{"id":1720,"date":"2024-12-29T10:33:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-29T15:33:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.golive.clarku.edu\/faculty\/profiles\/john-traphagan\/"},"modified":"2026-04-03T03:08:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-03T07:08:20","slug":"john-traphagan","status":"publish","type":"cu_faculty","link":"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/faculty\/profiles\/john-traphagan\/","title":{"rendered":"John Traphagan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b>J. W. Traphagan<\/b> is an anthropologist and lecturer in the Department of Language, Literature, and Culture.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and his MA in ethics from Yale University.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He has over thirty years of experience conducting ethnographic research, largely in Japan.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>His work has appeared in <em>The Harvard Business Review<\/em>, <em>FastCompan<\/em>y, <em>The Conversation<\/em>, and many other media outlets in addition to numerous scientific journals.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>His most recent books are <em>Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan<\/em>, (Cambria Press, 2020), <em>Embracing Uncertainty: Future Jazz, That 13th Century Buddhist Monk, and the Invention of Culture<\/em> (Sumeru Press, 2021), and <em>The Myth of Organizational Culture: How Leaders Misunderstand the Role of Paradigms and Power<\/em> (McFarland, 2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":38321,"parent":0,"template":"","meta":{"cu_faculty_f180_userid":"C70327532","cu_faculty_first_name":"John","cu_faculty_last_name":"Traphagan","cu_faculty_employment_status":"Part Time","cu_faculty_rank":"Part-time Instructor","cu_faculty_position":"Part-time Instructor","cu_faculty_phone":"","cu_faculty_email":"JTraphagan@clarku.edu","cu_faculty_location":"","cu_faculty_about":"<p><b>J. W. Traphagan<\/b> is an anthropologist and lecturer in the Department of Language, Literature, and Culture.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He received his PhD in anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and his MA in ethics from Yale University.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>He has over thirty years of experience conducting ethnographic research, largely in Japan.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>His work has appeared in <em>The Harvard Business Review<\/em>, <em>FastCompan<\/em>y, <em>The Conversation<\/em>, and many other media outlets in addition to numerous scientific journals.<span>\u00a0 <\/span>His most recent books are <em>Cosmopolitan Rurality, Depopulation, and Entrepreneurial Ecosystems in 21st-Century Japan<\/em>, (Cambria Press, 2020), <em>Embracing Uncertainty: Future Jazz, That 13th Century Buddhist Monk, and the Invention of Culture<\/em> (Sumeru Press, 2021), and <em>The Myth of Organizational Culture: How Leaders Misunderstand the Role of Paradigms and Power<\/em> (McFarland, 2025).<\/p>","cu_faculty_degrees":"<span>Ph.D. in Anthropology,<\/span> University of Pittsburgh, 1997\n<span>M.A. in Social Ethics,<\/span> Yale University, 1986\n<span>B.A. in Political Science,<\/span> University of Massachusetts Lowell, 1983","cu_faculty_cv":"","cu_faculty_links":"{\"Professional Website URL\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jacktraphagan.com\",\"ORCID ID\":\"https:\\\/\\\/orcid.org\\\/0000-0001-9427-494X\",\"Google Scholar\":\"https:\\\/\\\/scholar.google.com\\\/citations?user=w1P0LucAAAAJ&amp;hl=en&amp;oi=ao\",\"Research Gate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/www.researchgate.net\\\/profile\\\/J-W-Traphagan?ev=hdr_xprf\"}","cu_faculty_scholarly_interests":"","cu_faculty_scholarly_works":"[{\"activityid\":14323,\"fields\":{\"Type\":\"Books and Monographs\",\"Title\":\"&lt;p&gt;The Myth of Organizational Culture: How Leaders Misunderstand the Role of Paradigms and Power&lt;\\\/p&gt;\",\"Series Title\":\"\",\"Year\":2025,\"Date Published\":\"\",\"Publisher\":\"Tonight Books\",\"Publisher City and State\":\"Jefferson, NC\",\"Country of Publisher\":\"USA\",\"Volume\":\"\",\"Edition\":\"\",\"Number of Pages\":\"\",\"ISBN\":\"978-1-4766-9699-7\",\"DOI\":\"\",\"CoAuthor\":null,\"URL\":\"\",\"Description\":\"\",\"Include description in output citation\":0,\"Origin\":\"Manual\"},\"facultyid\":\"C70327532\",\"status\":[{\"id\":14323,\"status\":\"Completed\\\/Published\",\"term\":\"Fall\",\"year\":2025,\"termid\":\"2025\\\/01\",\"listingorder\":6,\"completionorder\":6}],\"userid\":\"C70327532\",\"attachments\":[],\"coauthors_list\":[\"J. W. Traphagan\"],\"sort_date\":\"2025-9-01\"}]","cu_faculty_awards_and_grants":"","cu_faculty_title":"Part-time Instructor, Language, Literature &amp; Culture","cu_faculty_department":"Language, Literature &amp; Culture","cu_faculty_affiliated_departments":"Language, Literature &amp; Culture, Language, Literature and Culture (LLC)","footnotes":""},"cu_faculty_group":[],"cu_faculty_department":[13],"cu_faculty_position":[],"class_list":["post-1720","cu_faculty","type-cu_faculty","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","cu_faculty_department-language-literature-culture"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.2 (Yoast SEO v27.3) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>John Traphagan | Faculty<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.clarku.edu\/faculty\/profiles\/john-traphagan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"John Traphagan\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"J. 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