Graduate Students, Anthropology, U of I

GRADUATE STUDENTS Email Office
Acosta, Aide acosta1@uiuc.edu My subfield is Socio-cultural Anthropology with a particular interest in Applied Anthropology. My theoretical interests include: (Im)migration, Globalization and Transnationalism, Gender and Feminism, Race and Racialization, as well as Cultural Citizenship. My dissertation project examines current Latina/Latino (im)migration to east-central, Illinois in a post-NAFTA era. In particular, I look at the transnational character of Latina/o community formation in rural spaces of the Midwest in the context of citizenship debates, by interrogating the nature of cultural citizenship within a transnational context. Additionally, I ask: how are race, class, and gender relations interconnected in the process of transnational immigration as migrants navigate their citizenship status both legal and cultural? Through ethnographic research, I seek to contribute to the understanding of transnational immigration to rural settings by specifically examining the quotidian experiences of Latinas/os in rural towns. My geographical areas of expertise are the U.S., the Midwest, and northern Mexico. My interdisciplinary interests include Chicana/Chicano Studies and Latina/Latino Studies. As a scholar in the field, I will contribute to both applied and academic anthropological research. In my view, the intersection of these two can lead and contribute to social change. The theoretical, methodological, and analytical perspectives afforded by the discipline of anthropology can help activist scholars find creative ways to diminish the persistent social inequities faced by Latinas/os in the U.S. and Latin America as we listen and engage with the perspectives and experiences of our interlocutors.
Anaya, Lauren laanaya@uiuc.edu
Arnaldo Jr., Constancio arnaldo2@uiuc.edu 309N I am first year PhD student in socio-cultural anthropology. I earned my BA in Interdisciplinary Studies (with an emphasis in Asian American history) at California State University, Long Beach and an MA in American Studies from the University of Hawai’i, Manoa where my primary fields of study included issues of race/racism and Asian American Studies in general and Filipino American studies in particular. My areas of research and scholarly interests include the cultural significance of sport and its relationship to empire, its intersections of race, gender and masculinity among Filipino Americans in Hawai’i and California. My theoretical approaches to this study are informed by theories of postcolonialism, hegemony and phenomenology. I am particularly interested in exploring how sports are engaged and adopted among Filipino Americans and the ways in which they perform, imagine and explore negotiations of transnational Filipino/American identity. I was drawn to anthropology for a number of reasons. Methodologically, anthropology allows me to critically analyze the significance of sports beyond the surface level of athlete and/or fan. In addition, and more importantly, there is a supportive network of faculty, staff and graduate students who are committed to intellectual pursuit and who challenge me in innovative and creative ways.
Asher, Andrew (www) aasher@uiuc.edu
Baldwin, Jenn jbaldw5@uiuc.edu
Baltus, Melissa mbaltus2@uiuc.edu 309R
Beehr, Dana beehr@uiuc.edu
Berkhoudt, Karin berkhoud@uiuc.edu 309E My dissertation research focuses on the process of neoliberal decentralization of nature conservation practices in Uganda, specifically concerning Kibale National Park. By “conservation practices” I refer to activities aimed to preserve natural resources or ecosystems, including the discursive expression of ideologies, to serve future material or aesthetic needs. I approach decentralization not simply as sets of concrete reforms imposed by international donors (such as the World Bank, the IMF) and implemented by the Ugandan government, but rather as constantly constructed by a wide range of individual actors, from citizens to state authorities and NGO representatives. This process needs to be situated in a history of (post-/neo-)colonial conservation practices that have displaced people and criminalized their subsistence activities. I want to understand how the circulation of unstable new concepts and ideas about the governing of nature creates opportunities for actors to challenge or consolidate institutional and informal socio-political hierarchies. In addition, I will characterize the resulting ways in which conservation is practiced. I have a master’s degree in biology from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands and entered the graduate program at UIUC as a biological anthropologist interested in primate behavior and conservation. After two years I decided to transfer to socio-cultural anthropology to more critically examine what “conservation” means, how it is socially constructed and implicated in global structures of power and inequality. The professors in this department are an incredible source of support and inspiration in my efforts to define and pursue my research topic.
Betzenhauser, Alleen betzenha@uiuc.edu
Blumenfeld, Jodi (www) blumnfld@uiuc.edu I am a graduate student in biological anthropology. My dissertation research investigates two key problems: 1) the evolution of the human pattern of growth and development; and 2) the diversity in hominin supraorbital morphology. Anatomically modern humans exhibit a growth trajectory that is distinct from all other primates. We grow for a very long time, extending the period between birth and sexual maturation, with adult individuals changing little in terms of cranial form. The appearance of this distinctly human pattern of growth and development in our species' evolution, and whether or not it is shared even more widely with earlier fossil hominins, are issues that still remain poorly resolved. Why did such a prolonged period of development evolve in humans and how is it even adaptive? My research focuses on the frontal bone of the skull (and its associated supraorbital region) as a window into changes in development, and tests the hypothesis that sexually dimorphic and taxonomic variation in hominin browridge form results from relatively simple changes in size and shape during the growth and development of this region of the skull. In other words, shape differences in browridge morphology, often used to distinguish between different taxa and sexes, may actually be products of evolutionary shifts in size. Prior to enrolling at the U of I, I earned an MA in bioarchaeology at the University of Western Ontario in London, Ontario, Canada. I have spent two field seasons participating in fieldwork at the paleolithic site of Dmanisi in Georgia and one field season at the paleolithic cave site of La Caune de l'Arago in France. I also have over 9 years of archaeological field and lab experience from both Canada and the United States.
