David K. Jordan

David K. Jordan
Dr. David K. Jordan
Born	1942
Residence	La Jolla, California
Nationality	American
Fields	Anthropology, Chinese Studies, Sociolinguistics
Institutions	University of California, San Diego (Professor Emeritus, Provost Emeritus) Harvard University (Visiting Professor)
Alma mater	Ph.D. University of Chicago, M.A Stanford University
Doctoral advisor	Nur Yalman (Harvard University)
Notable students	Marc L. Moskowitz, Shawn Bender, Jason Danely, Deana Weibel
Known for	Anthropology, Chinese Studies, Psycholinguistics, Religion

David K. Jordan is a Professor Emeritus at the University of California, San Diego since 2004. He received his Ph.D. from University of Chicago in 1969.^[1] Jordan is known for his excellence in teaching as well as his various service posts to the university.^[2] These positions include the Chair for the Department of Anthropology, the Director for the Program of Chinese Studies, Provost of Earl Warren College, Interim Provost of Sixth College, as well as one of the Founders of the UCSD Department of Anthropology with psychological anthropologist Melford Spiro. Jordan currently participates in the university Academic Senate committees including the UCSD Graduate Council^[3] and the Council of Provosts.^[4]

Early life

Jordan was born in Chicago, Illinois to Dorothy F. Jordan and Earnest K. Jordan. Since his youth years, he has always been interested in archaeology, museums, religion, languages (especially Esperanto, Chinese, and Nahuatl). Jordan spent most of his childhood in the United States.^[5]

His charisma, humor and teaching dynamism transcends a typical college classroom through his use of imaginative extracurricular and virtual learning activities. Jordan’s dedication to the educational enrichment, advancement and learning of students, both at the undergraduate and graduate level, has made a significant impact on generations of students. In addition to his classroom success, the distinguished scholar has been instrumental in course development, co-curricular programming and the mentoring of countless teaching assistants and new faculty instructors.

— UCSD Alumni Website

Anthropology career

Overview

His academic interests center in cultural and psychological anthropology, sociolinguistics, and the cross-cultural study of religion. Regional interests focus on Chinese society, especially in Taiwan, with a secondary interest in pre-Columbian Mexico.

Jordan has published on language, social structure, folk religion, and sectarianism in Taiwan and China and has written in and about Esperanto and the social movements associated with it and the associated area of interlinguistics.^[6]

Jordan is known as a leading researcher in Chinese Anthropology as well as Ethnographic Christianity research. Even after retirement, Jordan continued to work at the University with his last post as the Interim Provost of Sixth College. Jordan continues to teach both undergraduate and graduate courses at his home institution in the Departments of Anthropology as well as Eleanor Roosevelt College's "Making of the Modern World" sequence.^[7][8]

UC San Diego Academia Contribution

Jordan is also known to the university students as a hands-on educator. His website is known to be extremely informational and supplemental to his lectures. Jordan's lectures are known to be engaging and applicable to life situations. UCSD Students praise Jordan for his approachability and friendliness in establishing a special connection with his students both through his website of personal interests and academic collections. Aside from serving as a leading administrator and faculty after his retirement, he still mentors exceptional Undergraduate and Graduate students.

Chinese Anthropology

Jordan can arguably be one of the breakthrough scholars in the field of Chinese Anthropology. His research focused on Chinese Popular Religion, and Traditional Chinese Culture. Jordan also teaches and founded these courses in the Department of Anthropology at University of California, San Diego.^[9]

Chinese Studies

Jordan was one of the founders of the Chinese Studies Program at UC San Diego, where he served as the Program Director and still remains as an affiliated faculty. He also created a very large database on Chinese culture and society with an emphasis on an anthropological view on his personal website which includes detailed contents on almost all aspects of the traditional Chinese life.^[10]

Jordan's research in Chinese Studies focused on an ethnographic study in Taiwan,^[11][12] in which he produced a general integrated picture of rural Taiwanese religious life for the first time in English. He also produced ethnographically based accounts of Chinese sworn siblinghood and traditional matchmaking, long-term Chinese traditions that had had little ethnographic study. Along with Daniel Overmyer, he co-authored The Flying Phoenix , a book that accounts Chinese sectarian societies practicing automatic writing divination, which is now considered a foundational book of the Chinese Studies field.

Jordan is also known for his research on the topic of Chinese Ghost Marriage.^[13]

Sociolinguistics

Jordan's text Being Colloquial in Esperanto was intended as usage guide, but it in fact was nearly unique in discussing usage variation and the ways in which Esperanto seemed to be evolving over time. Although it stands somewhere between an advanced language textbook and a sociolinguistic study, Jordan's text achieved new lights in the Sociolinguistic field of Esperanto.

Jordan also authored the Rakonto Prapatra . This text was made up of Esperanto "fairy tales" experimenting with the use in a new language of a narrative form associated with long folk traditions in ethnic languages. The collection of stories are often used in teaching Esperanto, along with its restrictive vocabulary and its manipulation of agglutination extensive grammatical tenses.

Ethnographic Christianity

Jordan also did a tremendous amount of research in the field of Ethnographic Christianity. He teaches the course to the Ph.D students at UC San Diego in preparation for these students' field work in Christianized portions of the world. His research in this field include:^[14]

• Christianity as a Religious Organization
• The Historical Jesus
• The Early Church
• The Mythological Traditions
• Historical & Ethnographic Variations: (General Histories, Comparative Studies, Asia, Latin America, Anglophone America, Africa, Europe)
• The "Scientific Study" of Religion

Visiting Professorships

Jordan was a visiting professor at Harvard University in the summer of 1974 and at San Francisco State University several summers. He was also a visiting faculty at the University of Washington for one term in 1991 as well as a visiting faculty at the Hong Kong University of Science & Technology in Spring of 2007.^[5]

Invited Plenary Lectures

Jordan is consistently invited to deliver guest lectures on an international basis. In the past, he has delivered invited lectures at Sun Yat-Sen University in Guangzhou, China in 2007, and was the keynote speaker at the 2001 Pacific Neighborhood Conference in Hong Kong.

Awards and honors

Jordan has won multiple awards throughout his career, the most recent one is the UCSD Alumni Excellence in Teaching Award 2008 by the UCSD Alumni Association.^[15] He is also a member of the Society for Medical Anthropology.^[16]

Bibliography

• 2004 Minor Arts of Daily Life: Popular Culture in Taiwan. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press. (Edited with Andrew D. Morris and Marc L. Moskowitz.)
• 1986 The Flying Phoenix: Aspects of Sectarianism in Taiwan. Princeton: Princeton University Press. (With Daniel L. Overmyer)
• 1972 Gods, Ghosts, and Ancestors: The Folk Religion of a Taiwanese Village. Berkeley: University of California Press.
• 1990 Personality and the Cultural Construction of Society: Papers in Honor of Melford E. Spiro. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press.(Edited with Marc J. Swartz.)
• 1976 Anthropology: Perspective on Humanity. New York: Wiley. (With Marc J. Swartz.)
• 1999 Being Colloquial in Esperanto: A Reference Guide. El Cerrito: Esperanto League for North America.
• 1996 Rakontoj prapatraj pri nia lando antau multaj jarcentoj kiam okazemis mirindaj aferoj^[17]

References

External links

• Jordan's personal website
• Selected list of Journal publications by Jordan.