Professor of Anthropology I have conducted ethnographic and ethnohistorical research, and published, on issues in ecology, economic development, technology, social organisation, religion, language and culture, and culture social organisation, religion, language and culture, and culture and personality--all with special reference to the Islamic countries of west, south and central Asia, specifically Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and northwest China.
My current projects include:
Apart from Anthropology, I am a member of the Graduate Groups in Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, South Asia Regional Studies, and Religious Studies, and I am Curator for Near Eastern Ethnology in the Museum.
1972 (edited) Population Growth: Anthropological Implications. Cambridge: MIT Press.
1973 The Cultural Ecology of Pastoral Nomads. Addison-Wesley Modular Publication #45. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley.
1982 (edited with H.S.Mann) Desertification and Development: dryland ecology in social perspective. London: Academic Press.
1984 Ecology in Development. A Rationale for Three-Dimensional Policy. Tokyo: United Nations University.
1995 (with William L. Hanaway) Reading Nasta'liq: Persian and Urdu Hands 1500 to the Present. Costa Mesa CA: Mazda Publications.
1967 Notes on the Baluchi spoken in Persian Baluchistan. Iran, 5:51-72.
1974 City and river in Iran: urbanisation and irrigation on the Iranian Plateau. Iranian Studies, 7:681-713.
1979 The Search for Mercy, The Whirlpool, Three Drops of Blood, The Stray Dog, Buried Alive, Laleh. Six short stories translated from the Persian. In Sadeq Hedayat: An Anthology, edited by Ehsan Yarshater. Boulder, Colo.: Westview Press. pp. 53-62, 63-74, 93-102, 119-126, 145-162, 179-186.
1982 Ecology in Perspective, The Human Context of Ecological Research. International Social Science Journal, special issue devoted to the social-scientific study of ecosystems, 34/3, pp. 397-410.
1983 Irrigation. In Encyclopaedia Iranica. Volume 1, Fascicle 4, pp. 405-411. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
1985 Anthropology, social and cultural, in Iran. In Encyclopaedia Iranica vol. 2:107-116.
1986 Weavers and Dealers: The authenticity of an Oriental Carpet. In The Social Life of Things, Commodities in cultural perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 195-235.
1987 Insiders and Outsiders in Baluchistan: Western and Indigenous Perspectives on Ecology and Development. In Lands at Risk in the Third World, Local-Level Perspectives, edited by Peter Little, Michael Horowitz and A.Endre Nyerges. IDA Monographs in Development Anthropology. Boulder: Westview Press, 58-68.
1988 Baluch and Baluchistan, geography, history, and ethnography. Encyclopaedia Iranica, volume 3, pp. 598-632
1988 The craft and commerce of oriental carpets: Cultural implications of Economic Success and Failure. In Making Things in South Asia: The Role of Artist and Craftsman, edited by Michael W. Meister. Proceedings of the South Asia Seminar IV, 1985-86, Philadelphia: Department of South Asia Regional Studies, University of Pennsylvania, pp. 127-134.
1989 Desertification: The historical significance. In Stress and Coping in African Food Systems, edited by Rebecca Huss-Ashmore and Solomon H. Katz. Volume 1, Microperspectives. London: Gordon and Breach, pp. 111-162.
1990 Introduction, Savushan (translation of modern Persian novel), Washington: Mage, pp. 1-14.
1993 Are we teaching Persian? or farsi? or dari? or tojiki? In Mehdi Marashi (ed.), Persian Studies in America, Salt Mehdi Marashi (ed.), Persian Studies in America, Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, pp. 175-190.
1995 Desert. In Encyclopaedia Iranica volume 7, pp. 321-331.
1997 Ethnography. In Encyclopaedia Iranica volume 8.
Or e-mail me at spooner@pardis.sas.upenn.edu !