Brown Vega, Margaret (www) mybvega@uiuc.edu I am an archaeologist with geographical specialization in the Central Andes, and a particular interest in understanding late prehispanic societies of that region. My dissertation, to be completed in August 2008, is a study of ritual and warfare in the Huaura Valley, Perú. Broadly I am interested in understanding processes of domination and resistance in our collective (human) past. I study these processes and the past through material culture and practice-centered approaches that emphasize collective action. I have topical interests in war, imperialism, colonialism, the study of culture contact, frontiers and borders. I have methods specialization in geographic information systems and ceramic analysis. I also have interests in the integration of ethnohistory and archaeology, ethnoarchaeology, and the politics of archaeological research.
Cabana, Sharon scabana2@uiuc.edu
Castle, Tomi tcastle2@uiuc.edu
Chen, Junjie jchen1@uiuc.edu
Cho, John songcho@uiuc.edu
Choi, Hee Jung hchoi45@uiuc.edu 309E I am interested in transnational issues related to migration, diasporas, multiculturalism and identity. Also, I want to study memory, neoliberalism, and postmodernism. My geographical area of expertise is East Asia, particularly Korea.
Dong, Yu (Doreen) yudong2@uiuc.edu 309R I’m a second year graduate student in archaeology. I’m interested in Neolithic China, especially the origin of agriculture. The agricultural revolution introduced dramatic social changes, including an increasing population density, the invention of pottery, personal wealth, and the complexity of society organization. Meanwhile, at least two independent origin of agriculture in China (north and south) proposed more interesting questions. Was environment the dominant factor resulting millet versus rice agriculture? How’s the communications between millet and rice consuming groups? Are there significant culture differences between them? Those are all amazing questions that I hope I can address in my research. Stable isotope analysis will be the main tool I’ll be using addressing those questions, not because stable isotope is a fancy word, but because carbon isotope could give direct evidence of millet or rice consuming in the circumstances when no grain remains were found in archaeological excavation, and because strontium stable isotope could tell migrations between groups, and oxygen isotope could indicate environmental changes. Meanwhile, ancient DNA analysis on plant and animal domestication, paleopathology analysis on human skeleton, contemporary millet versus rice culture comparisons in modern China all shed promising lights in this field. I’m happy to be here in this anthropology department that I can get input from all these aspects.
Dulanto, Jahl dulanto@uiuc.edu
Egüez-Guevara, Pilar peguez2@uiuc.edu 309N I am a graduate student in the socio-cultural program in Anthropology at UIUC, from Quito-Ecuador. I have conducted research in Ecuador, Argentina and Cuba which include the following topics and areas of study. At the national scale in Ecuador: dollarization; women’s health, sexuality and reproduction from the perspective of population and gender studies’, sex traffic and trade and sexual violence, migration (with a focus in Loja-Ecuador), child labor, and integral education from a children and youth rights’ perspective. In Argentina (Cordoba, Buenos Aires): economic anthropology, gender and development and social economy with attention to the experience of women in the bartering networks during the 2001 economic crisis. I have conducted ethnographic research among marginalized women in Buenos-Aires and Cordoba, Argentina, and worked in social projects with Afro-descendant children and women in Quito, Esmeraldas, and Coca - Ecuador. Within the socio cultural Ph.D. program at UIUC, my interests focus on gender, sexuality, reproduction and the state from a historical perspective in late 19th and early 20th century Cuba. I am interested in prostitution policies in the context of colonial interventions in the spheres of sexuality and reproduction, including interracial marriage and sexual violence (i.e. rape and seduction) and their articulation with nationalism, imperialism, colonialism and their founding discourses of race, class, gender, science and medicine. In this context, I will be working within the intersections of socio-cultural anthropology, medical anthropology, ethno-history/social history and gender studies. “Mujer y Población”, in Prieto, Mercedes ed. Mujeres ecuatorianas. Entre las crisis y las oportunidades 1990-2004, CONAMU, FLACSO, UNFPA, UNIFEM. October 2005. Quito. (Women and Population, in Ecuadorian Women. Between crises and opportunities 1990-2004) Book review Ideology, a multidisciplinary perspective, Teun van Dijk, 2002. In ICONOS, Academic Journal of FLACSO-Ecuador, May 2003. “Women’s participation in the Barter Networks in Argentina: Implications for the project of the Social Economy.” CLACSO, Buenos Aires-Argentina 2005. Published online by the Network of Social Researchers in Social Economy at www.riless.org
Emerson, Kjersti kemerson@uiuc.edu
Fay, Kathryn kfay2@uiuc.edu 309S I am a PhD student in historic archaeology, with an interest in post-contact period North America. I have previously participated in a fieldschool in Illinois and have also done some cultural resource management work at various sites throughout the state. Though all of my previous fieldwork has been within Illinois, I have yet to decide on a specific geographical area of interest. I also have research interests in gender and sexuality studies and museum studies, and hope to link these issues with archaeological projects. I have also done artifact analysis for a site in Kenya and have a historical interest in Sub-Saharan Africa. I got into archaeology after my fieldschool at New Philadelphia, Illinois, which convinced me to transfer schools and get a double degree in anthropology and history.
