M AC A L E S T E R AC A D E M I C U P DAT E2 0 1 8 FA L L

AnthropologyThe Anthropology Department emphasizes the holistic study of the human condition. Our students’ interests range from world cultures and global challenges to human rights and human origins. Students work and travel in the U.S. and the world, while studying cultures, globalization, envi-ronmental issues, public health issues, identity, ethnography, and the practice of anthropology. Students may major or minor in anthropology.

FacultyScott Legge, associate professor and chair, is a biological anthropologist with research interests in human and non-human primate skeletal biology and dental anthropology. Recent publications include “News and Views: Response to ‘Non-metric Dental Traits and Hominin Phylogeny,’” by Carter et al., Journal of Human Evolution; “Evaluation of the Utility of Deciduous Molar Morphological Variation in Great Ape Phylogenetic Analysis,” Dental Anthropology; “Geographic Variation in Non-metric Dental Traits of the Deciduous Molars of Pan and Gorilla,” International Journal of Primatology; “Dental Morphology and the Phylogenetic ‘Place’ of Australopithecus sediba,” Science; and “Dentoalveolar Abscess Variation among Three Groups of Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii, Pan troglodytes troglodytes, and Pan paniscus),” International Journal of Paleopathology.

Ron Barrett, associate professor, is a cultural and medical anthropologist whose research concerns the social aspects of infectious diseases, religious healing, and the ways that human beings come to terms with their own mortality. He is the author of An Unnatural History of Emerging Infections (with George Armelagos) and Aghor Medicine: Pollution, Death, and Healing in Northern India. He is also co-editor (with Peter Brown) of Understanding and Applying Medical Anthropology. He has conducted fieldwork in Northern and Western India as well as in the United States.

Olga Gonzalez, associate professor and recipient of the 2018 Rossmann Excellence in Teaching Award, teaches courses on Latin America, psychological anthropology, violence, museum anthropology, and anthropological theory. Her work studies the relationship between memory and secrecy in the context of war and violence, which she explores in her book Unveiling Secrets of War in the Peruvian Andes. She was also the curator of the exhibit Ayacucho: The Times of Danger. Her current research focuses on memory and visuality in “post-conflict” Peru.

Arjun Guneratne, professor, teaches courses on South Asian society and culture, the anthropology of development, food and culture, and ethnographic interviewing. His books include Many Tongues, One People: The Making of Tharu Identity in Nepal; Culture and the Environment in the Himalaya; and Pathways to Power: The Domestic Politics of South Asia. He is currently working on a book on the history of ornithology in Sri Lanka. He has conducted fieldwork in Nepal and Sri Lanka.

Dianna Shandy, professor and associate dean, teaches courses on refugees and migration, gender, ethnographic methods, and Africa. She is the author/editor of Nuer-American Passages: Globalizing Sudanese Migration; Glass Ceilings and 100-Hour Couples; The Cultural Experience: Ethnography in Complex Society, Rethinking Refuge and Displacement; and Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 15th ed. She has led study away courses in Europe and South Africa.

Recent Topics CoursesArt and Sustainability in Latin America

Food and Culture

Gender, Power, and Sexualities in Africa

Language of Diplomacy

Politics of Truth and Memory in Latin America

Sustainability and the Modern World

World Healing Traditions

Honors ProjectsMyhana Kerr ’18 (Atlanta), “Black in Beijing”

Andrea Kvietok ’18 (Lima, Peru), “Their Paths, Their Journeys: Transnational Mobility, Social Networks, and Coming Back Home Amongst Senegalese Returnees in Dakar, Senegal”

Giselle Lora, ’18 (Troy, N.Y.), “‘La Tierra No Se Vende, Tzawata Está en Pie de Lucha’: Narratives of Women’s Resistance in a Kichwa Community, Ecuador”

Mariah Shriner, ’18 (Portland, Ore.), “National Society for Earthquake Technology: Building Disaster Risk Management in Nepal”

ResourcesThe Anthropology Department’s Ethnographic Laboratory includes state-of-the-art computers, printers, recorders, and transcribing equipment. Computers are equipped with ATLAS.ti, a qualitative data analysis software package.

The Biological Anthropology Laboratory houses the department’s skull cast collection containing some of the most important fossil finds in human evolution from the past four million years as well as numerous casts of living primates.

Anthropology

Scholarships, Grants, and AwardsEach year the department gives four awards to graduating seniors to recognize outstanding scholarship, research and service. In addition, several Spradley Summer Research Fellowships are given to support independent student research, and another award is given for the best student ethnography written in the research methods courses.

McCurdy Award for excellence in anthropological research: Andrea Kvietok ’18 (Lima, Peru), and Sierra Sater ’18 (Oconomowoc, Wis.)

