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Graduate Student Accomplishments

Papers and Posters at Conferences

Rachana Agarwal 
"It's Not Something You Learn In School: Practicing Culturally Relevant Pedagogy In Palau," at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

"Enduring Violence In Coming of Age Narratives From Palau," at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal, November 2011.

"Home-Coming: Examining Youth Travel and Decision-Making Processes in the Palauan Context," at the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania (ASAO) Conference, Hawai'i, February 2011.

"Palauans on the Move: Youth Choices in a Global World," at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2010.

"Being Palauan: Youth Experiences and the Teaching of Cultural Nationalism in a Pacific Island," at the conference Education as Transformation: Carrying on the Legacy of Ted Sizer.  Brandeis University, Spencer Program for Educational Research, October 2010.

"Palauan, English or...Tagalog? Examining Palauan Perceptions of the Filipino Presence in their Homeland," at the European Society for Oceanists 8th Conference, St. Andrews University, Scotland, July 2010.

"Klebelau ma Klechibelau: Reinforcing Cultural Nationalism in Contemporary Palau," at the Asia Pacific Week 2010, Canberra, Australia.

Annora Borden
"Rink Rash and Hip Whips: Femininity, Aggression, and Pain in Roller Derby," at the American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association National Conference, Washington D.C., March 2013. 

Bryce Davenport 
"Lords, Landscapes and Sovereignty in Mesoamerica," (co-presented with Charles Golden) at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Memphis, April 2012.

"Caves, Courts, and Countrysides: Spatial Rhetoric in West Mexican Colonial Manuscripts," at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting, April 2011.

"Substance and Style: Evaluating Mixteca-Puebla Influence in the Aztatlán Complex," at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting, April 2010.

Rebecca Gibson 
"Political Pins and Condom Tins: A Study in Sex and Power." Paper to be jointly presented with James M. VanderVeen at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting, April 2012.

Casey Golomski 
"Beyond Ubuntu: The Rise of Swaziland's Life Insurance Market," Boston University African
Studies Center's Walter Rodney Seminar Series, March 2013.

"A Kingdom and its Discontents: Dynamics of Ambivalence in Swaziland" was accepted for circulation and workshopping at the Northeast Workshop on Southern Africa (NEWSA) in April 2013.

“A Kingdom and its Discontents: Cultural Ambivalence and the Father in Swaziland,” at the African Studies Association meeting, Philadelphia, 2012. 

“Political Citizenship in Southern Africa,” panel discussant at the African Studies Association meeting, Philadelphia, 2012.

“Paths of Disclosure: A Pair of Shoes,” at “Rethinking Inheritance” conference, The New School for Social Research, NYC, April 2012.

“Making Claims: Anthropological Engagements with Insurance,” roundtable organized for American Ethnological Society Annual Meeting, NYC, April 2012. 

“Putting the Child in the Stomach: Entrustment, Providence and Life Insurance in Swaziland,” at American Ethnological Society Annual Meeting, NYC, April 2012.

"Religion, Health, and Life Itself: Well-being in Swaziland's Age of HIV-AIDS," at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, November, 2011.

"Beyond Ubuntu: Moral Economies and the Rise of the Life Insurance Market in Swaziland," at UMass Boston Department of Anthropology Faculty Brown-bag Lecture Series, October 2011.

"Memorialization, Right Ritual, and the Troubled Legacies of 'Ancestor Worship' in Southern Africa," invited paper for Northeastern Workshop on Southern Africa (NEWSA), Burlington, VT, October 2011.

"The Pragmatics and Politics of Sexual Orientation in Africanist Ethnography of HIV-AIDS and Religion," at "Sexuality, AIDS, and Religion: Transnational Dynamics in Africa," Oxford University, 2011.

"'Beyond Ubuntu: The Rise of the Swazi Insurance Market and the Commodification of Funerals," invited seminar at the Health Economics and AIDS Research Division (HEARD), University of KwaZulu-Natal, March 2011.

"Hilda Kuper, Anthropology, History," invited seminar at the University of Swaziland History Seminar Series, February 2011.

"Body Politics: Affiliation and Inheritance in Swazi Mortuary Disputes," invited paper at the University of Swaziland History Seminar Series, 2010.

"Piecing Together Another World: Mourning and the Ritual Use of Clothing," at Other Views: Art History in (South) Africa and the Global South, meetings for South African Visual Art Historians (SAVAH) and Comite International d'Histoire de l'Art (CIHA), University of Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, January 2011.

