Curriculum Vitae
DEBORAH B. GEWERTZ
G. Henry Whitcomb Professor
Dept. of Anthropology-Sociology
Amherst College, Amherst MA 01002
Office: (413) 542-2741; Home: (413) 253-9619; Fax: (413) 542-5838
E-mail: DBGewertz@Amherst.edu
EDUCATION
1969 B.A. Queens College, C.U.N.Y., English Literature, cum laude.
1968-69 Special student, Princeton University.
1977 Ph.D. The Graduate School, C.U.N.Y., Anthropology.
FELLOWSHIPS
1971 N.S.F. Training Fellowship
1971-72 University Fellowship, C.U.N.Y.
1973 Special Fellowship, C.U.N.Y.
1973-74 Dissertation Year Fellowship, C.U.N.Y.
1973-75 Joint Doctoral Research Internship from the East-West Center's Population Institute of $18,000
1974 National Geographic Research Grant of $3,000
1979 Miner D. Crary Fellowship of $3,000
1979 N.E.H. Summer Fellowship of $3,000
1979 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Grant -- declined
1980-81 Amherst College Trustee Faculty Fellowship of $21,000
1980-81 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Grant of $3,000
1987-88 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $7,000
1987-88 N.E.H. Interpretive Research Grant, with Frederick Errington, of $65,000
1990-91 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $9,500
1991-92 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $15,500
1995-96 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $5,500
1995-96 Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Grant of $6,300
1995-96 N.S.F. Research Grant, with Frederick Errington, of $91,917
1998 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $5,500
1999 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $20,000
2000 A.C.L.S./S.S.R.C./N.E.H. International Award of $35,000
2002 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $5,000
2006 Amherst College Faculty Research Grant of $19,000
2006 N.S.F. Research Grant, with Frederick Errington, of $99,961
EMPLOYMENT
1972 Adjunct Lecturer, Queens College, C.U.N.Y.
1976-77 Adjunct Instructor, Hunter College, C.U.N.Y.
1977-83 Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Amherst College
1983-84 Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, Research School for Pacific Studies, The Australian National University
1983-88 Associate Professor of Anthropology, Amherst College
1985-87 Elizabeth Bruss Reader in Anthropology and Women Studies, Amherst College
1985-87 Chair, Dept. of Anthropology-Sociology, Amherst College
1988-94 Professor of Anthropology, Amherst College
1991- Professor of Anthropology, University of Massachusetts Graduate Faculty
1994- G. Henry Whitcomb Professor of Anthropology, Amherst College
2002-2006 Chair, Dept. of Anthropology-Sociology, Amherst College
2005 Professor, the École des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, summer appointment.
2006 Visiting Fellow, University of Auckland.
FIELD RESEARCH
The Chambri and their neighbors of the East Sepik Province of Papua New Guinea during 1974-75, June-August, 1979, December-February, 1983-84, July, l987-January, 1988, June-August, 1994, January-August, 1996 and June, 1999.
Rock Creek, Montana, during the summers of 1985, 1986, 1988, 1989 and 1992.
The Karavarans and their neighbors of the Duke of York Island Group in the East New Britain Province of Papua New Guinea during June-October, 1991.
Executives of Booker Tate, a multinational agricultural advisory firm, during June-July, 1998, and March, 2001.
Plantation workers and managers at Ramu Sugar Limited, a privately owned sugar plantation whose largest shareholder is the government of Papua New Guinea, at Gusap in the Madang Province during July-August, 1999, January-August, 2000, and June-July, 2001.
Meat processors, importers, exporters, and consumers in Australia, New Zealand, Fiji, and Papua New Guinea during June-August, 2004 and during December, 2005-July, 2006.
ASSOCIATIONS
Member, American Anthropological Association
Member, American Ethnological Association
Fellow, Association for Cultural Anthropology
Fellow, Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania
Member, Association for Feminist Anthropology
BOOKS
Sepik River Societies: A Historical Ethnography of the Chambri and their Neighbors (New Haven, Yale University Press) 1983.
Cultural Alternatives and a Feminist Anthropology: An Analysis of Culturally Constructed Gender Interests in Papua New Guinea (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 1987, with Frederick Errington; paperback edition, 1989.
Twisted Histories, Altered Contexts: Representing the Chambri in a World System (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 1991, with Frederick Errington. This book received Honorable Mention for the 1991 Victor Turner Prize in ethnographic writing awarded by the Society for Humanistic Anthropology.
Articulating Change in the "Last Unknown" (Boulder, Colorado, Westview Press) 1995, with Frederick Errington.
Emerging Class in Papua New Guinea: The Telling of Difference (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 1999, with Frederick Errington.
Yali's Question: Sugar, Culture, and History (Chicago, University of Chicago Press) 2004, with Frederick Errington.
Cheap Meat: The Global Omnivore’s Dilemma in the Pacific Islands, completed manuscript under review by the University of California Press, with Frederick Errington
EDITED VOLUMES
History and Ethnohistory in New Guinea (Sydney, Oceania Monographs) 1985, with Edward Schieffelin.
