New Textbook
I have linguistic textbook appearing in December 2011, co-authored with my friend and former colleague, Dr. Jeanette Sakel. This book isLinguistic Fieldwork: A Student Guide. It tries to teach people...
View ArticleFrankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung
Here is a profile of me in one of the leading papers of Germany. If you read German, it gives my answers to a number of common questions about my work. FAZ Net Profile Other books of mine that are...
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New Mandarin Version
There is now a Mandarin version of my book Don’t Sleep, There Are Snakes available. Find out how to get the mandarin version of this book.
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Language: the Cultural Tool
My newest book for a general audience is Language: The Cultural Tool, LCT. This book makes the case that language is not an instinct or the result of an innate universal grammar, but that it is a tool...
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Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes
My work on the Pirahas as described in Don’t Sleep, There are Snakes, DSTAS, has been claimed to be controversial. I don’t really know if I agree with this. It was never intended to be controversial....
View ArticleShaping the Future of Business Education – now available
This book was edited by Gordon Hardy, Senior Associate Director of Content, Communication and Creative Services at Bentley University, and myself and addresses Bentley’s undergraduate business...
View ArticleOpera: The Three Astronauts – final production in 2015
I have had the honor and privilege of joining Ardea Arts and the Family Opera Initiative in developing the extraordinary children’s book The Three Astronauts for the stage as a contemporary American...
View ArticleIntensive Writer’s Retreat
Our first intensive writer’s retreat was held in New York City in mid-April, 2013 with Liu Sola, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dmitry Glukhovsky and myself. Grethe Holby, far right, is the producer. Here’s a great...
View ArticleNoble Ancestors and Modern Selves
Thomas Hobbes believed life before civilisation was nasty, brutish and short. From diets to lifestyles, some anthropologists think otherwise. Did hunter gatherers have a better grasp on life? Should we...
View ArticleCurrent Project – Dark Matter of the Mind
“Dark Matter of the Mind: How Unseen Forces Shape our Words and World” for the University of Chicago Press, for release in late 2014. I gave a solo talk on this subject in May of 2014 at the...
View ArticleChomskyan vs. Greenbergian Universals
Now that my latest book, Dark Matter of the Mind: A Culturally Articulated Conception of the Unconscious, has been sent to the publisher, I plan to begin a blog here on culture and language. The first...
View ArticleOut of Africa
We are all out of Africa. But does this hold true of Homo sapiens or only our earlier ancestors, such as Homo erectus? In the second chapter of my book-in-progress, How Language Began, I contrast and...
View ArticleHomesigns: Excerpt from Dark Matter of the Mind
So far, we have seen nothing in grammar, gestures, or other aspects of language that would lead us to believe that anything needs to be attributed to the genome of Homo sapiens that is specific to...
View ArticleWhat would it take to show that something is an instinct?
I believe that there is evidence for instincts and innate capacities in all creatures. But I believe that the evidence presented is often weak. And I also believe that higher-level cognitive capacities...
View ArticleShaping the Future of Business Education – now available
This book was edited by Gordon Hardy, Senior Associate Director of Content, Communication and Creative Services at Bentley University, and myself and addresses Bentley’s undergraduate business...
View ArticleOpera: The Three Astronauts – final production in 2015
I have had the honor and privilege of joining Ardea Arts and the Family Opera Initiative in developing the extraordinary children’s book The Three Astronauts for the stage as a contemporary American...
View ArticleIntensive Writer’s Retreat
Our first intensive writer’s retreat was held in New York City in mid-April, 2013 with Liu Sola, Yusef Komunyakaa, Dmitry Glukhovsky and myself. Grethe Holby, far right, is the producer. Here’s a great...
View ArticleNoble Ancestors and Modern Selves
Thomas Hobbes believed life before civilisation was nasty, brutish and short. From diets to lifestyles, some anthropologists think otherwise. Did hunter gatherers have a better grasp on life? Should we...
View ArticleCurrent Project – Dark Matter of the Mind
“Dark Matter of the Mind: How Unseen Forces Shape our Words and World” for the University of Chicago Press, for release in late 2014. I gave a solo talk on this subject in May of 2014 at the...
View ArticleChomskyan vs. Greenbergian Universals
Now that my latest book, Dark Matter of the Mind: A Culturally Articulated Conception of the Unconscious, has been sent to the publisher, I plan to begin a blog here on culture and language. The first...
View Article
