorders. Psychiatrists are physicians and evaluate patients to determine whether their sy ...
. She is Watkins University Professor in the Anthropology Department at
Stanford University. Luhrmann was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...
in 2022.
Profile
Luhrmann received her AB
summa cum laude in
Folklore
Folklore is shared by a particular group of people; it encompasses the traditions common to that culture, subculture or group. This includes oral traditions such as tales, legends, proverbs and jokes. They include material culture, ranging ...
and Mythology from
Harvard-
Radcliffe in 1981, working with
Stanley Tambiah
Stanley Jeyaraja Tambiah (16 January 1929 – 19 January 2014) was a social anthropologist and Esther and Sidney Rabb Professor ''(Emeritus)'' of Anthropology at Harvard University. He specialised in studies of Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Tamils, a ...
. She then studied
Social Anthropology at
Cambridge University
The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III of England, Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world' ...
, working with
Jack Goody and
Ernest Gellner
Ernest André Gellner FRAI (9 December 1925 – 5 November 1995) was a British- Czech philosopher and social anthropologist described by ''The Daily Telegraph'', when he died, as one of the world's most vigorous intellectuals, and by ''The ...
. In 1986 she received her PhD for work on modern-day witches in England, later published as ''Persuasions of the Witch's Craft'' (1989). In this book, she described the ways in which magic and other esoteric techniques both serve emotional needs and come to seem reasonable through the experience of practice.
Her second research project looked at the situation of contemporary
Parsis
Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...
, a
Zoroastrian
Zoroastrianism is an Iranian religion and one of the world's oldest organized faiths, based on the teachings of the Iranian-speaking prophet Zoroaster. It has a dualistic cosmology of good and evil within the framework of a monotheistic ...
community in
India
India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...
. The Parsi community enjoyed a privileged position under the
British Raj
The British Raj (; from Hindi ''rāj'': kingdom, realm, state, or empire) was the rule of the British Crown on the Indian subcontinent;
*
* it is also called Crown rule in India,
*
*
*
*
or Direct rule in India,
* Quote: "Mill, who was him ...
; although by many standards, Parsis continued to do well economically in post-colonial India, they have become politically marginal in comparison to their previous position. During Luhrmann's fieldwork in the 1990s, many Parsis speak pessimistically about the future of their community. Luhrmann's book ''The Good Parsi'' (1996) explored the contradictions inherent in the social psychology of a post-colonial elite.
Her third book explored the contradictions and tensions between two models of
psychiatry
Psychiatry is the specialty (medicine), medical specialty devoted to the diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of mental disorders. These include various maladaptations related to mood, behaviour, cognition, and perceptions. See glossary of psych ...
, the psychodynamic (
psychoanalytic
PsychoanalysisFrom Greek: + . is a set of theories and therapeutic techniques"What is psychoanalysis? Of course, one is supposed to answer that it is many things — a theory, a research method, a therapy, a body of knowledge. In what might ...
) and the biomedical, through the
ethnographic
Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...
study of the training of American psychiatry
residents during the health care transition of the early 1990s. ''Of Two Minds'' (2000) received several awards, including the
Victor Turner
Victor Witter Turner (28 May 1920 – 18 December 1983) was a British cultural anthropologist best known for his work on symbols, rituals, and rites of passage. His work, along with that of Clifford Geertz and others, is often referred to as ...
Prize for Ethnographic Writing and the Boyer Prize for Psychological Anthropology (2001).
Her fourth book, ''When God Talks Back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God'' (March 2012), examines the growing movement of
evangelical
Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
and
charismatic Christianity
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest and most widespread religion with roughly 2.38 billion followers representing one-third of the global pop ...
, and specifically how practitioners come to experience God as someone with whom they can communicate on a daily basis through prayer and visualization. It was the focus of a book review symposium in ''
Religion, Brain & Behavior''.
["Book Symposium: Tanya Luhrmann's When God Talks Back"]
'' Religion, Brain & Behavior'' (Vol. 4, No. 1), with commentary by Candace S. Alcorta, Brian Malley, Steven J. Sandage, Brad D. Strawn & Warren S. Brown, and James K. Wellman, Jr. (accessed 14 January 2016).
Other projects she is working on include a
NIMH NIMH may refer to:
*Nickel–metal hydride battery (NiMH), a type of electrical battery
*National Institute of Mental Health, an agency of the United States government
*National Institute of Medical Herbalists, a professional organisation in the Un ...
-funded study of how life on the streets (chronically or periodically
homeless) contributes to the experience and morbidity of schizophrenia.
Tanya Luhrmann was a faculty member in Anthropology at the
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego or colloquially, UCSD) is a public land-grant research university in San Diego, California. Established in 1960 near the pre-existing Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego is t ...
, from 1989 to 2000. From 2000 to 2007, she was
Max Palevsky Max Palevsky (July 24, 1924 – May 5, 2010) was an American art collector, venture capitalist, philanthropist, and computer technology pioneer. He was known as a member of the Malibu Mafia – a group of wealthy American Jewish men who donat ...
Professor in th
Department of Comparative Human Developmentat the
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...
, where she was also a director of the program in
clinical ethnography. Since Spring 2007, she has been a professor of Anthropology at
Stanford University.
She was elected a fellow of the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...
in 2003, president of the Society for Psychological Anthropology for 2008. She has received numerous awards for scholarship, including the
American Anthropological Association's President's award for 2004 and a 2007 Guggenheim award. In 2006, Luhrmann delivered the
Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture at the
University of Rochester
The University of Rochester (U of R, UR, or U of Rochester) is a private university, private research university in Rochester, New York. The university grants Undergraduate education, undergraduate and graduate degrees, including Doctorate, do ...
, considered by many to be the most important annual lecture series in the field of anthropology.
Personal
Luhrmann is the sister of the late children's book author
Anna Dewdney (author of the 'Llama Llama' series).
Select publications
* Luhrmann, Tanya M. (2022) ''How God Becomes Real: Kindling the Presence of Invisible Others''. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
* Luhrmann, Tanya M. (2012) ''When God talks back: Understanding the American Evangelical Relationship with God''. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
*Luhrmann, Tanya M. (2004) "Metakinesis: How God Becomes Intimate in Contemporary U.S. Christianity". ''American Anthropologist'' 106:3:518-528.
* Luhrmann, Tanya M. (2000) ''Of two minds: The growing disorder in American psychiatry''. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.
* Luhrmann, Tanya M. (1996) ''The Good Parsi: the postcolonial anxieties of an Indian colonial elite''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
* Luhrmann, Tanya M. (1989) ''Persuasions of the Witch’s Craft''. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Interviews
*
References
External links
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Luhrmann, Tanya
Psychological anthropologists
Anthropologists of religion
American women anthropologists
1959 births
Living people
Radcliffe College alumni
Stanford University Department of Anthropology faculty
21st-century American women
Members of the American Philosophical Society