Myths of Matriarchy Reconsidered (Sydney, Oceania Monographs) 1988.
The Handbook of Sociocultural Anthropology, edited collection under contract to Berg Publishers to be completed during 2010, with James Carrier.
ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN BOOKS
"The Father Who Bore Me: The Role of the Tsambunwuro during Chambri Initiation Ceremonies," in Rituals of Manhood, Gilbert Herdt, ed. (Berkeley, University of California Press) 1982.
"Of Symbolic Anchors and Sago Soup: The Rhetoric of Exchange among the Chambri of Papua New Guinea," in Dangerous Words, Donald Brenneis and Fred Myers, eds. (New York, New York University Press) 1984.
"Introduction," in History and Ethnohistory in New Guinea, Edward Schieffelin and Deborah Gewertz, eds. (Sydney, Oceania Monographs) 1985, with Edward Schieffelin.
"The Golden Age Revisited: A History of the Chambri between 1905-1927," in History and Ethnohistory in New Guinea, Edward Schieffelin and Deborah Gewertz, eds. (Sydney, Oceania Monographs) 1985.
"The Remarriage of Yebiwali: A Study of Dominance and False Consciousness in a Non-Western Society," in Dealing With Inequality, Marilyn Strathern, ed. (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) 1987, with Frederick Errington.
"Introduction", in Myths of Matriarchy Reconsidered, Deborah Gewertz, ed., (Sydney, Oceania Monographs) 1988.
"Myths of Matriarchy Re-examined: Indigenous Images of Alternative Gender Relationships," in Myths of Matriarchy Reconsidered, Deborah Gewertz, ed. (Sydney, Oceania Monographs) 1988, with Frederick Errington.
"The Chambri," in Encyclopedia of World Cultures, (New Haven, Human Relations Area Files), 1991.
"The Historical Course of True Love in the Sepik," in Contemporary Pacific Societies, Victoria Lockwood, et. al. eds. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall), 1992, with Frederick Errington.
"We Think, Therefore They Are: On Occidentalizing the World," in Cultures of Imperialism, Donald Pease and Amy Kaplan, eds. (Durham, Duke University Press) 1994, with Frederick Errington.
"Dueling Currencies in East New Britain: The Construction of Shell Money as National Cultural Property," in Occidentalism, James Carrier, ed. (Oxford, Oxford University Press), 1995, with Frederick Errington.
"Toward an Ethnographically Grounded Study of Modernity," in The Pacific in a Global World, Victoria Lockwood, ed., (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, Prentice Hall), 2003, with Frederick Errington.
"Tourism and Anthropology in a Post-Modern World," reprinted in Tourists and Tourism, Sharon Gmelch, ed., (New York, Waveland), 2003, with Frederick Errington.
"On Humiliation and Class in Contemporary Papua New Guinea," in The Making of Global and Local Modernities in Melanesia, Joel Robbins and Holy Wardlow, eds., (Hampshire, England, Ashgate Press), 2005, with Frederick Errington.
“Amity Reconfigured at Ramu Sugar Limited,” in Dilemmas and Exemplars: The Anthropology of Morality in Melanesia and Beyond, John Barker, ed., (Hampshire, England, Ashgate Press) forthcoming, 2007, with Frederick Errington.
“Women In the Cane: Jealous Wives and Aggrieved Girl Friends” in Ethnographies, Histories, and Power: Critical Engagements with the Work of Sidney Mintz, Aisha Kahn, George Baca and Stephen Palmie, eds., (Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press), forthcoming, 2008, with Frederick Errington.
ARTICLES PUBLISHED IN JOURNALS
"The Politics of Affinal Exchange: Chambri as a Client Market," Ethnology, July, 1977.
"On Whom Depends the Action of the Elements: Debating among the Chambri," Journal of Polynesian Society, September, 1977.
"From Sago-Suppliers to Entrepreneurs: Marketing and Migration in the Middle Sepik," Oceania, December, 1977.
"Tit for Tat: Barter Markets in the Middle Sepik," Anthropological Quarterly, January, 1978.
"The Consequences of Constancy among the Chambri," Oceania, June, 1979.
"The Myth of the Blood Men: An Explanation of Chambri Warfare," Journal of Anthropological Research, Winter, 1979.
"Of Symbolic Anchors and Sago Soup: The Rhetoric of Exchange among the Chambri of Papua New Guinea," Journal of Polynesian Society, September, 1980.
"An Historical Reconsideration of Female Dominance among the Chambri of Papua New Guinea," American Ethnologist, February, 1981.
"Deviance Unplaced: The Story of Kaviwon Reconsidered," Social Analysis, December, 1982.
"The Tchambuli Concept of Persons: A Critique of Individualism in the Works of Mead and Chodorow," American Anthropologist, September, 1984.
"The Chief of the Chambri: Social Change and Cultural Permeability among a New Guinea People," American Ethnologist, August, 1985, with Frederick Errington.
