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Faculty
Conrad Kottak
Conrad Phillip Kottak (A.B. Columbia College 1963; Ph.D. Columbia University, 1966) is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, where he has taught since 1968. In 1991 he was honored for his teaching by the University and state of Michigan. In 1999 the American Anthropological Association (AAA) awarded Professor Kottak the AAA/Mayfield Award for Excellence in the Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology. Professor Kottak's textbooks in anthropology, cultural anthropology, and cultural diversity, published by McGraw-Hill, are currently in their tenth editions. They are used in colleges and universities throughout the world and have been translated into Spanish and French.
Conrad Kottak has done ethnographic field work in Brazil (since 1962), Madagascar (since 1966), and the United States (since 1976). His recent research focuses on changes in American culture, work, and life; on everyday behavior, and on the roles of media and consumption patterns in our lives. Conrad's research continues to have an international and comparative, as well as an American, focus. For example, he and his associates blended qualitative and quantitative research methods in studying "Television's Behavioral Effects in Brazil." That research is the basis of Kottak's book Prime-Time Society: An Anthropological Analysis of Television and Culture (Wadsworth 1990)--a comparative study of the nature and impact of television in Brazil and the United States. Another of Kottak's books is Researching American Culture: A Guide for Student Anthropologists (1982) (University of Michigan Press).
The most recent editions (tenth) of Conrad's texts Anthropology: The Exploration of Human Diversity and Cultural Anthropology were published by McGraw-Hill in 2003. Kottak is also the author of Mirror for Humanity: A Concise Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (3rd ed., McGraw-Hill, 2003) and (with Kathryn A. Kozaitis) of On Being Different: Diversity and Multiculturalism in the North American Mainstream (2nd ed., McGraw-Hill, 2003).
Kottak's articles have appeared in academic journals including American Anthropologist, Journal of Anthropological Research, American Ethnologist, Ethnology, and Human Organization. He has also written for more popular journals, including Transaction/SOCIETY, Natural History, Psychology Today, and General Anthropology.
Since 1999 Conrad has been active in the University of Michigan's Center for the Ethnography of Everyday Life, supported by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. In that capacity, for a research project entitled "Media, Family, and Work in a Middle-Class Midwestern Town," he and his colleague Dr. Lara Descartes have investigated how middle class families draw on various media in planning, managing, and evaluating their choices and solutions with respect to competing demands of work and family. Lara and Conrad currently are writing a book based on that research.
Conrad Kottak has extensive experience consulting for businesses and development agencies. Issues of cultural behavior, diversity, and change are among his main areas of expertise. Conrad is fluent in Brazilian Portuguese and French. He and his son, Nicholas Kottak, Ph.D., are associates in a market research and brand strategy consulting firm called Ethnographic Solutions, LLC (website: www.ethnographic-solutions.com).
