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Laura Bohannan (née Laura Marie Altman Smith), (1922 – March 19, 2002) pen name Elenore Smith Bowen, was an American cultural anthropologist best known for her 1966 article, "Shakespeare in the Bush." Bohannan also wrote two books during the 1960s, Tiv Economy, with her husband, and Return to Laughter,First edition: Bowen, Elenore Smith (1954) Return to Laughter Victor Gollancz Ltd., London, ; published in 1964 as Bowen, Elenore Smith Return to laughter: an anthropological novel by Doubleday, New York, ; and thereafter with Laura Bohannan as the author. a novel. These works were based on her travels and work in Africa between 1949 and 1953.
"Shakespeare in the Bush" is often anthologized because of its subject matter and unique perspective. Bohannan, while living in a small village in Nigeria, attempts to tell the story of Hamlet to a group of villagers. The cultural and language barriers between the two parties result in an entirely different telling of this most famous of English plays, with her audience left puzzling over Westerners' inability to understand their own literature. Thus, the essay is often used by students of anthropology, linguistics, and literary theory as a means of understanding how perspective affects perception and expectation.
Return to Laughter, which she wrote under the name Elenore Smith Bowen, remains a well-reviewed work,Di Leonardo, Micaela (1998) Exotics at Home: Anthropologies, Others, and American Modernity University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp. 39-40, 215-225, and it is based on Bohannan's fieldwork in Nigeria. Bohannan used a pseudonym for this book, presumably because she felt its popular tone and autobiographical format were inappropriate for her professional reputation.Gottlieb, Alma (1997) "The Perils of Popularizing Anthropology" Anthropology Today 13(1): pp. 1-2, p.2, col. 2 Bohannan's pseudonym was composed in part from her mother's first name, "Elenore",Staff (1943) "Betrothal is Told at Reception" Tucson Daily Citizen 8 May 1943, p. 6, col. 8 and her own maiden name "Smith". However, many reviews of Return to Laughter noted it as her work,Heiser, Charles B., Jr. (1965) "Review: Return to Laughter by Elenore Smith Bowen" The American Biology Teacher 27(2): p. 129 and later editions were published without the pseudonym.
Other works written about the Tiv include Tiv Economy, for which Bohannan and her husband received the Herskovits Prize in 1969.
From 1970 to 1973 Bohannan was the editor of American Anthropologist.WHG (1970) "Editorial Note" American Anthropologist, New Series, 72(1): p. vii She and her husband divorced in 1975; they had one son, Denis. She served as the President of the African Studies Association from 1983-1984. She retired in 1990. On March 19, 2002, she died in her home of a heart attack.
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