Professional Biography
Brian Spooner is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. He is affiliated with the University's Middle East Center and served as its director from 1986-1995. He is affiliated faculty at Penn GSE’s International Education Development program.
Dr. Spooner has worked on sites in Afghanistan, northwest China, Iran, India, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, with such topics as irrigation, the history of desert areas, pastoral nomadism, Islam, ecology and development, and language and culture. His research interests include rural development, cultural Anthropology/Middle East, South Asia, religion, ecology, rural development, with special interest with Central Asia, Indo-Persian and Urdu. In addition to his research, teaching, and writing, Dr. Spooner is also the curator for the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Near Eastern Ethnology.
