Each spring the University comes together to celebrate the achievements of our students as many of them graduate and leave our immediate community. With this newsletter, we attempt to do something of the same — share with you, our larger community, the accomplishments of the Department of Anthropology.
Our purpose as a department is to create and disseminate knowledge about people — across diverse populations extant today, through the lens of deep time and evolutionary processes, in how we… Read more
Professor Stevan Harrell has been roaming the University of Washington campus, physically and intellectually, since joining the Department of Anthropology in 1974. Professor Harrell chaired the department from 1993-99, and has held appointments as a Curator of Asian Ethnology at the Burke Museum; Professor of China Studies in the Jackson School for International Studies; and Professor in the College of Forest Resources in the School of the Environment. He is a member of several centers (… Read more
Research Family, as it is affectionately known, is a group of Pacific Islander students at UW, primarily anthropology students, who gather at the Burke Museum each week. The students are drawn to the thousands of objects from Oceania in the ethnology collection. Research Family members decide for themselves the type of research they want to explore in a family-like atmosphere.
During winter quarter this year, Research Family became interested in the depictions of Pacific Islander people and… Read more
Congratulations are in order for biocultural anthropology graduate student Julius Doyle! Mr. Doyle was recently awarded a prestigious Ford Foundation fellowship to complete his dissertation, titled “I’m Black and I’m Strong: The Health Effects of Resilience in the Face of Discrimination among Black American Men in Metropolitan Seattle.” We have all read about, seen on TV, or felt first-hand the many ways in which African-Americans still experience distrust, fear, and outright discrimination… Read more
In Winter Quarter, a group of anthropology students, faculty, and staff gathered in the Husky Den Kitchen to cook together. The objective was to prepare a series of meals for Tent City, a self-managed community for homeless men and women that had settled into its temporary home for a three-month stay in the parking lot behind Wallace Hall on Brooklyn Avenue.
The project was a service learning opportunity that emerged from Ann Anagnost’s course “The Cultural Politics of Diet and Nutrition” (ANTH… Read more
Written by Peter Lape
At a public ceremony at the UW Intellectual House on May 12, 2017, tribal and US political leaders spoke to mark the end of the long journey of the Ancient One. These ancestral human remains (also known as Kennewick Man) were discovered on the banks of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington in 1996. The bones soon became the center of a conflict between a group of anthropologists who sued to prevent his repatriation, the Army Corps of Engineers, who owned the land… Read more
Each year, in the final few hours of the last day of December, many people all across North America gather with friends to raise a glass and sing Robert Burns’s famous ballad, “Auld Lang Syne.” Standing at the brink of a New Year, arms around each other, they ask: “Should old acquaintance be forgot, and never brought to mind?” The question is meant to be rhetorical, of course — the answer is “No.” The years may pass, but we should hold on to our friends.
For many… Read more
During the past few years, I have been fortunate enough to have been elected to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and to have been chosen to give the annual University of Washington Faculty Lecture. All three experiences were so different that I describe them in chronological order.
I was inaugurated into the National Academy of Sciences in 2014. Held in Washington D.C., the inauguration was eye-opening, in that I realized immediately that the… Read more
We are excited to report the successful completion of a four-part seminar and workshop series, “Preserving the Past Together.” The series explored indigenous and community-based archaeology’s contribution to caring for and protecting cultural heritage interests in the Pacific Northwest’s Salish Sea. Participants included tribal representatives, heritage resource managers, educators, and archaeologists employed by universities, area tribes, CRM firms, local, federal, and state agencies.… Read more
Department of Anthropology Fiscal Specialist John Cady capped ten years in the department with a nomination for the 2017 Individual Distinguished Staff Award. The official announcement was read by UW President Ana Mari Cauce at a ceremony in late February.
Managing the finances of the department means addressing unusual circumstances every day. Our faculty and students work around the world, and much of what we do does not fit neatly into existing categories. Our 30+ faculty and 75… Read more
FACULTY
Holly Barker, UW Anthropology Senior Lecturer and Burke Museum Curator for Oceanic and Asian Culture, spoke at the 2016 UW Freshman Convocation and was nominated for the Distinguished Contributions to Lifelong Learning Award from the University of Washington.
Radhika Govindrajan was awarded the AAA General Anthropology Division Exemplary Cross-Field Scholarship Award for her article, ‘The Goat That Died for Family: Animal Sacrifice and Interspecies Kinship in India’s Central… Read more
GRADUATE STUDENTS
Baishakhi Basu was awarded a NSF Dissertation Improvement Grant for her doctoral research on, "The effect of famine on ovarian aging in Bangladeshi women."
Dianne Baumann received National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) for three years beginning 2017. She also received the Anthropology James Fellowship for 2017-18.
Darren Byler was awarded a Simpson Center Society of Scholars research fellowship to support the completion of his… Read more
We would like to take this opportunity to thank those generous donors who contributed to our efforts this past year. We believe that anthropology makes a world of difference and we want you to know that you make a world of difference to us!
Dr. David Agoada Ann S. Anagnost, PhD Robert T. Boyd, PhD Dr. Ruth G. Bryan Curtis Wienker Trust William S. Dancey, PhD Lydia A. DeSantis, PhD Lawrence Epstein, PhD Mr. Dennis M. Fleck Mr. Jason T. Froggatt Ms. Yunqi Fu Ms. Patricia B. Fuqua Dr… Read more