Barnett named NSF Graduate Research Fellow
Graduate student Camille Barnett has been selected for the National Science Foundation's 2012 Graduate Research Fellowship Program, one of only 21 graduate students in cultural anthropology to be selected nationwide. Barnett becomes the third anthropology graduate student in as many years to be selected for the prestigious program.
Petersen selected for Watson Fellowship
Rachael Petersen, a graduating senior and double major in anthropology and environmental policy, has been chosen as one of forty Thomas J. Watson Fellows. Petersen's fellowship year will take her to Canada, Ecuador, Brazil, Malaysia, and Australia to examine how indigenous communities are harnessing digital tools to assert their cultural identity and sovereignty.
Karslioglu to join Mellon-Sawyer Seminar
Graduate student Seda Karslioglu has been selected to join the 2012-13 Mellon-Sawyer Seminar "Cultures of Energy: Global Economies and Local Communities." Karslioglu was one of two graduate students chosen to participate in the yearlong seminar, which will include faculty members from across the university.
LaFlamme awarded North Dakota humanities grant
Graduate student Marcel LaFlamme will serve as project director and lead scholar on a competitive grant made by the North Dakota Humanities Council to the Cavalier County Job Development Authority. The grant will allow LaFlamme and Maxime Brouillet, a Montreal-based photographer, to design and stage an ethnographic installation about the aftereffects of the Cold War in rural North Dakota.
Carelock lands two-year postdoc at Penn
Anthropology graduate student Nikki Carelock will begin a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in anthropology and Africana studies at the University of Pennsylvania in fall 2012. Carelock conducted her dissertation fieldwork in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, and will defend her dissertation in April.
Huichol peyote ceremonies threatened by silver mine
Paul Liffman, a research associate at Rice and research professor at El Colegio de Michoacán, is quoted in a Washington Post article about a Mexican indigenous group's conflict with a Canadian mining company.
Smart to reflect on Menil fresco chapel closing
Pamela Smart, who received her Ph.D. at Rice in 1997, will speak on a panel at the Menil Collection on the closing of the Byzantine Fresco Chapel. Smart's ethnography of the Menil, Sacred Modern, was published by the University of Texas Press in 2011.
Clark bound for Ethiopia on NSF dissertation grant
Graduate student Brian Clark has been awarded a Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant by the National Science Foundation for his research on the 13th-century church of Geneta Mariam in north central Ethiopia. Clark and his collaborators will be conducting surveys and excavations around Geneta Mariam through the month of June.
Howe article featured in CA ritual collection
A 2001 article by Assistant Professor Cymene Howe is featured in anew curated collection of Cultural Anthropology articles on ritual.The article, entitled "Queer Pilgrimage: The San Francisco Homelandand Identity Tourism," presents a novel perspective on howritualized activities constitute, affirm, and reproduce ideals ofidentity even as they remain open to different readings and modesof subjectivity.
Marks heads to Montreal on NASA grant
Third-year graduate student Elizabeth Marks has been given a Travel Award by the National Association for Student Anthropologists (NASA) in order to attend the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association on November 15-20. Marks co-organized a conference panel on new media, and will be presenting her paper "Under Pressure: Precarious Relevance and Evolving Expertise on Japanese Morning Television.