Department of Anthropology

  • New Book by Mara Leichtman: Shi’i Cosmopolitanisms in Africa: Lebanese Migration and Religious Conversion in Senegal

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    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 of local and global Islam. She explores the influence of Hizbullah and Islamic reformist movements, and offers a corrective to prevailing views of Sunni-Shi‘i hostility, demonstrating that religious coexistence is possible in a context such as Senegal.

    http://www.iupress.indiana.edu/product_info.php?cPath=1037_3130_3698&products_id=807558

     

     

    This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Fall 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

  • The Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research (LEADR) Completes a Successful First Year

    The Lab for the Education and Advancement in Digital Research (LEADR) Completes a Successful First Year

     

    Brian (2)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 Locke, a digital humanities specialist from History. This semester alone, staff are working with 22 different courses in History and Anthropology on class assignments that range from blogging to text analysis of web sources. Projects from last year include an interactive map of archaeological sites in Egypt, created by students of ANP 455. Students learned basic HTML coding and incorporated web links into their essays for online publication. The entire project was hosted on GitHub (a social code-sharing platform), allowing both code and content to be shared with the public when students desired it. LEADR also assists Anthropology majors in developing an online portfolio as part of their capstone class, ANP 489.

    LEADR is a teaching space, but also a space for research innovation. The Campus Archaeology field school worked with LEADR this past summer to create visualizations for the metadata collected over the years. Graduate students in Anthropology are using the Lab to contribute to their dissertation research. Adrianne Daggett and Blair Zaid have each used the 3D scanning technologies at the Lab to scan and print artifacts. The Lab hosts Nvivo for qualitative analysis, as well as transcription pedals and software. A wide range of equipment is available to be checked out, from tablets to cameras to audio recording equipment. One of the purposes of the Lab is to promote ‘scholarly play’ and experimentation, adding a range of skills to anthropology degrees.

    Instructors hoping to integrate digital technology into their teaching methods can find support at LEADR for both undergraduate and graduate courses alike. Staff are available to help design assignments that achieve the learning outcomes instructors desire. The Lab’s pedagogical approach emphasizes new literacies: digital literacy (the ability to use technologies to find, understand, evaluate, create, and communicate information) and data literacy (becoming critical consumers and producers of data and the arguments made with it, within the discipline as well as in the news and politics). Students achieve these literacies while acquiring skills in coding, web writing and design, and multimedia data collection and dissemination techniques. The result is an increased capacity to make meaningful contributions to digital scholarship. In the future, Brandon would like to see more immersive projects for students, such as exhibition development. Brandon recommends that interested instructors meet with staff prior to the start of the semester for optimal course planning.

    Images: Brian Geyer instructing students (above); Digital technology allows artifacts to be scanned and printed in 3D (below)

    Bone Print

     

  • New Book by Chantal Tetreault: Transcultural Teens: Performing Youth Identities in French Cités

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    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.

  • New Book by Andrea Louie: How Chinese Are You? Adopted Chinese Youth and their Families Negotiate Identity and Culture

    9781479894635_Full

    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 newsletter here.

  • Sabrina Perlman and Julie Fleischman Awarded Fulbright IIE Grants

    Sabrina Perlman and Julie Fleischman Awarded Fulbright IIE Grants

    PicMonkey Collage

    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.

  • Julie Fleischman and Sabrina Perlman Awarded Fulbright IIE Grants

    Julie Fleischman and Sabrina Perlman have been awarded Fulbright IIE U.S. Student Program research 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.

  • Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner Selected for National Standards Committee

    Fenton and Hefner
    Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner

    The Department of Anthropology is honored to announce that Dr. Todd Fenton and Dr. Joseph Hefner have been selected as inaugural members of the Organization of Scientific Area Committees (OSAC) Subcommittee on Anthropology. This is part of the larger organization, National Institute of Justice and National Institute on Standards and Technology, made up of more than 500 forensic science practitioners and other experts who represent local, state and federal agencies, and are within academia and industry. Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner were announced in October 2014 as two initial members of OSAC’s subcommittee on Anthropology, and the first inaugural meeting of the committee took place in January 2015. The Subcommittee on Anthropology is a subsection of Crime Scene/ Death Investigation and part of the new OSAC. The broader goal of the initiative is to develop standards and best practice guidelines for the discipline.

    The Subcommittee on Anthropology is an eighteen member committee that includes the top practitioners and researchers within Forensic Anthropology. Within the subcommittee, each member serves as a co-chair on a different best-practice guideline committee. Dr. Fenton is the Executive Secretary and co-chairs the Personal Identification and Trauma Analysis committees, and Dr. Hefner is serving as the co-chair for the Statistical Methods and Ancestry committees. The goal of the subcommittee is to establish best-practice guidelines for the discipline that will become standards for the field. This is an important step in that these standards can be referenced in court, helpful for legislation in the future, and will promote the use of common standards among forensic practitioners. Both Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner strongly believe in having these standards not only to improve the methods of discipline, but also to create stronger guidelines for personal and laboratory certification. These documents will set qualifications for who can be considered a forensic expert, promoting more rigorous certification of individuals and training labs, which will further add weight to court testimonials.

