The Anthropology of Homelessness, ANTH 1301, taught by Irene Glasser, PhD, has been offered yearly through the Anthropology Department since the spring of 2014. This year, the class created a guide that can be used to help individuals in Rhode Island obtain permanent and affordable housing.

The Department of Anthropology caught up with Aisha, an undergraduate student studying Health and Human Biology, to learn more about her research on medical racism and structural violence embedded in medical institutions.

Caleb Ellis '24, Medical Anthropology concentrator, reflects on learning how the history of medicine is intertwined with histories of race and white supremacy through a Spring 2022 course with Professor Sarah Williams.

In Spring 2022, Jessica Katzenstein and three other Anthropology PhD Candidates successfully defended their dissertations. In this spotlight interview, Jessica delves into her research topic and explains more about her dissertation.

Anthropology trainee Argenis Hurtado Moreno has been named a 2022 Ford Foundation PreDoctoral Fellow. Students who receive this three year fellowship have demonstrated outstanding academic achievement and are committed to a career in teaching and research in higher education.

Adelaida Tamayo was recently awarded a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship (NSF GRF) which will support her research advancement.

Join the Department of Anthropology on Friday, April 22nd for Undergraduate Senior Thesis Presentations!

The Department of Anthropology caught up with Courtney, an undergraduate student studying Medical Anthropology, to learn more about her research on Black doulas in South Carolina.  

In this spotlight interview, Melanie Kim discusses writing her debut book "Oil Paper Family." It tells the true story of her grandfather, Young Bok, and highlights Korea’s difficult and oppressive past through his eyes. The story is shaped by Young Bok's love for family and his dreams of becoming a doctor.

In March 2022, the Society for American Anthropology (SAA) hosted its first hybrid conference since 2020. A handful of Anthropology graduate students and faculty traveled to Chicago to present, network, and/or view new research from colleagues. This brief captures graduate student Morgan Clark's SAA presentation on her collaborative findings from an excavation at La Cuernavilla, Guatemala.  

Katherine Mason recently published "Blenders, Hammers, and Knives: Postpartum Intrusive Thoughts and Unthinkable Motherhood," which focuses on diagnosis, treatment, and experience of perinatal mood and anxiety disorders (PMADs) among birthing mothers.

The Department of Anthropology announces its annual competition for the Watson Smith Prize for best student anthropology research paper. The cash award will be $250.00. If submissions merit it, there will be one prize given at the graduate student level and one prize given at the undergraduate student level. Prizes will be announced at commencement in May.

A new grant awarded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) will allow Mason and Co-Principal Investigators Andrea Flores (Brown University) and Sarah Willen (UCONN) to follow a cohort of first-generation college students and their parents over a period of two years using the Pandemic Journaling Project (PJP) platform to collect monthly journal entries.

A generous gift from Martha and her husband Artemis Joukowsky made possible the creation of Brown’s Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World.

Adjunct Lecturer Irene Glasser, in collaboration with colleagues in Brown’s School of Public Health, reflects on research and advocacy over the years in, "Provide Help for Homeless to Quit Smoking" published in the Providence Journal on November 20, 2021.

Brown University invites applications for a 2-year, non-renewable International Humanities Postdoctoral Fellowship in Anthropology or related field at the intersection of language and health, with a theoretically and ethnographically grounded approach to studying language in social contexts particularly relating to health, illness, medicine, or care, broadly understood.  

Congratulations Andrea on your new book! "The Succeeders: How Immigrant Youth Are Transforming What It Means to Belong in America,"

Brown University coverage of Professor Lennons' testimony on equity in renewable energy before U.S. House committee.

Congratulations Myles!
Myles's remarks begin at 28:21

Professor Rubertone's 90-minute podcast interview on her book, Native Providence, for the New Books in Native American Studies. The series is part of the larger New Books Network.

Congratulations Prof. VanValkenburgh for receiving this award!