Garcia, Alyssa adgarci1@uiuc.edu
Glaros, Angela glaros@uiuc.edu My dissertation research project, entitled “Soundscapes of Tradition: Singing Gender on Skyros,” analyzes the social and political dimensions of women’s traditional vocal music on the Greek island of Skyros. Working from a discourse-centered perspective that examines musical sound and embodied performance practice as well as talk about music, I consider “voice” both in the literal sense of musical sound, and as a metaphor for social power. Understanding sound as a cultural system that not only reflects, but also actively shapes, social identities and relations, I ask how Greek women “sing gender” when they perform vocal music—that is, how they enact, and comment upon, the society they inhabit. I employ “tradition” as a central discursive theme with multiple meanings, in order to investigate how women on Skyros confront gender roles, religion, and the transmission of knowledge transmission—musical and otherwise. Additionally, my focus on “tradition” allows me to understand how my consultants negotiate continuity and change across local, national and supranational discursive spaces, such as the European Union. I engage the current literature on the shifting boundaries of the nation-state and the EU by addressing the gendered aesthetics embodied in local articulations of discourses such as “traditional” musical heritage. As many communities around the world now grapple with the gendered politics of preserving—and performing—“traditions,” I hope to contribute to the study of gender and performance, as well as other domains in which women confront the politics of “keeping their place” and struggle to find their “voices.” 1998 “The Tsifte-teli Sermon: Gender, Identity and Theology in Rebetika Dance,” in The Passion of Music and Dance: Gender, Sexuality, and the Body, William Washabaugh, ed. Oxford: Berg, pp. 127-132. 1997 “Conceptualizing the Body in Greek Dance.” Part I published November 1997, Anthropology Newsletter (monthly publication of the American Anthropological Association) vol. 38 (8): 26; Part II published December 1997, Anthropology Newsletter vol. 38 (9): 39.
Goebel, Alison agoebel@uiuc.edu My dissertation research investigates how middle class dominance and white racial privilege are being altered under global capitalism, and the significance of urban space in these changes. Since 2005, my research in Mansfield, Ohio, a small deindustrializing city, has focused on three interrelated questions: how are relations of middle class whiteness being reconfigured in the context of global capitalism? What are the structural and lived consequences of these cultural changes for whites and people of color? and How does small city space organize the intersections of race, class, and gender under global capitalism? As a sociocultural and linguistic anthropologist, I interpret my data using discourse analysis, in concert with anthropological theories of race and racialization, class, and urbanity. I heavily dapple in United States labor, immigration, and urban history, and frequently draw on scholars from many different disciplines who are generating and advancing critical theories of whiteness. I also regularly venture into the diverse field of urban studies and urban planning. Despite my utmost respect (and shameless dependency upon) U.S. history and American studies, I find anthropology to be the best discipline from which I can interrogate racial formation, global capitalism and urban space. The uniqueness of anthropology’s methodologies, and it commitment to synthesizing individual local conditions and global structural situations keeps me energized and always rewarded.
Grabowski, Mark mgrabow3@uiuc.edu 188
Grim-Feinberg, Kate kgrimfe2@uiuc.edu 309E I am interested in using sociocultural and linguistic anthropology as a tool for social action. I believe that ethnographic research and anthropological theory can contribute valuable information for dealing with pressing social issues. My research interests center on children’s learning and socialization, and how different forms of socialization in the home and community compare with and influence the ways that children learn in formal schooling. I am currently working with an indigenous Quechua community in the Peruvian Andes, exploring the ways in which public school teachers and administrators are adapting curricula to the local cultural context, in response to pressures for educational reform coming from both the outside (the Peruvian state and foreign-based NGOs), and the inside (parents and community members). I intend to use discourse analysis to compare the ways that children learn and apply their knowledge and skills in school and community situations. I am interested in theories of learning in practice, embodied memory and language, language ideologies, social networks, and linguistic communities. I have done previous work with Mexican migrants in the US, exploring the interplay of language and social networks, and their effects on communal social capital. 2007 Strengthening Social Capital through Bilingual Competence in a Transnational Migrant Community: Mexicans in Upstate New York. International Migration 45(1): 177-208.
