Daniel J Gelo
In This Section: I. Author Bio II. Author Letter I. Author Bio Daniel J. Gelo is Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he has taught and researched since 1988. Gelo holds Ph.D., M.Phil. M.A., and B.A. degrees in anthropology from Rutgers University. His scholarship concerns cognitive anthropology and the symbolic analysis of expressive forms such as myth, ritual, language, music, and visual materials...See more
In This Section: I. Author Bio II. Author Letter I. Author Bio Daniel J. Gelo is Professor of Anthropology and Dean of the College of Liberal and Fine Arts at the University of Texas at San Antonio, where he has taught and researched since 1988. Gelo holds Ph.D., M.Phil. M.A., and B.A. degrees in anthropology from Rutgers University. His scholarship concerns cognitive anthropology and the symbolic analysis of expressive forms such as myth, ritual, language, music, and visual materials. He is a recognized authority on the culture of the Plains Indians and has conducted fieldwork with the Comanche people of southwest Oklahoma since 1982. Gelo is also the only anthropologist to have conducted fieldwork in all four main Indian communities in Texas: the Tigua, Kickapoo, and Alabama-Coushatta reservations, and the urban Indian enclave in Dallas. His publications include Comanche Vocabulary (University of Texas Press, 1995), Comanches in the New West, 1896-1908 (with Stanley Noyes, University of Texas Press, 1999), and Texas Indian Trails (with Wayne L. Pate, Republic of Texas Press, 2003). Other publications include articles, commentary, and reviews for the American Indian Quarterly, Journal of American Folklore, Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Visual Anthropology Review, Western Folklore, Ethnohistory, Plains Anthropologist, Current Anthropology, Great Plains Research Ethnomusicology, American Anthropologist, and the Journal of American History, as well as the article on Native North Americans in the Encyclopedia of Cultural Anthropology and the premier entry on the Comanches in the Human Relations Area Files. Gelo researched and co-wrote three award-winning film documentaries on Texas Indians for public television: Circle of Life: The Alabama-Coushatta Indians (1991); Big City Trail: The Urban Indians of Texas (1992); and People of the Sun: The Tiguas of Ysleta (1992). Gelo is also the only anthropologist to co-author a national elementary textbook series, contributing to six national and state social studies texts for grades 3-6 published by Silver Burdett Ginn in 1997. His work has been funded by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Inc., the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Humanities Texas. Professional affiliations include the Council of Colleges of Arts and Sciences, American Folklore Society, American Society for Ethnohistory, and Plains Anthropological Society. Among his recognitions, Gelo was a Henry Rutgers Scholar and was named Ambassador to the Comanche Nation; he has won the UTSA President's Distinguished Achievement Award for Creative Activity and the University of Texas System Chancellor's Council Outstanding Teaching Award. II. Author Letter Dear Colleague, If you have been waiting for a complete, up-to-date, and engaging textbook about the Plains Indians I believe that Indians of the Great Plains will meet your needs. I'm sure you enjoy teaching college courses about Plains Indians as much as I do. The people and their traditions are so vibrant, so colourful, so intrinsically interesting to students. But I'm sure too that you share my frustration when trying to put together a suitably comprehensive and meaningful syllabus about these splendid cultures. There hasn't been a comprehensive and current text. At my school, the University of Texas at San Antonio, the upper-division anthropology survey course on Plains Indians draws an enthusiastic but very diverse audience. There are undergraduates of all grade levels and occasionally grad students. Some are anthropology or history majors, but many are business, education, or science students looking for an interesting elective. They all come from a variety of... See less