Janet McIntosh
Degrees
University of Michigan, Ph.D.University of Michigan, M.A.
Oxford University, B.A.
Harvard University, B.A.
Expertise
Linguistic anthropology and critical discourse analysis; psychological anthropology, personhood, and subjectivity; anthropology of the military and conservatism; whiteness studies; ethnic and racial relations; colonialism and post-coloniality; religion and ritual. East Africa, South Africa, United States. Teaches courses on anthropological theory, linguistic anthropology, psychological anthropology, communication and media, colonialism and post-coloniality, and military and policing.Profile
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Janet McIntosh, Professor of Anthropology, is a cultural anthropologist whose work focuses on linguistic anthropology, psychological anthropology, language ideology, narrative and discourse, personhood, essentialism, militarization and demilitarization, religion, ritual, Islam, ethnic identity, colonialism and postcoloniality, and whiteness studies, based on fieldwork in East Africa and the USA. After earning a BA at Harvard University (summa cum laude) and a second BA at Oxford University (first class honors), she undertook graduate training at the University of Michigan, earning her Ph.D in 2002 and winning a Distinguished Dissertation Award. Her first book, "The Edge of Islam: Power, Personhood, and Ethnoreligious Boundaries on the Kenya Coast" (Duke University Press, 2009), won the 2010 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion. Her second book, "Unsettled: Denial and Belonging among White Kenyans" (University of California Press, 2016), received Honorable Mention in the 2018 American Ethnological Society's Senior Book Prize, and Honorable Mention in the 2017 Victor Turner Prize for Ethnographic Writing. She is the co-editor, with Norma Mendoza-Denton, of "Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies" (Cambridge University Press 2020). Funded by an ACLS faculty fellowship, she is working on a project on language in the United States military. Dr. McIntosh has published in such journals as American Ethnologist, Anthropological Quarterly, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Journal of Pragmatics, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Africa, Journal of Religion in Africa, Signs and Society, Language in Society, Annual Review of Anthropology, and Language and Communication. She is on the Editorial Boards of Oxford Studies in the Anthropology of Language (Oxford University Press), the journal Cultural Anthropology, the journal Anthropology and Humanism, and the Journal of Religion in Africa. The courses she teaches at Brandeis include "Contemporary Anthropological Theory" (graduate level), "Language in American Life," "Linguistic Anthropology," "Psychological Anthropology," "Colonialism and Postcoloniality in Sub-Saharan Africa: Encounters and Dilemmas," "Communication and Media," "Introduction to the Comparative Study of Human Societies," and "Anthropology of Military and Policing." Before coming to Brandeis she taught at University of Michigan, Harvard University, and MIT. She lives in Brookline with her husband Tom and sons Tobias and Theo. Webpage
Courses Taught
| ANTH | 26a | Communication and Media |
| ANTH | 61b | Language in American Life |
| ANTH | 114a | Anthropology of Military and Policing |
| ANTH | 155b | Psychological Anthropology |
| ANTH | 203b | Contemporary Anthropological Theory |
Awards and Honors
2018 American Ethnological Society Senior Book Prize, Honorable Mention (for "Unsettled: Denial and Belonging among White Kenyans") (2018)
American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2018 - 2019)
2017 Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing, Honorable Mention, (for "Unsettled: Denial and Belonging among White Kenyans") (2017)
Senior Faculty Research Leave (2013)
Alternate, American Council of Learned Societies Fellowship (2011)
2010 Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion (for "The Edge of Islam") (2010)
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2008 - 2009)
Kermit H. Perlmutter Fellow (Award for Teaching Excellence) (2006)
Michael L. Walzer Award for Teaching Excellence (2005)
Mazer Grant, Brandeis University. (2004)
National Endowment for the Humanities, Summer Stipend (for research in Kenya). (2004)
Horace H. Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award, University of Michigan (2003)
Certificate of Distinction for Excellence in Teaching, Harvard University (1999 - 2001)
Fulbright-Hays Fellowship (1998 - 1999)
Jacob Javits Fellowship (1993 - 1997)
Marshall Scholarship (1991 - 1993)
Scholarship
McIntosh, Janet, Barbara Ehrenreich. "'The New Creationism,' in Had I Known: Collected Essays by Barbara Ehrenreich.." The Nation. (1997): 253-264. Hachette Book Group, 2021.
McIntosh, Janet. "Alt-Signaling: Fascistic Communication and the Power of Subterranean Style." Hot Spots, Fieldsights (Society for Cultural Anthropology) April 15, 2021. (2021): <https://culanth.org/fieldsights/alt-signaling-fascistic-communication-and-the-power-of-subterranean-style>.
McIntosh, Janet. "Language in the Military: Necropolitical Legitimation, Embodied Semiotics, and Ineffable Suffering." Annual Review of Anthropology 50. (2021): 241-258.