Terrance Hall
"From Ancient Architecture to National Treasure: Modernity and Tourism in the Yucatán Peninsula," at the Society for the Anthropology of North America Conference, Durham, March 2013.

Amy Hanes 
"Inept Dads and Donor Moms: Adoptive Patrimony and Value in Elephant Conservation In Cameroon," at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

"Women or Women? the Analytic and Epistemological Origins of Development's Mishandling of Female Genital Cutting (FGC)." Paper to be presented at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal, November 2011.

Jessica Hardin 
"Prioritizing Health: Public Health Perspectives on the Problem of Culture and NCDs in Samoa.” Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania meetings, San Antonio, February 2012.

"Ai Afu [Eating Sweat]: The Mana and Ethics of the Fat Pastor’s Body In Independent Samoa,"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

“Power Lies in the Tongue: Addressing Metabolic Disorders through Fashioning Intentionality among Evangelical Christians in (independent) Samoa,” at the American Ethnological Society Annual conference, NYC, April 2012. 

“Food Availability and Health Choices: Reconsidering Risk and Reciprocity in  Independent Samoa,” at the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania meetings, Portland, 2012.

"Christian Solutions to Chronic Problems: Healing Diabetes in Samoa." Chair and co-organizer (with Anna I. Corwin) of panel titled "Healing Legacies: Bridging Medical Anthropology and the Anthropology of Religion" (SAR Invited Panel). American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Montreal, November 2011.

"Body Idioms and Fasting: Charismatic Samoan Approaches to Obesity and Chronic Illness," at the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, Honolulu, February 2011.

"Transactional Moralities: Charismatic Challenges to Exchange," at the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, Honolulu, February 2011.

"Challenging Exchange, Fashioning Emotions: Learning to Alofa," at the Society for Psychological Anthropology, Santa Monica, April 2011.

“Eating the Word: Fasting and Eating in Making Moral Samoan Persons,” (SMA Invited Panel) at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2010. Chair and organizer of panel titled “Circulating Discourses: Obesity, Body Size, Fatness, and Anthropological Debates about Methods, Ethics, and Representation in Obesity Research.”

“Understanding *Anapogi* (Fasting): The Meaning of Food and Faith,” National University of Samoa, Samoa, August 2010.

"Prayer as Cultural Activity," with Alessandro Duranti and Anna Corwin, Discourse Lab, UCLA, May 2010.

"Reviewing Samoan Exchange: Personhood & Representation,” at the European Society for Oceanists conference, University of St. Andrews, Scotland, July 2010.

Anna Jaysane-Darr 
"Unsettling the Intimate: South Sudanese Women In a Transnational Field (co-organizer),"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

“Nurturing Sudanese, Producing Americans: Refugee Parents and Personhood,” at workshop “What’s New about ‘parenting’?” Supported by a Wenner Gren Foundation Workshop Grant. Great Britain, April 2012.

“Birth is a Miracle Only to God: Tracing Life and Death in Refugee Reproduction,” at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal, November 2011.

"Reproducing Citizens in America," at the CUNY Graduate Center Immigration Working Group's graduate student conference "(New) Debates on Belonging," October 2011.

"Birth of a Nation?: Infertility in a Refugee Community," at the LOVA International Conference: Ethnographies of Gender and Conflict, Amsterdam, NL, July 6-8, 2011.

"Of Blood and Belonging: DNA Testing, Kinship, and the State," at the American Ethnological Society/Society for Urban, National, and Transnational Anthropology Conference, San Juan, PR, April, 2011.

"Fractured Knowledge: South Sudanese Refugees, Parenting, and Media in the United States," at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2010.

Laura John 
"Marketing Marginality: Refashioning Heritage in Highland Scotland," at the Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Anthropological Association, March 2010.

Melanie Kingsley 
"In the Wake of Collapse: post-dynastic or Early Postclassic occupation at El Zotz, Guatemala," at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, Memphis, April 2012. 

Co-Organizer of the 2012 International Committee of Archaeological Heritage Management (ICAHM) Annual Conference in Cuzco, Peru.

"Reboot or Shutdown? The Lowland Maya Postclassic as Community Reorganization," at the European Maya Conference, Madrid, December 2010.

"Laguna Mendoza: Island Settlement in a Shifting Maya Landscape," at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting, April 2010.

Katie Lukach 
"Representation and Exchange in Late Classic Mesoamerica: A Study of Some Figurines from the Brandeis University Material Culture Laboratory Collection," at the Society for American Archaeology Annual Meeting, April 2011.

