Tapper, Richard (Lionel) 1942–

PERSONAL: Born May 18, 1942, in Dinas Mawddwy, Wales. Education: Cambridge University, B.A. (social anthropology, with honors), 1964; University of London, Ph.D. (social anthropology), 1972.

ADDRESSES: Office—Department of Anthropology and Sociology, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Thornhaugh St., Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG, England. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER: London School of Oriental and African Studies, London, England, assistant lecturer, 1967–69, lecturer, 1969–85, reader, 1985–97, professor of anthropology, 1997–2004, department head, 1995–98, chair of Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, 1988–92, convenor of media research programme, 2000–03, emeritus professor, 2004–.

AWARDS, HONORS: Prize for best anthropological study of Iran, Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, 2001, for Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan.

WRITINGS:

Pasture and Politics: Economics, Conflict, and Ritual among Shahsevan Nomads of Northwestern Iran, Academic Press (London, England), 1979.

(Editor and contributor) The Conflict of Tribe and State in Iran and Afghanistan, Croom Helm (London, England), 1983.

(Editor and contributor) Islam in Modern Turkey: Religion, Politics, and Literature in a Secular State, I. B. Tauris (London, England), 1991.

(Editor and contributor) Some Minorities in the Middle East, Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, London School of Oriental and African Studies (London, England), 1992.

(Editor, with Sami Zubaida, and contributor) Culinary Cultures of the Middle East, I. B. Tauris (London, England), 1994, new edition published as A Taste of Thyme, 2001.

Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1997.

(Editor) Ayatollah Khomeini and the Modernization of Islamic Thought, Centre of Near and Middle Eastern Studies, London School of Oriental and African Studies (London, England), 2000.

(Editor and contributor) The New Iranian Cinema: Politics, Representation, and Identity, I. B. Tauris (London, England), 2002.

(Editor, with Jon Thompson, and contributor) The Nomadic Peoples of Iran, Azimuth (London, England), 2002.

(Editor, with Keith McLachlan, and contributor) Technology, Tradition, and Survival: Aspects of Material Culture in the Middle East and Central Asia, Frank Cass (London, England), 2003.

Contributor to books, including The Tragedy of Afghanistan, edited by Bo Huldt and Erland Jansson, Croom Helm (London, England), 1988; Tribes and State Formation in the Middle East, edited by Philip Khoury and Joseph Kostiner, University of California Press (Berkeley, CA), 1991; Cultural Change and Continuity in Central Asia, edited by Shirin Akiner, Kegan Paul International (London, England), 1991; The Cambridge History of Iran, Volume 7: From Nadir Shah to the Islamic Republic, edited by Peter Avery, Gavin Hambly, and Charles Melville, Cambridge University Press (Cambridge, England), 1991; and When History Accelerates, edited by C. M. Hann, Athlone Press (London, England), 1994. Contributor to periodicals, including Folk, Iran, American Ethnologist, Asian Music, Third World Quarterly, Cambridge Anthropology, Anthropological Quarterly, Iranian Studies, and Global Dialogue.

Some of Tapper's writings have been translated into Turkish and Persian.

WORK IN PROGRESS: Compiling Islamic Democracy: The Political Thought of Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari (tentative title), with Ziba Mir-Hosseini; editing Behind the Lens, beyond the Veil: Women in Iranian Cinema, with Laura Mulvey; editing Perspectives on the Middle East: A Reader in Culture and Representation, for Blackwell (Oxford, England); Voices from an Afghan Village.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Journal of the American Oriental Society, July-September, 1999, Willem Floor, review of Frontier Nomads of Iran: A Political and Social History of the Shahsevan, p. 542.

Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, June, 1999, H. Philsooph, review of Frontier Nomads of Iran, p. 334.