    It is an honor for Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner to have been selected for these position, and is a positive reflection of the broader Department of Anthropology. Their service on these committees for the next four years or more, and will help to improve forensic anthropology as a discipline. The guidelines and standards developed by the Subcommittee on Anthropology will be living documents that will continue to be updated to reflect with new research and advancements. For now, the current goal is to create the first set of standards so that this process can begin.

    You can learn more about the Subcommittee on Anthropology, as well as the broader Organization of Scientific Area Committees on their website at: http://www.nist.gov/forensics/osac/sub-anth.cfm

    This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Spring 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

  • TLE Award Allows Purchase of XRF Instrument

    XRF Instrument
    XRF Instrument

    With increasing archaeological applications of natural and physical scientific technology, there is an increased need to train students in their principles, application, interpretation and reporting. By doing this, students are able to compete successfully in a changing employment landscape. Working in tandem with Prof Tyrone Rooney (Geological Sciences), William Lovis and Rooney were awarded a $48,000 Provost’s Office TLE grant for purchase of a handheld (portable) X-Ray Florescence (pXRF) instrument for student training and research in advanced technologies. The Bruker Environmental Tracer unit acquired for this purpose will be housed in Geological Sciences. Lovis, along with graduate students Frank and Nicole Raslich, have undertaken EHS and State of Michigan training certification for use of analytical X-ray apparatus.

    The portable XRF is in common use in archaeology and museum studies as a vehicle for evaluating artifacts to determine their material sources, compositions, technologies, and transmission. This can help answer questions about tool production, migration, manufacturing processes and more. The technology is effectively applied to a broad range of raw material categories common in archaeological analysis, including ceramics, stone, metals, glass, pigments, food remains and others.   Moreover, the technology is in use in facilities at universities, museums, government agencies, and in private enterprise. Students appropriately trained in this technology will have an advantage in a competitive employment market especially in Heritage Management and environmentally related programs and projects funded by public dollars. These careers place a premium on the ability to employ various cutting edge technologies, portable XRF among them. Bruker Environmental will provide a comprehensive, on-site, training session at MSU for potential users. Students will be informed of scheduling particulars, and are urged to take advantage of this training opportunity when presented.

    This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Spring 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here.

  • Spring 2015 Newsletter

    The Department of Anthropology is proud to present the newest edition of the biannual newsletter. Our Spring 2015 issue features these articles:

    Spring 2015 Message from the Acting Chair: Dr. Laurie Medina

    Dr. Fenton and Dr. Hefner Selected for National Standards Committee

    TLE Award Allows Purchase of XRF Instrument

    Featured Faculty Member: Dr. Andrea Louie

    Featured Retired Faculty: Dr. Ken David

    Featured Adjunct: Dr. Jamil Hanifi

    Alumna Dr. Julie Pelletier: Working with Indigenous Communities

    Alumna Dr. Marita Eibl: Explores Government Opportunities

    Indigenous Graduate Student Collective: e-maamawizijig giizhiikamoowaad akinoowamaadiwinan

    Environmental Archaeology Research Partnership

    Graduate Student Awards, Grants and Fellowships

    Joshua Schnell Awarded Beinecke Scholarship

    This article is in the Department of Anthropology’s Spring 2015 Newsletter, see the entire newsletter here. Browse other newsletters here.

  • Indigenous Graduate Student Collective: e-maamawizijig giizhiikamoowaad akinoowamaadiwinan

    Untitled3In November 2012, Anthropology PhD students including Adam Haviland, Marie Schaefer, Kehli Henry, Nikki Silva, and Mike Cavanaugh, and law students from the Indigenous Law Program, including Sarah Donnelly, Nellie David and John Simermeyer, started a new graduate student organization at MSU for American Indian/indigenous students and other students interested in indigenous issues and scholarship. They created the Indigenous Graduate Student Collective (IGSC) to provide a space to collaborate, debate, and address common issues for graduate students working on indigenous issues across the University.

    The founding members were also inspired by a meeting with the University of Toronto Native Students Association, organized by Dr. Heather Howard in October 2011. Marie Schaefer explains, “We were inspired by their organization and the work they do to bring a similar group to life on MSU’s campus.” While MSU already had an indigenous undergraduate student group, the North American Indigenous Student Organization, graduate students felt it was important to have a group to support their distinct experience as graduate students. As Sarah Donnelly explains “It’s easy to just focus on school work and forget why we came to school in the first place: to help our tribe. The Native American Law Student Association (NALSA) and other native student organizations are a great way to collaborate and find support over native issues as well.”

    Since its founding the collective has worked on building connections with indigenous graduate students across campus. According to former member Victoria Sweet, “What I think is so valuable about this particular group is the potential it has for building strong inter-departmental connections. Sometimes those connections are hard to make because we are all so busy with our own coursework and research that we don’t make the time to reach out. Bringing the strengths of the various graduate programs together will only improve the quality of the conversation about American Indian issues on campus and provide greater opportunities for all students involved.” The mission of the IGSC is to promote indigenous scholarship and camaraderie among graduate students while building campus and community connections. One of the many objectives of the IGSC is to offer learning opportunities and to forge partnerships and community ties. In order to meet the needs of its members, IGSC has held a number of events including a symposium and an all day writing workshop, and faculty fry bread forums where members are able to ask questions of AISP faculty from across campus about graduate school and research while eating homemade fry bread.

    If you are interested in learning more about the IGSC you can visit their website at: www.msuigsc.weebly.com or email them at: msu.igsc@gmail.com.