In Memoriam: Naomi Quinn, 1939-2019

Naomi Quinn, professor emerita of cultural anthropology at Duke University, died late last month. She was 79 years old.

Dr. Quinn joined the Duke University faculty in 1972 as an assistant professor. She was promoted to associate professor in 1978 and full professor in 1999. Throughout her career, she conducted research on psychological anthropology, exploring how culture is shared, endures, and shapes our lives. She was also interested in gender issues, particularly on married women’s self-understandings and the place of women in academic politics. She was the editor of Advances in Culture Theory from Psychological Anthropology (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), the co-author of A Cognitive Theory of Cultural Meaning (Cambridge University Press, 1997), and the co-editor of Attachment Reconsidered: Cultural Perspectives on a Western Theory (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).

Dr. Quinn received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Society of Psychological Anthropology in 2009. In 2001, she received the “Squeaky Wheel Award” from the American Anthropological Association Committee on the Status of Women for her work on improving the status of women in higher education. She also received the Richard K. Lublin Teaching Award from Trinity College at Duke University in 2003.

Dr. Quinn was a graduate of Harvard University. She held a Ph.D. in anthropology from Stanford University.