McIntosh, Janet. "Trump and the Language of Insurrection." BrandeisNow. https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2021/january/trump-language-capitol-riot-mcintosh.html; reprinted in Futurity https://www.futurity.org/trump-communication-supporters-2501462-2/ (2021)
McIntosh, Janet. "‘Because It’s Easier to Kill That Way’: Dehumanizing Epithets, Militarized Subjectivity, and American Necropolitics." Language in Society 50. (2021): 583-603.
McIntosh, Janet, Norma Mendoza-Denton, ed. Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
McIntosh, Janet. "Collusion: On Playing Along With the President." Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies. Ed. Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 151-157.
McIntosh, Janet. "Crybabies and Snowflakes." Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies. Ed. Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 74-87.
McIntosh, Janet. "How does Trump Use Coded Language to Speak to His Base." BrandeisNow https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2020/october/election-trump-code-mcintosh.html (2020)
McIntosh, Janet. "Introduction: A Linguistic Emergency." Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies. Ed. Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 1-43.
McIntosh, Janet. "Introduction: The Mud in those Letters." The Best of Medic in the Green Time: Writings from the Vietnam War and its Aftermath. Ed. Marc Levy. Salem, MA: Winter Street Press, 2020. ix-xxv.
McIntosh, Janet. "Language and Trump's White Nationalist Strongman Politics." Language in the Trump Era: Scandals and Emergencies. Ed. Janet McIntosh and Norma Mendoza-Denton. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020. 217-225.
McIntosh, Janet. "Obscenity and Taboo Words." Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. 2020.
McIntosh, Janet. "The ‘Invisible Enemy’: Language, Trump, and Covid-19." Fifteen Eightyfour: Academic Perspectives from Cambridge University Press, http://www.cambridgeblog.org/2020/05/the-invisible-enemy-language-trump-and-covid-19/ (2020)
McIntosh, Janet. "Whiteness and Language." Encyclopedia of Linguistic Anthropology. 2020.
McIntosh, Janet. "Emotion and Metalanguage." Handbook of Language and Emotion. Ed. Janina Fenigsen, James M. Wilce, and Sonya E. Pritzker. Taylor & Francis/Routledge., 2019. 258-272.
McIntosh, Janet. "Polyontologism: When Syncretism Doesn't Suffice." Journal of Africana Religions 7. 1 (2019): 112-120.
McIntosh, Janet. "“Musulmani Riluttanti: Egemonia Incorporata e Resistenza Morale Nella Possessione Spiritica Giriama.” [Translation of “Reluctant Muslims: Embodied Hegemony and Moral Resistance in a Giriama Spirit Possession Complex,” 2004]." Il Diavolo in Corpo: Sulla Possessione Spiritica. Trans. Moreno Paulon. (2019)
McIntosh, Janet. "Essentialism (10pp)." The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. 2018.
McIntosh, Janet. "Listening versus Lingwashing: Promise, Peril, and Structural Oblivion when White South Africans Learn Indigenous African Languages." Signs and Society 6. 3 (2018): 475-503.
McIntosh, Janet. "Personhood, Self, and Individual (9pp)." The International Encyclopedia of Anthropology. 2018.
McIntosh, Janet. "Depreciating Age, Disintegrating Ties: On Being Old in a Century of Declining Elderhood in Kenya." Successful Aging? Global Perspectives on a Contemporary Obsession. Ed. Sarah Lamb. Rutgers University Press, 2017. 185-199.
McIntosh, Janet. "Land, Belonging, and Structural Oblivion among Contemporary White Kenyans." Africa 87. 4 (2017): 662-682.
McIntosh, Janet. "Plural Semiotic Visions on the Kenya Coast." World on the Horizon: Swahili Arts Across the Indian Ocean. Ed. Prita S. Meier and Allyson Purpura. Seattle, WA: University of Washington Press, 2017
McIntosh, Janet. "Africa after Apartheid." Rev. of Africa after Apartheid: South Africa, Race, and Nation in Tanzania (Indiana University Press), by Richard Schroeder. African Affairs vol. 115(460) 2012: 584-586.
McIntosh, Janet. "Maxwell's Demons: Disenchantment in the Field [reprint]." Anthropology and Humanism. (2004): vol. Cultural Anthropology: Contemporary, Public and Critical Readings Ed. Keri Vacanti Brondo. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016.
McIntosh, Janet. Unsettled: Denial and Belonging among White Kenyans. Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2016.
McIntosh, Janet. "Autochthony and 'Family': The Politics of Kinship in White Kenyan Bids to Belong." Anthropological Quarterly 88. 2 (2015): 251-280.
