Le tt er F rom t h e C ha ir Our alumni and current students are unlikely to be surprised to hear that our department is at the forefront of global studies at Stanford. Nevertheless, you will be interested to learn that, according to a report by the Dean of Research to the Board of Trustees Special Committee on Globalization, we have far and away the greatest number of international research projects involving human subjects of any department at Stanford. With 47 projects at international locations around the globe, our faculty, graduate and undergraduate students are engaged in twice as many projects outside the U.S. as any other department. Twenty-two of our 25 faculty have ongoing research projects at one or more international sites, and we have 15-17 graduate students abroad in the field at any given time. The latter number typically doubles during the summer, when many more of our graduate and undergraduate students take to their overseas field sites. As the Letters from the Field in this Newsletter illustrate (pp. 26-33) these projects cover a wide range of topics and areas of the world: from garbage and cleanliness campaigns in Kampala, Uganda, to hunting and food sharing among the Inuit of northern Canada. If you click on the markers on the map at our department website, you can see these research sites --- https://www.stanford.edu/dept/anthropology/cgi-bin/web/ . As global connections and flows increasingly shape people’s ideas, their everyday practices, and the institutions governing them, anthropology has become all the more crucial to understanding our contemporary world. The collage of terms on the cover of this newsletter represents the impressive range of topics, issues, methods, and projects that are being pursued by our alumni and other anthropologists. To introduce our students to the ways in which training in anthropology can prepare them for a broad range of careers, this year the department organized several events featuring anthropologists working in both private and public sectors (see pp 6-9). Among the alumni featured in this newsletter include job titles Chief Deputy of the Department of Public Social Services (Phil Ansell, 1982 B.A.), Clinical Psychologist (Janice Larkin, 1972 B.A.), Investment Analyst (Ana Diaz-Hernandez, 2011 B.A.), Director of Interaction and Experience Research (Genevieve Bell, 1998 PhD.), Research Social Scientist (Susan Charnley, 1994 PhD.), Curator (Liz Clevenger, 2004, M.A.), and Founder and CEO (Brody Ferguson, 2010, PhD.). At the same time that our alumni illustrate the relevance of anthropology to non-academic careers, others among them continue to make key contributions to academia. Hugh Gusterson (1992 PhD.) who is interviewed (see page 14) by Aisha Ghani (dissertation writer) in this newsletter, received the American Anthropological Association’s President’s Award for his contributions to the discipline. Gusterson, who is Professor of Anthropology at George Mason University, was also elected President of the American Ethnological Association. In the last year, our recent PhDs were appointed to faculty positions at the London School of Economics, Syracuse University, UCLA, Union College, and the University of Minnesota. Back at the ranch, the intellectual life of the department continued its energetic pace with a series of stimulating conferences, workshops and exhibits (see pp. 16-19). The subjects of these conferences included the historical archaeology of the Indian Ocean World, the translation and practice of Maoism in different parts of the world, the human and nonhuman histories that have produced Caribbean landscapes, and infrastructure, urban space, and reconstruction in the aftermath of the Sri Lankan civil war. Our faculty and students were also key organizers and participants in several workshops that held multiple sessions throughout the year. These include the Marta Sutton Week’s Workshop in Religion and Ethics, the workshop on Cultures, Minds and Medicines, Experiments in Academic Writing, and Approaches to Capitalism. Much as I think it foolhardy for anthropologists to engage in predictions, it’s safe to say that life in the department in the coming year will be as lively as the last. Best wishes to all,
Sylvia Yanagisako Edward Clark Crossett Professor of Humanistic Studies Professor and Chair, Department of Anthropology
VOLUME 7
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2013 / 2014 NEWSLETTER
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ANTHROPOLOGY
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