1937- Present
Richard Borshay Lee did undergraduate and graduate work in Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He received a Ph.D. From the University of California at Berkeley, and has returned to the University of Toronto where he is currently a Professor of Anthropology. Dr. Lee offers an undergraduate course called “Anthropology of Health” and two graduate courses; “Politics of Culture” and “Approaches to Fieldwork''.
Richard Lee is best known for his work studying the !Kung San, a hunter-gatherer society in the Kalahari region of Botswana, who speak a click language. He won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 1980 for his 1979 publication of The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work in a Foraging Society. His 1969 article “Eating Christmas in the Kalahari” is used as course material in many universities’ Anthropology programs. He has lectured at many universities spanning five continents.
Lee is currently researching ecological and historical issues concerning indigenous people in Botswana and Namibia. He has concerned himself with the issues facing post-apartheid South Africa, such as AIDS, identity, and politics. He has also been asked to consider colonization of Mars, to which Dr. Lee responded in part: “If we are as smart as we claim to be and can go to the stars, why can't we use our considerable intelligence to solve the problems on Earth before we export them to space?”
References:
Lee, Richard. The !Kung San: Men, Women, and Work, in a Foraging Society. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1979.
Biography of Richard B. Lee. University of Toronto: http://www.chass.utoronto.ca/anthropology/Faculty/lee.htm
“Space Colonization: Sybaris or Greenland? http://www.marswest.org/perspective14.html
Written by: Joseph Perkins