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John L. Caughey

Graduate students in American Studies will find professors from a diversity of disciplines from among our substantial group of faculty affiliates.

In summer 2006, Assistant Professor Psyche Williams-Forson published her first book, Building Houses out of Chicken Legs, University of North Carolina Press

Learn more about the graduate students of American Studies

Professor
301.405.1358
jcaughey@umd.edu

John L. Caughey's research involves the ethnographic, comparative investigation of contemporary cultures as systems of meaning. He has done field research in Micronesia, South Asia, and the U.S. (including field work with Old Order Mennonites, on a psychiatric ward in Philadelphia, with psychotherapists in Washington, D.C., with South Asians in America, and with Americans in South Asia). He is particularly interested in how contemporary individuals handle multiple cultural traditions including how they simultaneously or alternatively construct senses of self out of diverse cultural models of race, gender, ethnicity, and personality. His work on individuals and their cultures also includes ethnographic investigations of the cultural dimensions of imaginary experience (such as dreams, daydreams, memory, and media use).

Degrees:

Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology (University of Pennsylvania, 1970)
M.A. Cultural Anthropology (University of Pennsylvania, 1967)
B.A. English Literature (Harvard College, 1963)

Publications:

• Cultures and Identities: A Life History Approach to the Study of American Cultures. Finished manuscript.
• "How to Teach Self-Ethnography." Tricks for Teaching Anthropology. Ed. Patricia Rice and David McCurdy. New York: Prentice Hall, 2000.
• "Personal Identity on Faanakkar." Pieces of the Personality Puzzle: Readings in Theory and Research. Ed. David C. Funder and D. Ozer. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1997. 377-382.
• "Imaginary Social Relationships." Media Journal: Reading and Writing About Popular Culture. Ed. Joseph Harris and Jay Rosen. Boston: Allyn and Bacon 1995. 121-146.
• "Gina As Steven: The Social and Cultural Dimensions of A Media Relationship." Visual Anthropology Review 10 (1994): 126-135.
• "Social Dimensions of Mental Imagery: An Anthropological Approach." Imagery: Current Perspectives. Ed. Joseph Shorr. New York: Plenum, 1989. 33-44.
• "On the Anthropology of America." Symbolizing America. Ed. Herve Varenne. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. 229-50.
• Imaginary Social Worlds: A Cultural Approach. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1984.
• "The Ethnography of Everyday Life: Theories and Methods for American Culture Studies." American Quarterly 34 (1982): 222-243.

Courses Taught:

Contemporary American Cultures (undergraduate)
Culture and Mental Disorders (undergraduate and graduate)
Imaginary Social Worlds (undergraduate and graduate)
South Asian/American Cultural Connections (undergraduate and graduate)
Ethnography and American Studies (graduate)
Life History Research in American Studies (graduate)

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