Nigeria's 'Prosperity gospel' Pentecostal Churches May Reinforce Inequalities

Over the past few decades in Nigeria, many millions of people have joined Pentecostal churches, and the most popular brand in recent years is known as the ‘prosperity gospel’. But while these hugely popular churches promise economic as well as spiritual rewards, they are also controversial. Even as their leaders condemn corruption, critics see these churches as contributing to a political culture that perpetuates inequality.

Lina Fruzzetti and Ákos Östör's ethnographic film, "In My Mother's House," inspired Mariel Tabachnick to write her story "In My Grandmother's House".

If you missed this month's Literature and Culture Author Conversation with Patricia Rubertone, it's now available to watch on the YouTube channel!

“The honor of being selected for the Joukowsky Dissertation Award is above all a testament to the opportunities that the Department of Anthropology and the Graduate School made possible for me during my studies at Brown and to the mentors, colleagues, family, and friends who have supported me throughout,” says Matsumoto.

12 News took a moment to learn more about the celebration of Mexican heritage on Cinco de Mayo.

Brown University Department of Anthropology - 253rd Commencement 2021

New find pries open an enduring question: why two ancient superpowers abruptly turned from diplomacy to brutality.

On March 19, 2021, Professor Lina Fruzzetti, and Dr. Ákos Östör, at Wesleyan University, discussed the nuances of filmmaking and storytelling within the field. Until March 31, 2021, Fruzzetti and Östör’s latest jointly created film, called “In My Mother’s House,” is available for online streaming as part of the Mother Tongue Film Festival.

The Department of Anthropology and the Pembroke Center are delighted to announce our appointment of Sarah Williams as the Louise Lamphere Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies, beginning July 1, 2021.

Congratulations! Parker

Ieva Jusionyte will be joining the Anthropology Department and the Watson Institute as of January 1, 2021. She will hold the Watson Family Associate Professorship of International Security and Anthropology. 

‘Right Now Feels So Long and Without Any End in Sight.’ This headline from the New York Times is taken from an excerpt of one of the 700+ digital diaries that make up the Pandemic Journaling Project, a collaboration between Assistant Professor of Anthropology Katherine Mason and her UConn colleague, Sarah Willen. As the NYT writes, "It may be the most complete record of our shifting moods in this isolating year."

The Pandemic Journaling Project, led in part by PSTC anthropologist Kate Mason, is providing an online platform for people across the country to submit journal entries about their day-to-day experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Professor Rebecca Louise Carter has been awarded, the 2020 Anthony Leeds Prize, for her book, "Prayers for the People: Homicide and Humanity in the Crescent City."

Native Providence: Memory, Community, and Survivance in the Northeast

Professor Mary Beaudry received her Ph.D from Brown University, Anthropology Department, 1980.

The Department of Anthropology and the Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women invite applications for the Louise Lamphere Visiting Assistant Professorship in Anthropology and Gender Studies, appointment to be effective July 1, 2021. 

Bastani's award-winning paper, Feeling at Home in the Clinic: Therapeutics and Dwelling in an Addiction Rehabilitation Center in Tehran, Iran, examines the experiences of women residing at a free drug rehabilitation center in the Iranian capital.

The Pope, the Jews, and the Secrets in the Archives - Documents reveal the private discussions behind both Pope Pius XII’s silence about the Nazi deportation of Rome’s Jews in 1943 and the Vatican’s postwar support for the kidnapping of two Jewish boys whose parents had perished in the Holocaust.

Professor Carter wins the Edie Turner First Book Prize in Ethnographic Writing for her book titled, Prayers for the People: Homicide and Humanity in the Crescent City (University of Chicago Press, 2019).

Anar Parikh produced a two-part series titled "Anthropology and/of Mental Health"

Professor Smith wins Guggenheim Fellowship for project on "Infrastructural Deficiency, State Complicity, and Entrepreneurial Citizenship in Nigeria."

The award is Honorable Mention in the 2020 John Gumperz Graduate Student Essay Prize of the Society for Linguistic Anthropology.

William S. Simmons, professor of anthropology at Brown University, passed away on June 2, 2018.

Brown historian sheds light on forgotten papal history.

Andi Wright spoke at the November 2017 Research Matters event.