James D. Sexton, Ph.D.
Regents' Professor
Personal Website
(B.A., M.A., Ph.D., University of California-Los Angeles 1973)
Culture change, methodology, behavioral anthropology, folklore; Middle, Central & South America, and Southeast Asia
After earning a bachelor's degree in anthropology from UCLA, Sexton began studying for a master's degree. The U.S. Army, however, interrupted his graduate studies with a call to active duty, which included a tour of duty in Vietnam and a leave to Thailand. After a military leave of absence, Sexton returned to UCLA where he completed a master's degree in 1971 and a Ph.D. in 1973. The same year he began teaching at NAU, where he received the NAU President's Award for excellence in teaching, research, and service in 1981. Sexton was named Regents' Professor in 1991, and was selected as the NAU Phi Kappa Phi Faculty Scholar in 1997.
Travels to Ireland in 2003, to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Thailand in 2004, to Australia in 2005, and to Guatemala in 2006 have enhanced the Celtic, Southeast Asian, Aboriginal Australian, and Mayan blocks of his course on anthropological perspectives of folklore of the world. Over the last thirty-six years, travels to Puerto Rico, Barbados, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panamá, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru, and Bolivia have enriched his courses on Latin America. Seventeen field trips to Guatemala have resulted in a number of articles and books with Joseño: Another Mayan Voice Speaks from Guatemala (September 2001) the most recent book.
Sexton is a past president of the Southwestern Anthropological Association, and he is a member of the board of editors for the Delaware Review of Latin American Studies, an Internet journal. In addition to Latin America and Southeast Asia, he specializes in qualitative and quantitative research methods, psychological anthropology, life histories, folklore, development, modernization, and cultural change.
Contact Information:
Dr. James Sexton, PhD
Office: Bldg 98D, Rm 109G
Phone: (928) 523-6576
Email: James.Sexton[at]nau.edu
Current Research and Applied Projects
I regularly teach undergraduate courses on Folklore of the World (ANT 209, Peoples of Latin America (ANT 303), and Central America (ANT 307). On the graduate level, I teach Psychological Anthropology (ANT 638) and Quantitative Research Methods (ANT 568). Geographically, I am especially interested in Australia, Ireland, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, and Guatemala. Among the highland Maya, I have had an active program of research and publication for the last 37 years.
Latin American Research Program
Beginning in 1970, Dr. James Sexton began his Guatemalan field school and research project. The initial field experience in Guatemala was so rewarding that he returned 17 more times, sometimes for the summer and fall seasons, other times for just a few weeks.
Based on his field research, he has published articles on his research dealing with development modernization, and culture change in such journals as the Reviews in Anthropology, American Ethnologist, Human Organization, Anthropology and Education Quarterly, and the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology. Dr. Sexton published the following books: Education and Innovation in a Guatemalan Community (UCLA Latin American Center, 1972), Son of Tecun (University of Arizona Press, 1981, and Waveland Press, 1990), Campesino (University of Arizona Press, 1985), Ignacio (University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), Mayan Folktales (Doubleday Anchor, 1992, and University of New Mexico Press, 1999), Heart of Heaven, Heart of Earth (Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999), and Joseno (University of New Mexico Press, 2001).
