Dennis B. McGilvray
Dennis B. McGilvray is Professor of Anthropology emeritus at the University of Colorado, Boulder, where he served on the faculty from, 1980-2013 and as departmental chair 2006-2010. From 2015-2017 he was President of the American Institute for Sri Lankan Studies. After completing his BA at Reed College, he did his graduate studies at Harvard University, and the University of Chicago. He also previously taught at the University of Santa Clara CA and the University of Cambridge UK, and was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University. The Tamil-speaking Hindu and Muslim communities in Sri Lanka and southern India are his anthropological focus, with publications on topics such as kinship, marriage, popular religion, caste, ethnicity, and recovery from the 2004 tsunami. His current book project, entitled A House for Every Daughter, will compare matrilineal and matrilocal marriage practices in Sri Lanka with similar patterns in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, south India. Email: dennis.mcgilvray@colorado.edu