Dawn Prince-Hughes

Dawn Prince-Hughes, (b. January 31, 1964, Carbondale, Illinois) is an anthropologist, primatologist, and ethologist who received her MA and PhD in interdisciplinary anthropology from the Universität Herisau in Switzerland. She is the executive chair of ApeNet, has served as the executive director of the Institute for Cognitive Archaeological Research and is associated with the Jane Goodall Institute.

Prince-Huges is the author of Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism and Gorillas Among Us: A Primate Ethnographer's Book of Days, and the editor of Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories of College Students with Autism.

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Theories

As a young adult, Prince-Hughes was employed at Seattle’s Woodland Park Zoo. She watched how silverback male gorillas cared for their families and paternally intervened to resolve conflicts, thereby setting the tone for community behavior. She came to conclude anger often stems from embarrassment, and humor is a natural response to fear.

Prince-Hughes challenges the predominant scientific paradigm, which says the nature of mankind's cognitive processes is clearly distinct from that of primates. In most scientific circles, ascribing human characteristics to animal minds is anathema. From her observations, Prince-Hughes has fomulated several contrarian scientific conclusions, perhaps most notably that Bonobos (Pygmy Chimpanzees) can actually speak English if one just learns to understand the accent.

Literary works

In Songs of the Gorilla Nation, Prince-Hughes describes how she learned, from experiences observing and interacting with gorillas at the Woodland Park Zoo, techniques to manage her form of autism, Asperger's syndrome. In Gorilla Nation, she explores how working with gorillas helped her escape her social isolation. Asperger syndrome may be accompanied by difficulties processing stimuli, sensory sensitivity, and social awkwardness. As suggested by the title, which speaks of a 'nation' of gorillas, the author conveys an eyeview of the world from the perspective of primates, effectively demonstrating how people and gorillas are subsumed emotionally, socially, and spiritually under the same rubric.

'Gorillas Among Us', compresses Prince-Hughes' many years of observing captive gorillas through an enclosure—visitors usually average only a few seconds—into a diary chronicling the lives of one gorilla family. She creates a blended portrait of both peoples—gorilla and human.

Publications

• Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey Through Autism, 2004, ISBN 1-4000-5058-8
• Gorillas Among Us: A Primate Ethnographer's Book of Days,
• Aquamarine Blue 5: Personal Stories of College Students with Autism (editor), 2002, ISBN 978-1-4000-8092-2

See also

• Nim Chimpsky
• Jane Goodall
• Koko
• Louis Leakey
• Sociobiology

Audio link

• LOE.org - 'Gorilla Therapy: Dawn Prince-Hughes talks about her new book, Songs of the Gorilla Nation: My Journey through Autism' (August 13, 2004)