McIntosh, Janet. "Linguistic Atonement: Penitence and Privilege in White Kenyan Language Ideologies." Anthropological Quarterly 87. 4 (2014): 1159-1193.
McIntosh, Janet. "Maxwell's Demons: Disenchantment in the Field [reprint]." Anthropology and Humanism. (2004): Applying Cultural Anthropology: An Introductory Reader. Ed. Aaron Podolefsky Peter J. Brown and Scott M. Lacy. 9th edition ed. 2013.
McIntosh, Janet. Structural Oblivion and Perspectivism: Land and Belonging among Contemporary White Kenyans. Proc. of European Conference on African Studies. Lisbon, Portugal: Center of African Studies at the University of Lisbon, 2013.
McIntosh, Janet. "Mobile Phones and Mipoho's Prophecy: The Powers and Dangers of Flying Language." American Ethnologist 37. 2 (2010): 337-353.
McIntosh, Janet. "“Liminal Meanings: Sexually Charged Giriama Funerary Ritual and Unsettled Participant Frameworks”." Language and Communication. (2005): Indigenous Religions. Ed. Stephen Hunt. London: Ashgate, 2010.
McIntosh, Janet. "(Book Review) A Companion to Linguistic Anthropology. Blackwell, 2004, 2006." by Alessandro Duranti. Language in Society vol. 37(2) 2009: 284-7.
McIntosh, Janet. "(Book Review) Bewitching Development: Witchcraft and the Reinvention of Development in Neoliberal Kenya. University of Chicago Press, 2008.." by James Howard Smith. Journal of Religion in Africa 2009
McIntosh, Janet. "(Book Review) Ritual, Discourse, and Community in Cuban Santería: Speaking a Sacred World. University of Florida Press, 2007." by Kristina Wirtz. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology vol. 18(1) 2009: 163-4.
McIntosh, Janet. "Elders and 'Frauds': Commodified Expertise and Politicized Authenticity among Mijikenda." Africa 79. 1 (2009): 35-52.
McIntosh, Janet. "Stance and Distance: Ontological Doubt and Social Boundaries in White Kenyan Narratives about the African Occult." Stance: Sociolinguistic Perspectives. Ed. Alexandra Jaffe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. 72-91.
McIntosh, Janet. The Edge of Islam: Power, Personhood, and Ethnoreligious Boundaries on the Kenya Coast. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
McIntosh, Janet. ""Going Bush": Black Magic, White Ambivalence, and Boundaries of Belief in Post-Colonial Kenya.." Journal of Religion in Africa 36. 3-4 (2006): 254-295.
McIntosh, Janet. "Baptismal Essentialisms: Giriama Code Choice and the Reification of Ethnoreligious Boundaries." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 15. 2 (2005): 151-170.
McIntosh, Janet. "Language Essentialism and Social Hierarchies among Giriama and Swahili." Journal of Pragmatics (2005): 1919-1944.
McIntosh, Janet. "Liminal Meanings: Sexually Charged Giriama Funerary Ritual and Unsettled Participant Frameworks." Language and Communication 25. (2005): 39-60.
McIntosh, Janet, Anthropology and Humanism. "Maxwell's Demons: Disenchantment in the Field." Anthropology and Humanism 29. 1 (2004): 63-77.
McIntosh, Janet. "Reluctant Muslims: Embodied Hegemony and Moral Resistance in a Giriama Spirit Possession Complex." Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (2004): 91-112.
McIntosh, Janet. "Spirits and Social Change." Kenya Past and Present 34. (2004): 68-72.
McIntosh, Janet. "What Have the 9-11 Investigators Overlooked?." Anthropologists in the Public Sphere: Speaking Out on War, Peace, and American Power. Ed. Gonzalez, Roberto. University of Texas Press, Austin, 2004
McIntosh, Janet. "Cracking Codes and Speaking in Tongues: Language, Gender, and Power in Two Kenyan Divination Rituals." Gendered Practices in Language. Ed. S. Benor, M. Rose, D. Sharma, J. Sweetland, & Q. Zhang. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications, 2002. 151-173.
McIntosh, Janet. "'Tradition' and Threat: Women's Obscenity in Giriama Funerary Rituals." Gender in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Third Edition. Ed. Brettell, Caroline B. & Sargent, Carolyn F.. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 2001. 409-422.
McIntosh, Janet. "Strategic Amnesia: Versions of Vasco da Gama on the Kenya Coast." Images of Africa: Stereotypes and Realities. Ed. Mungara, Daniel & Larson, Victoria. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001. 85-104.
McIntosh, Janet. "Symbolism, Cognition, and Political Orders." Science and Society 62. 4 (1999): 557-568.
McIntosh, Janet. "Professed Disbelief and Gender Identity on the Coast of Kenya." Gender and Belief. Ed. Warner, Natasha et al.. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. 481-490.