Background
Konner, Melvin was born on August 30, 1946 in Brooklyn. Son of Irving and Hannah Levin Konner.
anthropologist educator writer
Konner, Melvin was born on August 30, 1946 in Brooklyn. Son of Irving and Hannah Levin Konner.
He studied at Brooklyn College, City University of New York (1966), where he met Marjorie Shostak, whom he later married and with whom he had three children. He earned his Doctor of Philosophy in biological anthropology from Harvard University in 1973.
He spent two years doing fieldwork among the Kalahari San or Bushmen, studying infant development and the hormonal mechanism of lactational infertility. After six years on the Harvard faculty, he returned to school and received his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School in 1985. He then moved to Emory as department chairman
He has held grants from the National Institute of Mental Health and National Science Foundation, and has been a fellow of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council, and the Foundations Fund for Research in Psychiatry.
Raised in an Orthodox Jewish family, Konner has stated that he lost his faith at age 17. His views on religion, however, are complex, as he has also discussed the function of counseling by chaplains in the hospital where he worked, saying that while as a scientist he did not endorse their views, as an anthropologist he recognized the value of their services.
Konner aroused some controversy in 2006 when he wrote an article contesting the claims in former United States President Jimmy Carter"s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Carter responded quoting from his December 15 press release entitled "Letter to the Jewish Citizens of America".
In a lengthy follow-up letter, Konner disputed Carter"s claims and called the book and its title inflammatory.
He attended and was a speaker at the Beyond Belief symposium on November 2006.
Witness testifying United States Senate Subcommittee Education & Labor, Washington, 1993. Witness offering testimony United States Senate Committee Finance, 1994.
Married Ann Cale Kruger, February 26, 2005. 1 stepchild Logan Kruger. Married Marjorie Shostak, June 23, 1968 (deceased October 6, 1996).
Children: Susanna, Adam, Sarah.