Betsy Marzahn-Ramos 
"Pots in the Periphery: Preliminary Results from the Analysis of Middle Usumacinta Ceramics." Paper to be presented at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting, April 2012.

"Resultados Preliminares de un Analisis de la Ceramica de la Sierra del Lacandon," paper co-presented with Ana Lucia Arroyave, Rosaura Vasquez, and Luis Midilia Marroquin Franco at the XXV Simposio de Investigaciones Arqueologicas en Guatemala, July 2011.

Casey Miller 
"'Being In Love Is Like Brewing Tea': Looking for Love and Intimacy In Queer Post-Socialist Urban China (co-organizer),"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

Ariel Meave
"Home Construction: Spatiality and Relationality in First-Year Residence Halls," at the American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association National Conference, Washingtodonn D.C., March 2013.  

Elisabeth Moolenaar 
"Welcome Home!: Chinese American Heritage Travel as Nation (re)Building," at ASEN Conference, London School of Political Science and Economics, April 2011.

"Journey to Belonging: Chinese American Heritage Travel to Guangdong, China," at the States of Belonging Conference, University of Colorado, September 2010.

Ryo Morimoto 
"What Happened Is the Sum of All What Did Not Happen: Disastrous Slips, or Reading Cultural Memories In the 3/11 Tohoku Disasters,"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

"Brave New World: The Disaster Volunteer as the Storehouse of Memories," at the Association for Asian Studies Annual Conference, Toronto, March 2012.  

"The Use and Abuse of Mnemonic Objects: (Re)framing Experience in Post-Tsunami Japan," at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal, November 2011. 

"Signs on the Shore: Unification, Schismogenesis, or ... Japanese's responses to the triple catastrophe," at New England Association for Asian Studies Conference, Wellesley College, October 2011. 

Beth Semel
"How Cultural, How Competent? the Ideological (Re)Construction of “Cultural” Mental Health Patients In the Cross-Cultural Psychology Classroom,"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

Jennifer Skinnon
"National Grieving and Collective Memory: Liminal Spaces Captured in Some 9/11 and post-9/11 Visual Art," at the American Culture Association/Popular Culture Association National Conference, Washington D.C., March 2013.  

Donald A. Slater 
"To the Four Corners:Fragmentation, Scattering, and Termination in the Caves of AncientCentral Yucatan, Mexico." Paper to be presented at the 78th Annual Societyfor American Archaeology Meeting, Honolulu, HI, April 2013.

"Linking the Depths of the Earth to the Sky: A Solar Observatory within Ikil Cave 1, Yucatan, Mexico." Paper presented at the 77th Annual Society for American Archaeology Meeting, Memphis, TN., April 2012. 

"Emerging from the Underworld: Highlights of the Central Yucatan Archaeological Cave Project (CYAC)." Invited “Closer Look” presentation at National Geographic Headquarters, Washington D.C., January 2012.

"In the Footsteps of the Founders: Current Archaeological Research at the Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archaeology," at the Society for American Archaeology, April 2011.

"Seeking Xibalba: Preliminary Investigations of the Central Yucatan Archaeological Cave Project (CYAC)," at the Society of American Archaeology Annual Meeting, April 2010.

Olivia Spaletta 
"Blood Essentialism and Lifestyle Choice: The Practice of Becoming Danish,"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

Mrinalini Tankha 
"Dismembering El Caballo: Symbolic and Economic Meanings of Multiple Currency Exchange In Cuba,"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

Allison B. Taylor
"'Little Mogadishu': Creating a Somali Space in Minnesota,"  at the Society for the Anthropology of North America Conference, Durham, March 2013.

"Nabad Iyo Midnimo: Alternative Trauma Narratives In Collective Well-Being,"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

 "'No Men, Sorry and Please Don’t Ask': Somali Weddings As Ambivalent Spaces," at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal, November 2011.

"'Welcome to Somalia': The Minneapolis Suuq as a Diasporic Space," at the American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, November 2010.

Holly Walters
"Divine Husband, Divine Lover: Subjectivity, Sensuality, and Sacred Space Among the Krishna Devotees of Mayapur" at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

Nicole Welk
"Bullet Holes and Band Aids: Graffiti, murals and contested 'visual truth' in Philadelphia" at the Society for the Anthropology of North America Conference, Durham, March 2013.