Grimes-MacLellan, D. grimesma@uiuc.edu
Gutierrez, Daniel djgutier@uiuc.edu
Hanks, Michelle mhanks2@uiuc.edu
Hardin, Jennifer jahardin@uiuc.edu 395
Hazard, Ethel hazard@uiuc.edu
Hope, William whope@uiuc.edu 283 My research explores the interrelationships between Cuban music making and cultural nationalism, the changing relations between artists and the state, and situations of Cuban music within the transnational music industries. Specifically, I examine music making as a venue for nationalist sentiment from the complementary vantage points of ethnographic study and social history of two prominent musical traditions, Cuban son and punto guajiro. I emphasize the ways distinct contexts of musical performances frame social interactions and cultural meanings through the generation of signs of experience that constitute the aesthetic and ethical orientations with which people interpret and engage their social world.
Jelinek, Petra jelinek@uiuc.edu
Jerry, Anthony ajerry2@uiuc.edu I am interested in continuing to explore the way in which African descendant identities are formed, specifically in Mexico, and how these identities do or do not connect individuals to the larger “African Diaspora”. Also important to my interests in Mexico to is a focus on African descended populations in the Caribbean and other parts of Latin America, looking at commonalities and differences of the African Diaspora as its people have responded to the various dominant populations that existed at the time of their resettlement. My research in Oaxaca, Mexico provides a foundation for understanding how differences in the colonial experience have impacted the formation of distinct cultures among hyphenated African populations. At the same time, I seek to discover the commonalities that may exist or the search for commonalities among contemporary populations that they may use to re-define themselves within Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Latino Discourses. I am also interested in representations in the media and the ways that these representations have been used to form social discourse.
Jung, Jin-Heon jinjung@uiuc.edu
Kim, HyunHee hkim19@uiuc.edu 396B My research interests include various issues such as 1.5 and second generation Asian American professionals' identities and community service, the multiple workings of illegality and legality, race/ethnicity and citizenship, and immigration and racialization. My research focus is Korean Americans, one of rapidly changing Asian American groups. My dissertation investigates the intersections between law, race and citizenship in a Korean American community in New York City by mobilizing the example of Korean American legal professionals community service activities to their co-ethnics. I argue that co-ethnic communtiy service reveals the (re)production of divergent meanings of il/legality, and further provides a venue to analyze tensions and contradictions implicated in US racial structure.
Landry, Timothy tlandry2@uiuc.edu 390 I am a sociocultural anthropologist with ethnographic interests in both West Africa and the African diaspora. My current project focuses on the ways in which Mahi peoples of Bénin create and maintain ethnic spaces in relation their close neighbors the Fon. It is my hope that this information will then allow me to explore the ways in which Mahi and Fon identities and re-collections are re-membered and performed in Haiti by practicing Vodouisants. My other research interests include: interpretive theory, embodiment theory, the anthropology of memory, sensuous scholarship, religion, ritual, witchcraft, tourism, and museum studies. [www.timlandry.net or email at tlandry2@uiuc.edu]
Larkin, Lance llarkin2@uiuc.edu As a doctoral student in cultural anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, I am working on a dual-site research project on a contemporary stone sculpture movement in southern Africa, focusing on Zimbabwe and South Africa.  The Zimbabwean sculpture movement began in the 1960s and the sculptures are now sold in galleries from Los Angeles to Paris, and have been marketed as a continuation of “traditional” carving as practiced by the Shona, the dominant ethnic group in Zimbabwe. Indeed, European gallery owners who have encouraged local artists to sculpt have pointed to the archeological ruins of “Great Zimbabwe” as evidence that stone sculpting is an indigenous tradition with ancient roots. The stone sculpture movement involves an economy of expectations. Individual sculptures are often linked to “traditional” culture by being given titles by the sculptors or the dealers, such as “Witchdoctor” and “Spirit Ancestor.” Yet, at the same time that the sculptors explicitly stress “tradition,” many of these contemporary artists themselves use the Western art market adeptly to further their careers and contest these notions of “dark Africa.”
Lemus, Sergio slemus@uiuc.edu I am in my first year of the PhD Program in Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of Illinois. I am a native from Jalisco, Mexico but consider my home to be the South Side of Chicago. I got my B.A in Latin American Studies from Illinois in 2005 and a M.A. in Anthropology from the University of California at Riverside in 2006. At Illinois, I am in the process of developing a dissertation project among Mexican landscaping workers in the city of Chicago. The focus is to look at how men and women are often times forced to structure their lives and families considering, by necessity, or because of, economic, social, and political conditions. At the core of this analysis is to view how capitalism is constantly transforming class relations by looking at who are the losers and winners in “the game” of survival in the political economy of the great Windy city (to put it in plain language). If passionate is the word, I will use it; that is how I feel about my Anthropology. I was brought to the discipline by reading Renato Rosaldo’s Culture and Truth and by one of his former students. But more than anything, I saw that I could to make a difference in the world through Anthropology. Further, I think that it is nothing more pleasant than spending your lifetime doing what you like: writing and changing peoples lives for the better I hope.
