William M. O'Barr | Scholars@Duke

William M. O'Barr
Professor Emeritus of Cultural Anthropology

William M. O'Barr, Ph.D. Northwestern 1969, is currently writing books about advertising and masculinity and about the history of legal anthropology. His extensive publications focus primarily on legal anthropology and include such concerns as law and politics in rural Africa, communication in trial courtrooms in America, and access to justice. His research sites have included rural villages in East Africa, trial courtrooms in the United States and Canada, and many of the organizations that are collectively referred to as "Madison Avenue." His publications include Tradition and Identity in Changing Africa (1973); Linguistics Evidence (1982); Language and Power (1984); Rules versus Relationships: The Ethnography of Legal Discourse (with John M. Conley; 1990); Fortune and Folly: The Wealth and Power of Institutional Investing (also with Conley; 1992), and Culture and the Ad: Exploring Otherness in the World of Advertising (1994); and Just Words: Language, Law and Power (The University of Chicago Press, 1998).

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor Emeritus of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2018

Contact Information

135 Social Sciences, Durham, NC 27708
Box 90091, Durham, NC 27708-0091
william.obarr@duke.edu (919) 684-8863

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Northwestern University 1970
- M.A., Northwestern University 1966
- B.A., Emory University 1964
Duke Appointment History
- Professor with Tenure, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1979 - 2018
- Professor of Sociology, Sociology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1988 - 2018
- Professor of English, English, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2001 - 2006
- Chair, Department of Cultural Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1996 - 2002
- Acting Chairman, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1992 - 1993
- Chairman, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1982 - 1985
- Acting Chairman, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1981
- Associate Professor with Tenure, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1974 - 1979
- Assistant Professor, Cultural Anthropology, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 1969 - 1974
Expertise
Global Scholarship
- Expertise
  - Africa (Continent)
  - United States of America (Country)
Research
Selected Grants
- Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant: Metrics and Democratization: the Role of Monitoring Technologies in Democratic Governance Reform in El Salvador awarded by National Science Foundation 2008 - 2011
- Doctoral Dissertation Research: A Comparative Study of the Nature of Sovereignty in the Global Age awarded by National Science Foundation 2010 - 2011
- Doctoral Dissertation Research: Legal Rights and Ethnic/Racial Identity in Northeastern Brazil awarded by National Science Foundation 2000
- Advertising and Culture: A Global Approach awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation 1999 - 2000
- Enhancement of Teaching and Research Activities in the Area of Global Advertising and Society awarded by Josiah Charles Trent Memorial Foundation 1989 - 1990
- Undergraduate Research Experience in Anthropology awarded by National Science Foundation 1987 - 1988
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. Just Words: Language, Law and Power. University of Chicago Press, 1998.
  - O’Barr, W. M. Linguistics Evidence: Language, Power, and Strategy in the Courtroom. Academic Press, 1995.
  - O’Barr, W. M. Culture and the Ad: Exploring Otherness in the World of Advertising. Westview Press, 1994.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and J. M. Conley. Fortune and Folly: The Wealth and Power of Institutional Investing. The McGraw-Hill Companies, 1992.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. Rules versus Relationships: The Ethnography of Legal Discourse. University of Chicago Press, 1990.
  - O’Barr, W. M. Linguistic Evidence: Language, Power and Strategy in the Courtroom. New York: Academic Press, 1982.
  - O’Barr, W. M., David H. Spain, and Mark A. Tessler, eds. Survey Research in Africa – Its Applications and Limits. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973.
- Academic Articles
  - O’Barr, W. M. “A Classic in Spite of Itself: The Cheyenne Way and the Case Method in Legal Anthropology.” Law & Social Inquiry 29 (2004): 179–217.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Roundtable on Advertising and the New Masculinities (Moderator).” Advertising & Society Review 5 (2004).
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Culture and Causality: Non-Western Systems of Explanation.” Law and Contemporary Problems 64, no. 4 (2004): 317–23.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “The Practice of Planning: Interview of Stephen King.” Advertising & Society Review 4, no. 3 (2004).
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Masculinity and Advertising: Interview of Michael Kimmel.” Advertising & Society Review 4, no. 1 (2003).
  - Conley, J. M., and W. M. O’Barr. “Back to the trobriands: The enduring influence of Malinowski's Crime and Custom in Savage Society.” Law and Social Inquiry Journal of the American Bar Foundation 27, no. 4 (2002): 847–74. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1747-4469.2002.tb00984.x.
    Full Text Link to Item
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Roundtable on Advertising and Values (Moderator).” Advertising & Society Review 3 (2002).
  - O’Barr, W. M. “The Professor as Critic: Interview of Sut Jhally.” Advertising & Society Review 3 (2002).
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Culture and Causality: Non-Western Systems of Explanation.” Law and Contemporary Problems 64 (2001): 317–23.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “The Origins of Creative Ideas: Interview of Paul Cappelli.” Advertising & Society Review 2 (2001).
