Assistant Professor
Ph.D. University of Washington, 2005
email: shenkm@missouri.edu
phone: 573-882-4731 c.v.(pdf)
Areas of Specialization
Human behavioral ecology; anthropological demography; human marriage and family systems; parental investment, fertility; inheritance and property transfers; South Asia (especially India and Bangladesh).
Teaching
Anthropology 1000H: General Anthropology Honors
Anthropology 2030: Cultural Anthropology - syllabus (pdf)
Anthropology 4300/7300: Social Organization
Anthropology 4790/7790: Culture and Society in South Asia - syllabus (pdf)
(cross-listed as South Asian Studies 4790/7790)
Shenk, Mary. 2009. Testing Three Evolutionary Models of the Demographic Transition: Patterns of Fertility and Age at Marriage in Urban South India. American Journal of Human Biology, in press.
Shenk, Mary. 2009. Rewriting the Book on Human Female Sexuality: New Thinking on Old Questions. Journal of Evolutionary Psychology 7(2009)2, 185–189.
Shenk, Mary. 2007. “Dowry and Public Policy in Contemporary India: The Behavioral Ecology of a Social ‘Evil.’” Human Nature 18(2):242-263.
Shenk, Mary. 2005. “Kin Networks in Wage-Labor Economies: Effects on Child and Marriage Market Outcomes.” Human Nature 16:81-114.
Shenk, Mary. 2005. “How Much Gold Will You Put on Your Daughter? A Behavioral Ecology Perspective on Dowry Marriage.” University of Washington Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE) Working Paper Series, Publication 2005-07.
Shenk, Mary. 2004. “Embodied Capital and Heritable Wealth in Complex Cultures: A Class-Based Analysis of Parental Investment in Urban South India.” Research in Economic Anthropology 23:307-333 (special issue on Socioeconomic Aspects of Human Behavioral Ecology).
Mary K. Shenk