Lim, Soo Kyung soolim@uiuc.edu
Liu, Tzu-kai tliu4@uiuc.edu
Maas, Steven smaas@uiuc.edu
Martínez-Mota, Rodolfo I am a biological anthropology student and my research interests are focused on the relationships between ecology, physiology and behavior. Particularly, I am interested in the ecology of infectious diseases, and how stress and reproductive hormones relate with the immune system in non-human primates. I have conducted fieldwork in Mexico studying aspects of the stress response of black howler monkeys (Alouatta pigra), and for my doctoral dissertation I will extend my research to another Mexican primate species, the spider monkey (Ateles geoffroyi). One of the most exciting things in Anthropology is the possibility of studying our closest living relatives (i.e. non-human primates) to understand human behavior and physiological processes. Valdespino C, Martínez-Mota R, García-Feria LM, Martínez-Romero LE.2007.Evaluación de eventos reproductivos y estrés fisiológico en vertebrados silvestres a partir de sus excretas: evolución de una metodología no invasiva. Acta Zoológica Mexicana (In press). Martínez-Mota R, Valdespino C, Sánchez-Ramos MA, Serio-Silva JC. 2007. Effects of forest fragmentation on the physiological stress response of black howler monkeys. Animal Conservation 10: 374-379. Martínez-Mota R, Serio-Silva JC, Rico-Gray V. 2004. The role of canopy ants in removing Ficus perforata seeds from howler monkey (Alouatta palliata mexicana) feces at Los Tuxtlas, México. Biotropica 36: 429-432. Righini N, Serio-Silva JC, Rico-Gray V, Martínez-Mota R. 2004. Effect of different primate species on germination of Ficus (Urostigma) seeds. Zoo Biology 23: 273-278.
Melber, Talia tmelber2@uiuc.edu 309S
Milich, Krista kmilich2@uiuc.edu 309Q I am a PhD candidate in biological anthropology. I am interested in primate reproduction and conservation. Specifically, my research focuses on how anthropogenic disturbance impacts wild primate populations. I am using stress and reproductive hormone concentrations to indicate the health and reproductive fitness of my study groups. For my current research project, I am working with Red Colobus in and around Kibale National Park in western Uganda. I am working closely with Dr. Rebecca Stumpf, my advisor, and Dr. Thomas Gillespie.
Millhouse, Phil millhous@uiuc.edu
Montes, Brian bmontes@uiuc.edu
Muraki, Noriko muraki@uiuc.edu
O'Brien, Kathleen C. obrien7@uiuc.edu In 2006, I began the PhD program in Sociocultural Anthropology at UIUC. I do my research in the Ecuadorian Andes among Kichwa-speaking indigenous people. I am planning to do doctoral research on the negotiation of ethnic, gender, and religious identities among second generation evangelical Protestant indigenous leaders and intellectuals in the province of Chimborazo, where a mass Protestant conversion took place in indigenous communities in the 1960s and 1970s. My primary theoretical interests are power, social change, identity, gender, ethnicity, discourse, and space. My advisor is Andrew Orta. I have had a FLAS (Foreign Language Area Studies) Fellowship the past two years to learn Peruvian Quechua and I am also concurrently working on my Ecuadorian Kichwa. My geographical area of expertise is Latin America. Before initiating my research in Ecuador five years ago, I had conducted research on Mexican immigrant domestic workers in San Diego and transcribed and edited the life story of a Costa Rican woman. In 1998 I graduated from Carleton College with a BA in Sociology and Anthropology. After living in Costa Rica for two years, I worked on my Master of Arts degree in Latin American Studies at the University of Arizona. After getting my MA, I took a break from academia to be a full time eighth grade teacher. I decided to go back to graduate school in order to realize my goal of becoming a college professor and anthropologist. O’Brien, Kathleen C. 2005. Review of Alejandro Tsakimp: A Shuar Healer in the Margins of History, by Steven C. Rubenstein. Transforming Anthropology 13(1): 59-61. O’Brien, Kathleen C. 2005. “I Left my Appendix in Cuba.” Enfoque Latinoamerica: Latin American Studies Journal. University of Arizona.
Otten, Sarah sotten2@uiuc.edu 309L My interest in archaeology began with my undergrad education and a mentor at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. With help of that mentor I have found myself engaged in the study of the American Bottom, more specifically Cahokia and its outliers in the Richland Complex. I am interested in the collapse of Cahokia and where this Mississippian chiefdoms population dispersed after collapse. I am also interested in tracing these populations to modern day Native American groups. Cosmology and ritual and the possibility of shared ritual ideas among Mesoamerican populations, Pueblo peoples, and Mississippian peoples is also another area of interest to me. I am engaging with these ideas through an historical perspective and practice theory. I believe that to fully understand the material past one must understand the relationships among agency, power, and identity. Archaeology is an important way to fully understand the relationships between past peoples and their material culture.
