George C. Bond

George Bond is the William F. Russell Professor of Anthropology and Education at Teachers College and Director for the College's Center for African Education. He is also the former chair of the College's Department of International and Transcultural Studies. While influenced early on by structural functionalists (Emile Durkheim, Max Weber, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, Bronislaw Malinowski) who view society as an organism that shapes people’s actions and beliefs, Bond has since incorporated the thinking of Antonio Gramsci and others who look at the cultural mechanisms employed to perpetuate power. His areas of expertise include education and elite formation in the United States and Africa; African studies: African religions and politics; agrarian transformations; and cultural dimensions of urban and minority populations. Bond has authored or edited several books, including The Politics of Change in a Zambian Community (1976), African Christianity (1980),The Social Construction of the Past: Representation as Power (1997), AIDS in Africa and the Caribbean (1997), Witchcraft Dialogues (2001) and Contested Terrains and Constructed Categories (2002).