Mengqi Wang
"The Moral Economy of Chinese Home Owners: Negotiating the Right to Housing in Post-Purchase Conflicts"  at the International Conference on Anthropology and Urban Conflict in Barcelona, Spain, November 2012.

"Housing Agencies As Public Spaces: Negotiating 'the Right to Housing' In China,"at the Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, November 2012.

"Scripturalizing Buyi Culture and Development Project: Building a Museumof Ethnic Minorities in Southwest China," at the American Ethnological Society conference, NYC, April 2012. 

Xingyi Wang
"Religion, Public Space and the NGO: an Investigation of Taiwan’s Civil Society," at New England Association for Asian Studies Conference, Wellesley College, October 2011.

Grants and Fellowships

(Our students also received a number of internal grants, including Mellon-Sachar, which are not listed below)

Rachana Agarwal
Spencer Foundation Graduate Research Grant in Education, 2005-2006, 2007-2008.

Emily Canning
Fulbright IIE Fellowship, Kyrgyzstan, 2012-2013. 

Dissertation Research Award, Research Circle on Democracy and Cultural Pluralism, Brandeis University, 2011.

Casey Golomski
Robert A. Manners Award, Brandeis University.

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad, principal award (declined).

Fulbright IIE Fellowship for dissertation research, "Right Passages: The Work of Ritual in Swaziland's Age of HIV-AIDS," 2010-2011.

Fulbright-Hays Intensive Intermediate-Advanced Zulu Group Project Abroad, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa, 2009.

Jessica Hardin
Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant, for research project "Exchange and Health: Negotiating the Meaning of Food and Body among Evangelical Christians in Independent Samoa," 2011. 

Robert A. Manners Award, Brandeis University, for paper titled "Anthropology as Cultural Politics: (Re)Motivating Tradition in Oceania," 2010.

Fulbright-Hays Advanced Samoan Language Abroad Group Project Abroad, Samoa, 2010.

Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research Grant for oral literature collection in American Samoa, 2009.

Melanie Kingsley
National Geographic Society-Waitt Foundation Grant for dissertation research "After the end-a look at a Maya site after the Classic Period collapse," 2010.

Casa Herrera Scholar in Residence, Antigua, Guatemala, 2010.

Short-term Pre-doctoral residency, Dumbarton Oaks (an institute of Harvard University), 2009. 

Betsy Marzahn-Ramos
Short-term Pre-doctoral residency, Dumbarton Oaks (an institute of Harvard University), 2009.

Casey Miller
Chiang Ching-kuo Foundation for International Scholarly Exchange doctoral dissertation writing grant for "Grassroots Gay and Lesbian Organizations, HIV/AIDS, and the Construction of Civil Society in Mainland China," 2012-2013.

Fulbright IIE Fellowship for dissertation research, "Gay Men’s Health Groups and the Effects of Reform on Sexuality and Civil Society in China," 2010-2011.

National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant, Cultural Anthropology Program, Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences, 2010.

Ryo Morimoto
Japan Foundation doctoral fellowship grant for dissertation research, 2013-2014. 

Donald A. Slater 
Phillips Academy Andover, Abbot Academy Association Grant for the development of a student expedidtion to Peru, 2012.

National Science Foundation, Dissertation Research Improvement Grant for "At the Heart of the Turtle: Caves, Power, and Liminality in Ancient Central Yucatan, Mexico," 2011.

Cave Research Foundation Graduate Research Grant for "Investigations of the Central Yucatan Archaeological Cave Project: Caves, Power, and Legitimation in the Ancient Yaxcaba Region, Yucatan, Mexico," 2010.

Cleveland Grotto of the National Speleological Society Science Fund grant for "Investigations of the Central Yucatan Archaeological Cave Project: Caves, Power, and Legitimation in the Ancient Yaxcaba Region, Yucatan, Mexico," 2010.

National Geographic Society, Waitt Grants Program grant for "Seeking Xibalba: Preliminary Investigations of the Central Yucatan Archaeological Cave Project," 2009.

Mrinalini Tankha
Dissertation Research Award, Research Circle on Democracy and Cultural Pluralism, Brandeis University, 2012. 

International Dissertation Research Fellowship from the Social Science Research Council, 2009.

Institute for Money, Technology and Financial Inclusion at the University of California, Irvine grant for dissertation research, 2009.

Allison Taylor
Taylor, Allison. Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship (US Dept of Education--FLAS) for the study of Somali language at the Summer Cooperative African Language Institute (tuition and stipend). 

