COMITAS INSTITUTE FOR ANTHROPOLOGICAL STUDY INC.

Lambros Comitas
Gardner Cowles, PhD (1927-2020)
Professor of Anthropology & Education

WITH ITHACA ON HIS MIND

When you set sail for Ithaca wish for the road to be long full of adventures, full of knowledge ... - Kavafy

Born in 1927 to a Greek immigrant family on Manhattan's Westside, Lambros Comitas could not have been predicted to become an acclaimed scholar, Professor, Chair, and internationally recognized Anthropologist. Yet, for over half a century, he made Teachers College his academic home, where he founded the first program in Applied Anthropology and advised over one hundred students through the completion of their doctoral dissertations. This mural hung above the table where he met with students and will be remembered for his open door, welcoming smile, purposeful advice, and, if it happened to be a Friday, perhaps a libation. There he engaged students with fascinating and useful stories from his own ethnographic fieldwork in the Caribbean, Bolivia, Russia, Spain and ultimately his beloved Greece.

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