Pajuelo, Eva pajueb@uiuc.edu
Raguet-Schofield, Melissa raguet@uiuc.edu I am a PhD candidate in Biological Anthropology at the University of Illinois. My major interest is the evolution of primate life histories (the sequence of developmental events throughout an individual’s lifetime), and in particular, the relationship between life history and diet. My dissertation project helps explain this relationship by investigating the acquisition of foraging proficiency in juvenile mantled howlers monkeys (Alouatta palliata), folivorous New World primates that mature more rapidly than closely related frugivorous species. To determine how diet and life history are associated, I examine the toughness of foods chosen by adult and juvenile howlers. This ontogenetic quantification of dietary toughness and foraging behaviors allows me to evaluate how patterns of physical and behavioral maturation may vary in relation to the demands associated with a particular feeding and foraging regime. Specifically, my project investigates whether or not rapid maturation in mantled howlers has evolved to reduce the potentially vulnerable time period during which juveniles are unable to proficiently feed and forage on an adult-like diet. Additionally, I prioritize issues of conservation and land management. In future research, I plan on investigating the health and viability of howler populations living in degraded habitats close to human settlements and agricultural activities. Attention to these issues is becoming ever more important as tourism continues to expand in Nicaragua and the forest is cut down to build hotels and other tourist amenities. A major goal of my research is to aid in planning sustainable tourism development that preserves fragile Nicaraguan biodiversity.
Ramos, Teresa tramos@uiuc.edu
Ritchie, Jason jtritchi@uiuc.edu
Righini, Nicoletta righini2@uiuc.edu 309D I am interested in the dietary ecology and foraging strategies of non-human primates. For my Masters research, carried out at the Instituto de Ecologia A.C. of Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexico, I focused on issues linking seed dispersal, diet and digestive processes in New World monkeys, and I conducted field and laboratory germination experiments of Ficus seeds consumed by howler and spider monkeys. My doctoral research aims to investigate the factors influencing food choice in howler and spider monkeys (Alouatta pigra and Ateles geoffroyi), and in particular to relate food selection to quality and nutritional composition of the items consumed by males and females in different seasons of the year. Also, I would like to explore some aspects related to dietary stress in these species. Living in disturbed habitats could worsen the effects of dietary stress, which in turn could have a significant influence on the likeliness of getting parasitic diseases. This could be more noticeable in some individuals, such as lactating females, that have higher energetic demands and can be more affected by parasites than others. Santini G., C. Tendi, N. Righini, R.C. Thompson and G. Chelazzi. 2005. Intra-specific variability in the temporal organisation of foraging of the limpet Patella caerulea on mesotidal shores. Ethol. Ecol. Evol. 17: 65-75. Righini, N., J.C. Serio-Silva, V. Rico-Gray and R. Martínez-Mota. 2004. Effect of different primate species on germination of Ficus (Urostigma) seeds. Zoo Biol. 23: 273-278. Santini, G., N. Righini and G. Chelazzi. 2001. Automatic telemetry to monitor the activity of limpets and sea-level oscillations. J. Mar. Biol. Assoc. UK. 81: 699-700.
Romero, Jason jasoncromero@gmail.com
Rowe, Sarah smrowe@uiuc.edu
Rueter, Emma rueterra@uiuc.edu
Sather-Wagstaff, Joy Marie satherwa@uiuc.edu
Scarborough, Isabel scarboro@uiuc.edu
Sergeyeva, Marina msergey2@uiuc.edu 309L I received my BA in Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 2004 and worked in the CRM industry in the Southwest (Arizona and New Mexico) before having come to the University of Illinois in 2005. The work with the cultural heritage of Native Americans has drawn me to my own ancestors My research interests are about the lifeways that hunter-gatherers led in the Pleistocene of Eurasia, in particular Eastern Europe. I am interested in the social construction of space, cultural landscapes and the role of memory in place-making. Another, somewhat recent, interest lies in gender studies and it had a slow emergence through rethinking of my friends’ and my experiences as female immigrants. My technical specialty is GIS and I am open to any other techniques that would allow to achieve my goals 2007 Understanding Past and Future Land Use: Modeling Archaeological Sensitivity.ArcUser June-April, (with J. Brett Hill and Mathew Devitt)
Shattuck, Milena mshattu2@uiuc.edu 309D
Shoaff-Schroder, Jennifer jshoaff@uiuc.edu 109F
Slater, Philip pslater2@uiuc.edu 309D My passion for archaeology stems from my insatiable interest in prehistoric lifeways: how did people live day to day hundreds of thousands of years ago and how were they so successful with, what would seem to present day people, crude and weak technology. This technology, one of stone, is what I am most interested in because Homo sapiens would not be, technologically, where they are today without the long and difficult period known as The Stone Age. I am interested in the Prehistory of East Africa and, specifically, the patterns of lithic technology during the MSA and LSA in that region. Currently, I focus on specific changes in the patterns of lithic production and technology such as overall dimunition of lithic artifacts and the spread of projectile weaponry. I am also interested in Geology, Paleoanthropology, the origin of modern humans and am a self-taught flintknapper. I hope to improve my experimental skill and then apply my first-hand knowledge and understanding of stone tools to help interpret assemblages found in excavations.
