Laura Bohannon

[Richard J Senghas]

In case you hadn't heard....

-RJS

From: "Michael Lieber" <mdlieber at UIC.EDU>
To: <ASAONET at LISTSERV.UIC.EDU>
Sent: Monday, March 25, 2002 3:22 PM
Subject: Laura Bohannan


> It is with great sadness that I must tell you that Laura Bohannan passed
> away last week.  Best known for _Return to Laughter_ and "Shakespear in
> the Bush," she was an accomplished linguistic anthropologist and a
> wonderful teacher.  We called her "Dusty," a girlhood nickname aquired
> from her habit of falling off horses.  I had the opportunity to team teach
> a class in language and culture with her some years ago, and she WAS a
> liberal education.  She quoted Shakespear with the kind of intimacy that
> you and I use when we repeat gossip.  Besides her quick wit she had an
> equally rapid, totally bawdy sense of humor.  I will share with you one
> story that gives you an idea of the measure of her wit and intellect.
>
> There were several people in the chairman's office several years ago
> arguing about the difference between apes and humans.  The physical
> anthropologists were saying that the difference is so small as to be
> negligable, a point that Dusty found hilarious.  One of the PA's
> challenged her by asking her to give one example of a human trait that
> could not be found in apes.  Without missing a beat, she retorted,
>
>   "Only human beings would lay down their lives for the difference between
> trans-substantiation and con-substantiation."
>
> End of argument.
>
> In this day of polysyllabic mystification masquerading as profundity, it
> is hard to lose a real original.

======================================================================
Richard J Senghas, Assoc Professor       | Sonoma State University
Department of Anthropology/Linguistics   | 1801 East Cotati Avenue
Coordinator, Linguistics & TESL Programs | Rohnert Park, CA 94928-3609
Richard.Senghas at sonoma.edu               | 707-664-3920 (fax)