SHAUL, David Leedom 1952-

PERSONAL: Born May 18, 1952, in Cheyenne, WY; son of Jack Leedom and Rosa (Grams) Shaul. Education: University of Arizona, B.A. (Chinese), 1973, B.Mus. (harp performance), 1974, M.A. (anthropology), 1975; University of California at Berkeley, Ph.D. (linguistics and anthropology), 1982. Politics: "Fairly liberal." Hobbies and other interests: Water lilies and water gardens, cooking.

ADDRESSES: Office—Dave Shaul Productions, P.O. Box 2347, Sells, AZ 85634. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: Dave Shaul Productions, Sells, AZ, principal. Venito Garcia Library and Archives, librarian and archivist; affiliated with prison programs of Pima Community College and with Indiana University—Purdue University at Fort Wayne. Professional harpist, specializing in Celtic music; recorded album Fantasie Arabe: Oud and Harp Music of the Near East, released by Lyrichord.

WRITINGS:

(Compiler, with Roy Albert) A Concise Hopi and English Lexicon, J. Benjamins (Philadelphia, PA), 1985.

Topics in Nevome Syntax, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1986.

(With N. Louanna Furbee) Language and Culture, Waveland Press (Prospect Heights, IL), 1998.

Hopi Traditional Literature, University of New Mexico Press (Albuquerque, NM), 2002.

The Celtic Year, Dave Shaul Productions (Sells, AZ), 2003.

Celtic Lullabies, Dave Shaul Productions (Sells, AZ), 2003.

Celtic Christmas: Sing a Celtic Noël, Dave Shaul Productions (Sells, AZ), 2003.

WORK IN PROGRESS: A Grammar of Literary Hopi; A Linguistic Prehistory of the American Southwest; Language, Music, and Dance in the Pimeria Alta, 1698–1798; research on the language and culture of the principality of Monaco, including cuisine, folk music and dance, and literature written in the Monegasque language.

SIDELIGHTS: David Leedom Shaul told CA: "I write nonfiction because I am interested in language and culture. I have been interested in Native Americans, languages, music, and other cultures since I was a child. This interest matured in junior high school, when I began to work with Native-American languages. My interest developed further in college and graduate school and grew into published works.

"My writings to date are very eclectic in nature. As a linguist, I have avoided the formalist type of linguistics coming out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology and elsewhere, as I do not believe their restricted theories give adequate accounts of the richness of natural languages. As an anthropologist, I am aware of theory from structuralism through postmodernism, and this has changed the way I look at language and culture. In my field work in Monaco, I try to objectify the Other, while noting my own cultural bias/messaging in my notes.

"I assemble the materials for a book (notes, library research, interviews, examples) and then sort them into piles representing chapters. I may write chapters out of sequence. I do some writing by hand, and then do a first draft on the computer. I then revise and edit a hard copy, because I find it easier to do than by trying to edit staring at a cathode-ray tube.

"I was interested in languages, people, and places as a child. This matured in junior high when I began to work with Native American languages. The interest further developed in college and graduate school."