ALMA GOTTLIEB
Professor
I'm a sociocultural Africanist anthropologist working in the interpretive tradition, with long-term interests in feminist theory and gender issues including the gendered body, reproduction, children, and the family; indigenous religions; and ethical, epistemological and narrative issues raised by ethnographic research and writing practices. As recent president of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, I worked to strengthen the interpretive wing of cultural anthropology in expanding the Society’s activities and outreach.
Until recently, most of my ethnographic work focused on the Beng people of Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) with whom I've worked since 1979, and most of my writings have emphasized rural village life in Africa, though increasingly engaged with wider global processes. My most recent completed project took the form of two books that explored the cultural foundations of the lives of infants and those who take care of them. I’m currently completing a co-authored book (with Philip Graham), Braided Worlds, that updates our last fieldwork in Côte d’Ivoire and serves as a companion volume to a previous memoir, Parallel Worlds. I’ve recently begun a new study with Cape Verdeans living in Portugal and the U.S., which I inaugurated in Lisbon in 2006-07. My current researches focuses on Cape Verdeans with Jewish ancestry. (See linked selected publications list and my CV for a full list of my published work.)
In addition to my scholarly work, I also try to address a broad audience both through my writings and in other media. Anthropology has a great deal to teach contemporary citizens of the world, and I feel an obligation to share my knowledge with others who are often profoundly curious about the lives of others around the globe but rarely have the chance to engage that curiosity (see linked CV for a full list of my writings and other activities intended for a general audience beyond the academy).
At UIUC, I have appointments in anthropology, African studies, women's studies, and the Campus Honors Program. I teach courses on women and the body, feminist theory, religion, children and the family, interpretive approaches, issues of representation, fieldwork methods, ethnographic writing, research proposal design, dissertation writing, and Africa (please see linked course syllabi). I work closely with undergraduate and graduate students both individually and in classes I’ve designed to help students hone their research proposals, dissertations, and other writings.
Research Interests:
Sociocultural anthropology; gender and sexuality/anthropology of the body/feminist theory; religion/ritual; family, infants and young children; epistemology of fieldwork, ethnographic writing, issues of representation; interpretive theory; immigration, globalization; West Africa, contemporary West African diaspora (especially Cape Verdeans in Europe and the Americas).
EDUCATION:
B.A. Anthropology, Sarah Lawrence College, 1975
M.A. Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Virginia, 1978
Ph.D. Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Virginia, 1983
See my CV for a complete list of publications.Books:
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2004 | The Afterlife Is Where We Come from: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Videos and photos of Beng infants available online at: www.press.uchicago.edu/books/gottlieb/ gottlieb_videos.html |
| 2000 | A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies, collection of essays co-edited with Judy S. DeLoache, with a Foreword by Jerome Bruner. New York: Cambridge University Press. |  |
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1996 [1992] | Under the Kapok Tree: Identity and Difference in Beng Thought. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. |
| 1995 | Beng-English Dictionary with M. Lynne Murphy. Bloomington: Indiana University Linguistics Club. |  |
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1994 [1993] | Parallel Worlds: An Anthropologist and a Writer Encounter Africa with Philip Graham. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Winner, Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing (Society for Humanistic Anthropology). |
| 1988 | Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation, edited with Thomas Buckley. Berkeley: University of California Press. |  |
Essays & Articles:
| 2002 | "Interpreting Gender and Sexuality: Approaches from Cultural Anthropology," in Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines, ed. Jeremy MacClancy (University of Chicago Press/Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland). |
| 1998 | "Do Infants Have Religion? The Spiritual Lives of Beng Babies," in American Anthropologist 100 (1). |
| ANTH 268 | IMAGES OF THE "OTHER": ANTHROPOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES (schedule) |
| ANTH 223H | MEMOIRS OF AFRICA |
| ANTH 398G | INFANTS AND YOUNG CHILDREN IN CROSS-CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE |
| ANTH 411 | FIELDWORK IN CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY (schedule) |
| ANTH 414 | WRITING ETHNOGRAPHY |
| ANTH 368 | RELIGIONS OF AFRICA |
| ANTH 262H | CULTURAL IMAGES OF WOMEN (schedule) |
| ANTH 267 | MEMOIRS OF AFRICA (schedule) |
| ANTH 469 | KINSHIP/CULTURE/POWER/AFRICA: CLASSICS AND CRITIQUES |
| ANTH 508 | FEMINISM, GENDER AND SEXUALITY |
| ANTH 511 | RESEARCH DESIGN AND PROPOSAL WRITING |
| ANTH 532 | DISSERTATION WRITING WORKSHOP |