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Julie Fleischman Receives Grant for Humanitarian Forensics Project
Julie Fleischman, PhD Candidate, has received funding from the American Academy of Forensic Sciences’ Humanitarian and Human Rights Resource Center to oversee a new osteological project at Krang Ta Chan (a former Khmer Rouge security center and mass gravesite in Takeo Province). The funded research will be conducted by Mr. Veon Vuthy, Director of the Department of Archaeology and Prehistory in Cambodia, and the Choeung Ek Osteology Laboratory Team. Vuthy has a strong desire to preserve the human remains at Krang Ta Chan to inform the younger Cambodian generations about their past, to memorialize the victims of such violence, and…
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MSU Anthropology Alumni Lead Award-winning Project in Archaeology and Tribal Consultation
In May, 2015 the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) with its partners, the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa & Chippewa Indians, the Little River Band of Ottawa Indians, the Little Traverse Bay Bands of Odawa Indians, the Match-e-be-nash-she-wish Band of Pottawatomi, the Nottawaseppi Huron Band of the Potawatomi, the Saginaw Chippewa Indian Tribe of Michigan, and Commonwealth Cultural Resources Group, Inc. received the Governor’s Award for Historic Preservation. The State Historic Preservation Office at MSHDA initiated the award program in 2003 to recognize outstanding historic preservation achievements that reflect a commitment to the preservation of Michigan’s unique character and the…
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Dr. Lovis Awarded Grant for Synthetic Environmental Archaeological Research at Sleeping Bear Dunes
William Lovis, with colleagues Alan Arbogast (MSU Geography), and G. William Monaghan (Indiana U/Indiana Geological Survey) have been awarded a $40,996 grant titled Synthesis of Landscape Evolution, Human Use, and Management of Site 20LU115, Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, Michigan. This research team brings the perspectives of environmental archaeology, dune geomorphology, and glacial landscape evolution to bear on a common problem. The grant, from the Midwest Archaeological Center, U.S. National Park Service, and the Cooperative Ecosystem Study Unit (CESU) is already in force and will run through early 2017. The award will fund multidisciplinary research synthesizing information from remote sensing,…
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Dr. Norman J. Sauer Named Vice President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences
Dr. Norman J. Sauer, Professor Emeritus of Anthropology, was named Vice President of the American Academy of Forensic Sciences (AAFS) at the Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida. This prestigious position is an honor for Dr. Sauer, and it places the MSU Department of Anthropology in the international spotlight while Dr. Sauer serves his term of office. The AAFS is the world’s largest and most prestigious forensic science organization with over 7,000 members representing nearly 75 countries. The multidisciplinary organization is divided into 11 sections, and includes practitioners from various forensic science disciplines, including, among others, physicians, dentists, biologists, chemists, engineers, and anthropologists.…
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Dr. Joseph T. Hefner Receives Major Grant
We are pleased to announce that Dr. Hefner has received a grant in the amount of $423,959 from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) to fund the project A Macromorphoscopic Databank: Establishing the Statistical Analysis of Macromorphoscopic Data in Forensic Anthropology. The two-year research project will address a methodological gap in forensic anthropology by providing reference data and establishing analytical methods to accurately and objectively assess ancestry. Dr. Hefner will be gathering data on macromorphoscopic traits (slight variation in cranial form) in order to correlate patterns in the frequency distribution of traits to forensically-significant populations. His goal is to establish…
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New Book by Mara Leichtman: Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal
Dr. Mara Leichtman announces the publication of her new book Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal. The book is available from Indiana University Press starting September 27, 2015. From the publisher’s website: Mara A. Leichtman offers an in-depth study of Shi‘i Islam in two very different communities in Senegal: the well-established Lebanese diaspora and Senegalese “converts” from Sunni to Shi‘i Islam of recent decades. Sharing a minority religious status in a predominantly Sunni Muslim country, each group is cosmopolitan in its own way. Leichtman provides new insights into the everyday lives of Shi‘i Muslims in Africa and the dynamics…
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The Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research (LEADR) Completes a Successful First Year
This fall marks the one-year anniversary of LEADR (the Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research), a new joint initiative among Anthropology, History, and MATRIX Center for Digital Humanities and Social Sciences. LEADR functions an interdisciplinary classroom, digital resource library, and a pedagogical and methodological support center located in 112 Old Horticulture. LEADR was initially funded by the Office of the Provost as part of an effort to create robust technology environments for teaching and learning at MSU. The Lab is staffed by three graduate assistants, including Brian Geyer from Anthropology, and is under the direction of Brandon…
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New Book by Chantal Tetreault: Transcultural Teens: Performing Youth Identities in French Cités
Dr. Chantal Tetreault announces the publication of her new book Transcultural Teens: Performing Youth Identities in French Cités, available from Wiley-Blackwell starting May of 2015. From the publisher’s website: Transcultural Teens provides readers with a window onto the cultural and linguistic creativity of the housing projects, or cités, that ring Paris, showing how young people of Algerian Arab origins play with language in fascinating ways that subvert commonly held notions of intercultural animosity. http://www.wiley.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-1119044154.html This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.
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New Book by Andrea Louie: How Chinese Are You? Adopted Chinese Youth and their Families Negotiate Identity and Culture
Dr. Andrea Louie’s new book How Chinese Are You? Adopted Chinese Youth and their Families Negotiate Identity and Culture was released in August of 2015. In it, Dr. Louie examines the challenges Chinese adoption presents to families trying to honor their children’s “birth culture.” This ethnographic study analyzes how both white and Asian American adoptive parents engage in changing understandings of and relationships with “Chineseness” as a form of ethnic identity, racial identity, or cultural capital over the life course. Available through NYU PRESS: http://nyupress.org/books/9781479894635/ This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire…
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Sabrina Perlman and Julie Fleischman Awarded Fulbright IIE Grants
The Department of Anthropology is very happy to announce that Sabrina Perlman (left) and Julie Fleischman (right) have been awarded Fulbright IIE Grants. Recipients of Fulbright grants are selected on the basis of academic and professional achievement, as well as demonstrated leadership potential. Julie will conduct her dissertation research on Khmer Rouge regime violence by analyzing skeletal trauma and memorialization in Cambodia. Sabrina will conduct her dissertation research on the gender dynamics of self-managing type 2 diabetes in Ghana.