Jay Ruby

Jay Ruby (October 25, 1935 – February 23, 2022) was an American scholar who was a professor in the Department of Anthropology at Temple University until his retirement in 2003. He received his B.A. in history and Ph.D. in anthropology (1969) from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Ruby was a leader in the field of visual anthropology. He died on February 23, 2022, at the age of 86.

Fieldwork and research As an archaeologist, Ruby conducted excavations in the American Southwest, West Mexico and the Republic of the Sudan. As a music critic and journalist, he interviewed pop music musicians, wrote album reviews and articles for the magazine Jazz and Pop. As an ethnographer of visual culture, he conducted long term participant-observation in Central Pennsylvania and Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago. Larry Gross, USC and Ruby edited enhanced ebook, The Complete Sol Worth. In the fall of 2008, Ruby began a study of Bohemian Southern California that resulted in three books (see below).

Filmography A Country Auction: The Paul V. Leitzel Sale (1983) Can I Get A Quarter? (1983) Rebekah and Sophie: A Lesbian Family (2005) Taylor Family Portrait (2005) Dear Old Oak Parkers (2006) Oak Park Regional Housing Center (2006) Val (2006) Country Auction Study Film: Reflexive Musings (2010)

Major publications Editor, A Crack in the Mirror: Reflexive Perspectives in Anthropology. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1982 Editor, Robert J. Flaherty, A Biography. Written by Paul Rotha. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 1983 Editor with Larry Gross and John Katz. Image Ethics: The Moral Rights of Subjects in Photographs, Film and Television. New York: Oxford University Press. 1988 Editor, The Cinema of John Marshall, Routledge. 1993 Secure the Shadow: Death and Photography in America. Cambridge: MIT Press. 1995 The World of Francis Cooper: Nineteenth Century Pennsylvania Photographer. University Park: Penn State University Press. 1999 Picturing Culture: Essays on Film and Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2000 Editor with Larry Gross and John Katz. Image Ethics in the Digital World. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2003 Editor with Marcus Banks. Made to Be Seen: Historical Perspectives on Visual Anthropology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 2011 Coffee House Positano: A Bohemian Oasis in Malibu 1957–1962. Boulder: University of Colorado Press. 2013 Editor with Larry Gross. The Complete Sol Worth.Los Angeles:USC Annenberg Press. 2013 The Property: Malibu's Other Colony. 2016. Editor, Bohemia in Southern California.