Generative Anthropology originated with Professor Eric Gans of UCLA who developed his ideas in a series of books and articles beginning with The Origin of Language: A Formal Theory of Representation (1981), which builds on the ideas of René Girard, notably that of mimetic desire.
Gans founded (and edits) the web-based journal Anthropoetics: The Journal of Generative Anthropology as a scholarly forum for research into human culture and origins based on his theories of Generative Anthropology and the closely related theories of Fundamental Anthropology developed by René Girard.