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Children and Adversiting: Interview of Paul Kurnit.” Advertising & Society Review 2 (2001).
  - O’Barr, W. M. “When Cultures Collide: Social Security and the Market.” Journal of Psychology and Financial Markets, 2000.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John Conley. “Crime and Custom in Corporate Society: A Cultural Perspective on Corporate Misconduct.” 60 Law and Contemporary Problems, 1997, 5–22.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Language and Politics: Investigations of Language and Speech by Social and Cultural Anthropologists.” Reviews in Anthropology 22, no. 4 (January 1, 1994): 251–60. https://doi.org/10.1080/00988157.1994.9978069.
    Full Text
  - Williamson, A. D., J. D. Woods, J. M. Conley, W. M. O’Barr, M. R. Losey, C. Colbert, J. Wofford, and E. McNamara. “Is this the right time to come out? Case study.” Harvard Business Review 71, no. 4 (July 1993): 18-passim.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “Legal Anthropology Comes Home: A Brief History of the Ethnographic Study of Law.” Loyola Law Review 27 (1993): 41–64.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “The Culture of Capital.” North Carolina Law Review, 1992.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “Managing Relationships: The Culture of Institutional Investing.” Financial Analysts Journal 48 (1992): 21–27.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “The Culture of Capital.” Harvard Business Review 69 (1991): 110–11.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “Ideological Dissonance in the American Legal System.” Anthropological Linguistics 30 (1990): 345–68.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “The Airbrushing of Culture: An Insider Looks at Global Advertising [Interview of Marcio Moriera].” Public Culture 2 (1989): 1–19.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “Understanding the Hidden Agenda.” Law and Contemporary Problems 51 (1989): 201–18.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “Lay Expectations of the Civil Justice System.” Law and Society Review 22 (1988): 137–61.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “Fundamentals of Jurisprudence: An Ethnographic Study of Judicial Decisionmaking in Informal Courts.” North Carolina Law Review 66 (1987): 467–507.
  - O’Barr, W. M., and John M. Conley. “Litigant Satisfaction versus Legal Adequacy in Small Claims Narratives.” Law and Society Review 19 (1985): 661–701.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Subtleties in Courtroom Style.” California Lawyer 3 (1983): 30–58.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “The Study of Language in Institutional Contexts.” Journal of Language and Social Psychology 2 (1983): 241–51.
  - CONLEY, J. M., W. M. OBARR, and E. A. LIND. “POWER OF LANGUAGE - PRESENTATIONAL STYLE IN THE COURTROOM.” Duke Law Journal, no. 6 (January 1, 1979): 1375–99.
    Link to Item
  - Erickson, B., E. A. Lind, B. C. Johnson, and W. M. O’Barr. “Speech style and impression formation in a court setting: The effects of "powerful" and "powerless" speech.” Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 14, no. 3 (1978): 266–79.
  - Lind, E. A., B. E. Erickson, J. Conley, and W. M. O’Barr. “Social attributions and conversation style in trial testimony.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 36, no. 12 (1978): 1558–67. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.36.12.1558.
    Full Text
  - O’Barr, W. M., John Conley, and Allan Lind. “The Power of Language: Presentational Style in the Courtroom.” Duke Law Journal 14 (1978): 266–79.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Political Aspects of Speech in American Trial Courtrooms.” Working Papers in Culture and Communication 1 (1976): 27–40.
  - Barr, W. M. O., and John M. Conley. “When a Juror Watches a Lawyer.” Barrister 3 (1976): 8–33.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Survey Research in Africa–An Anthroplogist’s View.” African Studies Review 17 (1974): 577–84.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Multilingualism in a Rural Tanzanian Village.” Anthrpological Linguistics 13 (1971): 289–300.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “A History of Theory in Legal Anthropology,” n.d.
  - O’Barr, W. M. “Combining Approahces: Some Reflections on Two Decades of Collaborative Research.” Polar 22 (n.d.).
- Book Sections
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Native Americans in Advertising.” In ADTextonline.Org, 2013.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “ADText: An Online Curriculum in Advertising and Society.” In ADText, 2012.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Niche Advertising: Gay Consumers.” In ADText, 2012.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Super Bowl Commercials: America’s Annual Festival of Advertising.” In ADText, 2012.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Sexuality, Race, and Ethnicity in Advertising.” In ADText, 2010.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Language, Law and Power.” In Handbook of Language and Social Psychology, edited by Howard Giles and Peter Robinson. New York: Wiley, 2001.
  - Barr, W. M. O. “Language and Patriarchy.” In Gender Mosaics: Social Perspectives, edited by Dana Vannoy. Roxbury, Mass.: Roxbury Press, 2001.
  - Barr, W. M. O., and B. K. Atkins. “"Women’s Language" or "Powerles Language"?” In Language in Women’s Lives: A Feminist Perspective, edited by Ruth Borker, Nelly Furman, and Sally McConnell-Ginet. New York: Praeger, 1980.
- Digital Publications
  - O’Barr, W. M. “ADText: An Interdisciplinary Curriculum for Advertising in Society, Culture, and History,” 2012.
    Link to Item
Teaching & Mentoring
Recent Courses

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Education, Training, & Certifications

Duke Appointment History

Global Scholarship

Expertise

Selected Grants

Selected Publications

Books

Academic Articles

Book Sections

Digital Publications

Recent Courses