Faculty and Alums: New Books
Ann Anagnost co-edited a volume together with Andrea Arai andHai Ren entitled Global Futures in East Asia: Youth, Nation, and the New Economy in Uncertain Times (Stanford University Press, 2013). It gathers together ethnographic explorations of what it means to be living in post-miracle times, especially for youth striving to understand themselves and their place in the world. It includes essays by a number of alumni from the Department of Anthropology:Hai Ren, Ching-wen Hsu, Nickola Pazderic, Trang X. Ta, andHairong Yan.
Faculty: Grants and Fellowships
Megan Carney, lecturer this year in anthropology, won a postdoc fellowship for next year, on the theme “Beyond North America: Global Borders,” with the Comparative Border Studies Institute at Arizona State University.
Danny Hoffman is the recipient of a New Directions Fellowship from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. These fellowships assist faculty who seek to acquire systematic training outside their own areas of special interest. Danny will pursue formal training in architecture and urban design. He anticipates that the training will provide the foundation of a long-term research project exploring urban warfare and security interventions in African cities.
Geoff Kushnick has been awarded a Fulbright Scholars Grant, which will support five months of research in North Sumatra beginning February 2014.
Celia Lowe received a Simpson Center Faculty Fellowship to work on a book about the outbreak of highly pathogenic H5N1 avian influenza that occurred in Southeast Asia in the first decade of the 20th century. The manuscript, "Avian Influenza, Security, and Global Health in Indonesia: An Ethnography of a Virus," documents how Indonesians were enrolled in international concerns about pandemic preparedness, biosecurity, and global health, and sets these alongside more local concerns over national well being and sovereignty.
Michael Perez has been awarded an Arab Council of Social Sciences research grant on inequality, mobility, and development in the Arab world. Together with Sahera Bleibleh (a Palestinian PhD in urban studies/design from UW) he will be running a two-year study in the Jenin refugee camp in the Occupied West Bank.
Faculty and Staff: Awards
Don Grayson received the Founders Lifetime Achievement Award at the 33rd Great Basin Anthropological Conference in Lake Tahoe, CA. The award recognizes exceptional contributions of members that have participated for more than twenty years in the development of Great Basin anthropology.
Diane Guerra, our Director of Student services, was recently nominated for the 2013 University of Washington Distinguished Staff Award, the university's highest staff honor. The award recognized Diane for her extraordinary achievements and service to the university.
Danny Hoffman received the 2012 Leeds award for his book, The War Machines: Young Men and Violence in Sierra Leone and Liberia (Duke University Press, 2011). This award is given annually by the Society for Urban, National, and Transnational Anthropology for the most exemplary book of research conducted in urban, national or transnational contexts, with particular attention to methodological innovation. His photo-ethnographic analysis looks at the young men fighting the Mano River War in Sierra Leone and Liberia.
Jessica Johnson has been honored as an “Outstanding UW Woman” as part of a campus-wide celebration of Women's History Month.
Devon Peña was selected as the 2013 National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies (NACCS) Scholar. His nomination packet notes that, “scholarship and activism defined the personal character of the life-long experience of Dr. Peña in academia and the community…he has promoted the goals and objectives of the association and served as a role model for the new generation of Chicana/o scholars." Devon served as Chair of NACCS from 1989-1990 and again from 2010-2011.
Devon also received the 2012 Metropolitan State University of Denver Castro Distinguished Visiting Professorship. He gave the keynote address at a community event on “Sacred Water y Tierra Sagrada.”
Faculty: Keynote Addresses and Community Outreach
Alison Wylie gave the keynote address at the American Philosophical Association (APA), Pacific Division. She has also been named the new President of the Pacific Division of the APA. She was a Visiting Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study, University of Durham (UK) in the Fall of 2012, where she joined a diverse group of scholars working on topics related to the annual theme of “Time.”
Faculty: Research, Curriculum Development, and Conferences
Ben Fitzhugh has been working with the UW polar research community in the development of a new inter-college, interdisciplinary initiative: The “Future of Ice: a Polar Regions Initiative.” It brings together scholars from various programs to make the UW an unparalleled center of excellence in the integrated study of physical, biological, and social science of the polar regions. It will train the next generation of polar scholars, educators and policy makers, and will engage with the public, stakeholders and government entities in informed policy development.
Patricia Kramer’s research on walking gait among early hominins was featured in the Smithsonian.