John Plant (ethnologist)

John Plant (* 1954 in New Haven , Connecticut ) is an American ethnologist , biologist and expert on the culture of the Plains Indians .

Life

John Plant studied anthropology at Windham College in Putney ( Vermont , USA) with a BA (1976) and biology from Southern Connecticut State University , New Haven (Connecticut, USA) with a BS (1978). He continued his biology studies at the Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg until his diploma in 1985. Plant then did research on contraries and clowns among the Plains Indians . With this dissertation he received his PhD in 1994 under Ulrich Köhler and Lothar Käser at the Institute for Ethnology at the Albert Ludwig University of Freiburg. phil. PhD .

Since the end of 2013 John Plant has lived in the USA again.

Researches

From 1998 to 2013 John Plant was a research fellow in the Department of Evolutionary Biology (Faculty of Life Sciences at the University of Vienna ) with a research focus on bees and their phylogenesis . At the same time, he is continuing the ethnological research he started with his dissertation on the Plains Indians, especially on the Heyoka phenomenon. In 2010 John Plant summarized the results under the title The Plains Indian Clowns, their Contraries and related Phenomena and made them available online.

Publications

• Heyoka. The contraries and clowns of the Plains Indians . Verlag for American Studies , Wyk auf Foehr 1994; 2nd edition 2000, ISBN 3-89510-011-0
• Crazy Dogs and Foolish Men. Sidelights on Plains Indian Culture . In: Eveline Dürr and Stefan Seitz (eds.): Religious ethnology contributions to American studies . Ethnological studies, volume 31. Lit Verlag, Münster 1997.

See also

• The divine rogue
• Trickster

Web links

• University of Freiburg: Institute for Ethnology.
• University of Vienna: Department of Evolutionary Biology.
• John Plant: The Plains Indian Clowns, their Contraries and related Phenomena . (PDF file: 965 KB)