SINGER, Milton Borah. Warsaw, Poland 15.7.1912 — Chicago 5.12.1994, when 82. U.S. Anthropologist of India. Born in a Jewish family in Poland, son of Julius Singer and Esther Greenberg. The family emigrated to the U.S.A. in 1920, settling in Detroit, 1921 naturalized. Studies of psychology (B.A. 1934) and philosophy (M.A. 1936) at University of Texas in Austin. Ph.D. 1940 Chicago (under R. Carnap, diss. on mathematical logic). From 1941 Social Science Instructor, from 1954 Professor of Anthropology at University of Chicago, emeritus 1979. Died of heart attack. Married Helena Virginia Goldbaum (1914–1995), children.
Singer was specially interested in semiotic anthropology and in the transition to modern society, including the Sanskrit tradition in modern urban centers. Several periods of fieldwork in India, in 1953-54, 1960-61 and 1964.
Publications: Edited: Traditional India: structure and change. 332 p. 1959.
– Edited: Krishna: Myths, Rites, and Attitudes. 277 p. Honolulu 1966.
– Edited with B. S. Cohn: Structure and Change in Indian Society. 16+507 p. Chicago 1968.
– When a Great Tradition Modernizes. An Anthropological Approach to Indian Civilization. 34+430 p. Chicago 1972.
– Man’s glassy essence: Explorations in semiotic anthropology. 14+222 p. Bloomington 1984.
– Nuclear policy, culture and history. 261 p. Chicago 1988.
– Semiotics of Cities, Selves, and Cultures: Explorations in Semiotic Anthropology. 393 p. B. – Boston 1991; articles.
Sources: http://chronicle.uchicago.edu/941208/singer.shtml; ancestry.com with photo; Wikipedia.
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