Taylor, Allison. Recommended for NSF dissertation funding, Cultural Anthropology Program, 2009.

Teaching Positions, Awards, and Appointments

(Our graduate students also serve as tutors for the English as a Second Language Program, and work for the Writing Center, assisting undergraduates)

Anna Jaysane-Darr
Davis Teaching Fellow, Spring 2010.

Casey Golomski 
Lecturer at University of Massachusetts, Boston, 2011-2013.

Carrie Hunter-Tate Award, National Association of Student Anthropologists, American Anthropological Association, 2010.

Anthropology of Africa, Department of Sociology-Anthropology, Northeastern University, Spring 2010.

Peoples and Cultures, Department of Sociology-Anthropology, Northeastern University, Fall 2009.

Outstanding Teaching Fellow, Brandeis University, 2008.

Jessica Hardin
Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences, National University of Samoa.
July-November 2012.

Affiliate Student, Center for Language, Interaction, and Culture, UCLA, 2010.

Melanie Kingsley
Teaching Coordinator, English as a Second Language Program, Brandeis University, 2009-2010.

Outstanding Teaching Fellow, Brandeis University, 2009.

Betsy Marzahn-Ramos
Adjunct Instructor, Wagner College, 2007-2008. Courses include The Ancient and Modern Maya and Introduction to Archaeology.

Casey Miller
ANTH 1101, Peoples and Cultures, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Northeastern University, Summer 2010

Davis Teaching Fellow, Spring 2010.

Donald A. Slater 
Outstanding Teaching Fellow, Brandeis University, 2010.

Robert A. Manners Prize 2009.

Educator, Robert S. Peabody Museum of Archeology, 2002-present. 

Publications

Casey Golomski
"Rites of Passage." Encyclopedia of Cultural Sociology: Volume 2 Africa, part 3 1900-Present. Thousand Oaks: SAGE Publications, 2010.

"Amaculo aseNingizimu Afrika - Songs of South Africa" (co-authored with Beth Restrick and Katsuki Sakai), online educational resource, Boston University African Studies Center, 2008. http://sites.google.com/site/isizulu3/

Melanie Kingsley
"Parallelism in Occupation: Tracking the Pre- and Post-Dynastic Evolution of Piedras Negras, Guatemala Through its Secondary Site, El Porvenir," co-authored with Charles Golden, Andrew Scherer, and Luz Midilia Marroquin de Franco. Mexicon 34(5):109-117. 

"Conservation and Preservation." The Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology.  Co-edited with Douglas Comer.

Jessica Hardin
“‘God is Your Health’: Healing Metabolic Disorders in Samoa.” In Conflicts and Convergences: Critical Perspectives on Christianity in Australia and the Pacific. Carolyn Schwarz and Fiona Magowan, eds.. (Forthcoming).

"Electronic Decision Supports for Obesity Prevention," co-authored with Eileen Dryden, Julia McDonald, Elsie Taveras, and Karen Hacker. Clinical Pediatrics 51(5), December 2012.

The Meaning of Measures, the Measures of Meaning: New Directions Obesity Research, Berghahn Books, co-edited with Megan McCullough. (In Press).

“Fasting for Health, Fasting for God: Samoan Evangelical Christian Responses to Obesity and Chronic Disease,” in The Meaning of Measures, the Measures of Meaning: New Directions Obesity Research. (Forthcoming).

Anna Jaysane-Darr
"Nurturing Sudanese, Producing Americans: Refugee Parents and Personhood." In Parenting in Global Perspective: Negotiating Ideologies of Kinship, Self, and Politics. Charlotte Faircloth, Diane Hoffman, and Linda Layne, eds. (Forthcoming from Routledge)

"Galaxies of Meaning: Semiotics in Media Theory," Semiotica, Vol 182, October 2010.

Katharine W. Lukach
"Un análisis descriptivo de las figurillas descubiertas en la temporada de campo 2009 del Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz." In Proyecto Arqueológico “El Zotz:” Informe No. 5, edited by P. R. Griselda, E. Román, and S. Houston, pp. 371-390. Guatemala: Proyecto Arqueológico El Zotz, 2009.

Ryo Morimoto

"Shaking Ground, Unearthing Palimpsests: Semiotic Anthropology of Disaster,” Semiotica (forthcoming). 

How Humanity Came into Being: Understanding the Evolutionary Dynamics of Consciousness. Floris Books, 2010. (co-authored with Dr. Martin Lockley)