Sonia Patten Award for contributing most to the formal and informal programs of the Anthropology Department: Myhana Kerr ’18 (Atlanta), and Sophie Kurschner ’18 (Portland, Ore.)

Spradley Award for outstanding scholarship in anthropological coursework and research: Giselle Lora ’18 (Troy, N.Y.), and Mariah Shriner ’18 (Portland, Ore.)

Weatherford Award for best senior capstone: Allegra Wyatt ’18 (Portland, Ore.), “Curls, Kinks, and Colonization: Decolonizing Afro-descendent Women’s Bodies in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic”

Spradley Summer Research FellowshipsSarah Atkinson ’18 (Ipswich, N.Y.), “St. Paul Federation of Teachers evaluates their mission of ‘justice, change and democracy’ in the wake of an election dominated by racist political discourse”

Sophie Kurschner ’18 (Portland, Ore.), “Politics of Care: Understanding HIV/AIDS Treatment Offered by NGOs in Botswana from the Perspective of Aid Workers”

Andrea Kvietok ’18 (Lima, Peru), “The Women (and Men) that Return to Africa: Feminizing Voluntary Return Migration and Reintegration Experiences amongst Senegalese Migrants”

Mariah Shriner ’18 (Portland, Ore.), “Approaches to Earthquake Preparation in the Shadow of a Disaster, Nepal”

Best Ethnography PrizeJake Dunn ’19 (Windsor, Calif.), “Among Three Worlds: A CODA’s (child of deaf adult) Younger Identity Formation and the Importance of Community, Parents, and Compounding Experiences”

Fulbright ScholarshipAndrea Kvietok ’18 (Lima, Peru) received a Research Fulbright Grant to Senegal.

Anne Gavin ’15 (St. Paul) was a Fulbright Schuman Fellow, researching immigration in the Mediterranean.

Student-Faculty Summer Research CollaborationsProfessor Scott Legge and Sierra Sater ’18 (Oconomowoc, Wis.), received a Collaborative Summer Research Award from the Class of 1950 Summer Research Fund, for their project, “Behavior Around The Bend: Comparative Analysis of the Strength Properties of Saimiri sciureus and Saguinus nigricollis Long Bones from a Museum Context Using BoneJ.”

Other AwardsMacalester’s Presidential Leadership Award for Outstanding Seniors: Myhana Kerr ’18 (Atlanta), and Giselle Lora ’18 (Troy, N.Y.)

Macalester’s Servant Leader Award: Allegra Wyatt ’18 (Portland, Ore.), and Hamzah Yaacob ’20 (Frankel Estate, Singapore)

Macalester’s Latina Award for Excellence: Giselle Lora ’18 (Troy, N.Y.)

Gateway Prize for Excellent Writing/Social Science: Kayleigh Kaminski ’20 (Menasha, Wis.) “Australian Immigration Policy and the Manus Island Refugee Crisis” (co-authored)

Study AwayIn recent years, Macalester anthropology majors have participated in study away programs in Argentina, Australia, Bolivia, Botswana, Brazil, Cameroon, Chile, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Ecuador, England, France, Germany, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kenya, Madagascar, Nepal, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Senegal, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Tanzania, and USA.

InternshipsAngelo Perez ’19 (Chicago), Office of Senator Patricia Torres Ray, legislative intern

Miho Itabashi ’18 (Yokohama, Japan), International Institute of Minnesota, immigration and citizenship intern, St. Paul

Giselle Lora ’18 (Troy, N.Y.), Centro Tyrone Guzman, youth coordinator, Minneapolis

Allegra Wyatt ’18 (Portland, Ore.), Minnesota Internship Center, health advocate, St. Paul

After Macalester Di Cui ’17 (Beijing) is working on a master’s degree in historic preservation at Pratt Institute, New York.

Spencer Nelson ’17 (Liberty, Mo.) is a graduate teaching assistant and working on a master’s in geography at McGill University in Montreal.

Cecilia Mayer ’16 (Seattle) is a research assistant at Seattle Children’s Research Institute in the Child Health, Behavior & Development Department.

Katherine Meier ’16 (Madison, Conn.) is a labratory assistant at Yale Peabody Museum of Natural History in New Haven, Conn.

Anissa Abdel-Jelil ’15 (Geneva) is a master of divinity candidate at Harvard Divinity School.

Katherine Ehrenreich ’14 (Deerfield, Ill.) is a consultant to Advancing New Standards in Reproductive Health (ANSIRH) in San Francisco, and is conducting primary qualitative analysis for the Utah Telemedicine Evaluation Project.

Chelsea Hansen ’13 (Vashon, Wash.) is an associate curator at the National Law Enforcement Museum in Washington.

Updated August 2018

macalester.edu/anthropology