Some, Batamaka some@uiuc.edu
Spreng, Elizabeth spreng@uiuc.edu
Takeyama, Akiko takeyama@uiuc.edu
Tami, Nicole tami@uiuc.edu
Tan, Kok kee (Chris) koktan@uiuc.edu
Tenoso, Genevieve tenoso@uiuc.edu
Thangaraj, Stanley Ilango sthang2@uiuc.edu I am a South Asian American student interested in the intersection of race, gender, and class in the formation of masculine identities in South Asian American populations. I specifically examine how leisure space, especially strictly South Asian American only basketball leagues, informs our understanding of masculinity within South Asian American populations. I am looking to extrapolate how racializing discourses present South Asian Americans as particular racialized subjects, I believe that leisure spaces will tell us more about how South Asian Americans then negotiate this racialized, gendered identity. As gender and race are used to racialize South Asian Americans, gender and race are also utilized to create these notions of belonging which center expressive practices. The expressive potential in these leisure spaces, although a source of resistance, also serve, I believe, as sites of new desires and pleasures. Furthermore, my work is a comparative project that looks at the generational interactions and multi-racial interaction that lead to the South Asian American production of masculinity and community through “ethnic-only” leisure spaces. My work is also comparative, my main sites of research are Atlanta, Chicago, and Vancouver, BC. I chose this anthropology program at UIUC as a result of various factors. The progressive radical pedagogy, the commitment of faculty to the intellectual growth of their students, and my passion for teaching are reasons while I chose UIUC. At UIUC, I have been able to refine my critical thinking skills while also polishing up my pedagogical toolkit.
Tortotello, Frank frank.tortorello@fandm.edu I am a PhD candidate in socio-cultural anthropology researching conceptions of courage among US combat infantry. The infantry charge is an archetypal image in the West emerging from, among other roots, ancient Greek warfare. For most of the twentieth century, debates have raged about the source of this kind of battlefield action: Is it a function of human biology as maintained by the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian James McPherson and the sociobiologist E.O. Wilson? Or, is it a social production of persons who enact value positions as maintained by socio-cultural anthropologists such as Marshall Sahlins and Clifford Geertz? Closely linked to, but often masked by questions about, the source of courageous battlefield action is the nature of a courageous act itself: what counts as courageous action on a battlefield? To my knowledge, no empirical ethnographic project has yet systematically addressed this question from the standpoint of actual combat soldiers themselves. Discursively the way combat soldiers describe courage is as a moved (as opposed to a vocalized) cultural value even as they explain courage as a function of biology, usually the function of genes producing behaviors selected for by evolutionary forces. To date my research has included over 25 individual interviews with combat veterans from the US, Israel, and Britain, as well as from different service branches and wars. I have participated in actual combat training with US paratroopers and US Marines. This research entails a theoretical engagement with notions of embodiment (semasiology, not kinesics), gender, masculinity/femininity, and violence. At the meta-theoretical level it includes a neo-realist position on agency/determinism that entails conceptual schema of natural and social scientific causal powers that push past the usual stalemated nature/nurture dialogue. This research includes interdisciplinary study in the philosophy of the natural and social sciences, genetic and evolutionary biology, and military history.
Urbani, Bernardo (www)
Valencia Ramírez, Cristóbal (Christopher) cvalenci@uiuc.edu 309N I am interested in the role social movements play in processes of state formation, democracy, and anti-imperialism as well as producing ethnographic representations of the processes of social change. I am particularly interested in race-based and poor-class grass-roots organizations and strategies at the neighborhood-level in the US and Latin America. My dissertation research focuses on Chávez supporters, bolivarian activists, and Afrovenezuelans living primarily in Caracas barrios. I also participate in the Advanced Seminar of Chicano Research and the Chicana/o Latina/o Association for Autonomous Anthropology, non-institutional sites of collective knowledge production. Anthropology allows me to draw together my Chicano subjectivity and activist research in the service of marginalized communities in resistance. 2003 An Exercise in Recasting History Using Modern Scholarship: The Case of the Tres niños mártires de Tlaxcala. Brújula 2(1):57-71. 2005 Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution: Who are the Chavistas? Latin American Perspectives 32(3):79-97. 2006 Venezuela in the Eye of the Hurricane: Landing an Analysis of the Bolivarian Revolution. Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology 11(1):173-186. 2007 Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution: Who are the Chavistas? In Venezuela: Hugo Chávez and the Decline of an "Exceptional Democracy" Miguel Tinker Salas and Steve Ellner, eds. Pp. 121-139. New York: Rowman and Littlefield. 2008 Hemos Derrotado el Diablo! Chávez Supporters, Anti-Neoliberalism, and Twenty-first Century Socialism. Identities 15(2). 2009 Active Marooning: Confronting "Mi Negra" and the Bolivarian Revolution. Radical History Review (103).
Vega, Sujey vega1@uiuc.edu My interests in Anthropology comes from a passion for understanding the socio-cultural experience and a commitment to highlighting topics related to communities that are near and dear to my heart. Primarily, I conduct ethnographic research on the experience of Latinas/os who are making home and negotiating transnational identities in non-traditionally receiving areas of the United States . In addition, I also take into account the non-Latino response and examine how community is made and protected in these ever changing regions. In addition to interviews and participant observation, I also include archival analysis to examine the historical social development of a particular environment. Lately, I have also included an analysis of newspaper Opinion sections to gather how print media is certainly affecting the "imagined communities" (plural) of one particular Midwestern town. Ultimately, I hope to contribute to a contemporary awareness of immigrant settlements in new smaller urban locations and the role of non-immigrants in the production of community. My areas of interest include immigration and the transnational experience, race and ethnicity in the United States, and the social construction of space. I am currently working toward finishing the dissertation and submitting my work for publication. “Immigration.” Encyclopedia of U.S./Latino(a) History , eds. Jorge Iber and Ana Luisa Martinez (NY: Facts on File). Forthcoming, 2007. “Indiana.” Encyclopedia of U.S./Latino(a) History , eds. Jorge Iber and Ana Luisa Martinez (NY: Facts on File). Forthcoming, 2007. “Latinos in the Midwest.” Encyclopedia of U.S./Latino(a) History , eds. Jorge Iber and Ana Luisa Martinez (NY: Facts on File). Forthcoming, 2007. “Latinos in Rural America.” Encyclopedia of U.S./Latino(a) History , eds. Jorge Iber and Ana Luisa Martinez (NY: Facts on File). Forthcoming, 2007. “The Mexican Problem.” Encyclopedia of U.S./Latino(a) History , eds. Jorge Iber and Ana Luisa Martinez (NY: Facts on File). Forthcoming, 2007.
White, Donna dmwhite@uiuc.edu
Wightman, Jill
Williams, Julie jwillms2@uiuc.edu
Williams, Scott swilli38@uiuc.edu
Yan, Caie caieyan@uiuc.edu
Zhang, Wenyi wzhang20@uiuc.edu Inspired by contemporary mathematical chaos theory on recurrently evolving processes (laws inherently preinstall chances and chances re-formulate revisory laws), I will explore a cognitive model for the complex construction and reconstruction of cultural knowledge system by individuals. This process involves two known modes of human cognition: 1) given algebraically describable cultural knowledge system as resources and guidelines for an individual's cultural practices, cognition works computably; 2) on real-time events that resist being incorporated into this computational knowledge system, imagination reconstructs the system by incorporating immediate contingencies into it. The complexity of this process is its irreducibility to culturally defined interactions of the two componential modes; contingencies of immediate events often force knowledge reconstruction. In the cognitive sciences, this irreducibility hasn't been explored, especially by ethnographic study. Ethnographically, I will trace Jinghpo's memory of history to explore their cultural understanding of time-space. Through sensuous experience of sacrifices to ancestors, and narratives about family histories and themselves, they construct and reconstruct a particular history of the centuries-long trade network among the ethnic groups in Southeast Asia, and of the uneven and periodic incorporation of Jinghpo into the central Chinese administration since the sixteenth century. In this remembrance, relations between the past and the present, and the home and the business places, are partially well-bounded by the algebraic structure of their cultural notions of time-space, and partially opportunistic for the present contingencies.
Zobler, Kari kzobler2@uiuc.edu 309L I am a Ph.D. student in anthropological archaeology, specializing in the ancient Andes. My interests center on the relations between states and their peripheries. I am particularly interested in the spread and adoption of elite iconography and agropastoral intensification/extensification in staple finance economies during episodes of secondary state formation. I also specialize in geophysical prospection, museum studies, digital media and website design. I have participated in archaeological projects in Bolivia, Peru, Syria and Iran. This international experience has helped me to develop and incorporate a comparative perspective in my research on early states.
Zovar, Joel jzovar2@uiuc.edu 309Q While my background has primarily been in archaeology my current research interests lay in cultural anthropology, particularly within the context of museums, identity, and representation. I intend to examine the impact of the dialectical relationships between Tribal museums in the region of the Pacific Northwest and national museums (such as the NMAI in Washington D.C. or the Museum of Civilization in Ottowa), and how these interactions can affect vocality, patrimony, the power of symbols, and public notions of pan-Indigenous similitude. I would eventually, at the post-doctorate level, like to extend the geographical scope of this research to include Latin America. My approach to research is constantly being informed by an array of literature drawn from Native American Studies, Anthropology, Art History, Museum Studies, Religion, and other academic disciplines. I have presented at conferences in the US and Europe, and have a publication pending. I enjoy writing, and plan on submitting several papers for publication or presentation over the next few years. I believe that, despite their dubious pasts, museums and anthropology can be useful tools for meeting the needs of communities, though those methods and questions must be recontextualized and decolonized. Before conducting research the first question an anthropologist must ask people is ‘is this beneficial or useful to your community or communities?’. My passion for anthropology arises from its potential holistic utility in addressing the impact of hegemonic and colonizing institutions and individuals on living populations.
Draft