"The Confluence of Powers: Entropy and Importation among the Chambri," Oceania, December, 1986, with Frederick Errington.
"Of Unfinished Dialogues and Paper Pigs," American Ethnologist, May, 1987, with Frederick Errington.
"Exemplars and the Reproduction of Everyday Life," Dialectical Anthropology, Vol. 13, 1988, with Frederick Errington.
"Tourism and Anthropology in a Post-Modern World," Oceania, Vol. 61, 1989, with Frederick Errington.
Symmetrical Schizmogenesis Revisited: Gewertz Responds to Bowden," Oceania, March, 1991.
"We Think, Therefore They Are: On Occidentalizing the World," Anthropological Quarterly, March, 1991, with Frederick Errington.
"Responses from the Field," Pacific Studies, Vol. 16, 1993, with Frederick Errington.
"First Contact With God: Revivalism in the Duke of York Islands," Cultural Anthropology, August, 1993, with Frederick Errington.
"The Triumph of Capitalism in East New Britain? A Contemporary Papua New Guinea Rhetoric of Motives," Oceania, September, 1993, with Frederick Errington.
"The Discipline at Its Best," Anthropology Newsletter, October, 1993, with Frederick Errington.
"From Darkness to Light in the George Brown Jubilee: The Invention of Non-tradition and the Inscription of a National History in East New Britain," American Ethnologist, February, 1994, with Frederick Errington.
"The Individuation of Tradition in a Papua New Guinea Modernity," American Anthropologist, March, 1996, with Frederick Errington.
"On PepsiCo and Piety in a Papua New Guinea Modernity, American Ethnologist, August, 1996, with Frederick Errington.
"The Wewak Rotary Club: The Middle Class in Papua New Guinea," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, June, 1997, with Frederick Errington.
"Why We Return to Papua New Guinea," Anthropological Quarterly, July, 1997, with Frederick Errington
"Sleights of Hand in the Construction of Desire in a Papua New Guinean Modernity," Contemporary Pacific, Fall, 1998, with Frederick Errington.
"The Telling of Class in Papua New Guinea," Response to Reviews in the Book Review Forum, Contemporary Pacific, Spring, 2001, with Frederick Errington.
"On the Generification of Culture: From Blow Fish to Melanesian," Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, September, 2001, with Frederick Errington.
“The Alimentary Forms of the Global Life,” American Anthropologist, September, 2007, with Frederick Errington.
“Pacific Island Gastrologies: Following the Flaps,” Journal of the Royal Anthropological Association, September, 2008, in press, with Frederick Errington.
REVIEWS
Of The Leaders and the Led by Ian Hogbin and Ongka by Andrew Strathern in the American Ethnologist, August, 1980.
Of The Highland Peoples of New Guinea by Paula Brown in the Journal of Asian Thought and Society, April, 1980.
Of A New Guinea Landscape by K.J. Patakai-Schweizer in the American Anthropologist, June, 1981.
Of Growing Up in Polynesia by Jane and James Ritchie in the Journal of Asian Thought and Society, 1981.
Of Contrast and Context in a New Guinea Culture, by Ernest Brandewie in the American Anthropologist, September, 1982.
Of A Thousand Graduates by Ian Howie-Willis in Pacific Studies, Spring, 1982.
Of Vanuatu edited by Michael Allen in the American Anthropologist, December, 1982.
Of Inequality in New Guinea Highlands Societies edited by Andrew Strathern in the Journal of Polynesian Society, March, 1984.
Of Yena: Art and Ceremony in a Sepik Society by Ross Bowden in Oceania, December, 1985.
Of Ways of Exchange by D. K. Feil in the Journal of Polynesian Society, December, 1985.
Of Rethinking Women's Roles edited by Denise O'Brien and Sharon Tiffany in the American Ethnologist, February, 1986.
Of Gender and Social Life edited by Anna Yeatman in Oceania, March, 1986.
Of the films Namekas: Music in Lake Chambri and Kama Wosi: Music in the Trobriands by Les McLaren, in the American Anthropologist, June, 1986.
Of Divine Hunger by Peggy Sanday, in the New York Times Book Review, May, 1987.
Of The Creation of Patriarchy by Gerda Lerner, in the American Ethnologist, August, 1988.
Of What Gifts Engender by Rena Lederman, in Ethnohistory, Spring, 1989.
Of Always Hungry, Never Greedy by Miriam Kahn, in the Medical Anthropology Quarterly, June, 1989.
Of the film, Cannibal Tours, by Dennis O'Rourke, in the American Anthropologist, June, 1989, with Frederick Errington.
Of The Gender of the Gift by Marilyn Strathern, in the American Anthropologist, September, 1990.
Of the film, Joe Leahy's Neighbors, by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, in the American Anthropologist, September, 1990, with Frederick Errington.
Of Wage Trade and Exchange in Melanesia by James and Achsah Carrier, in the American Ethnologist, November, 1990.
Of Sacred Queens and Women of Consequence by Jocelyn Linnekin, in the American Anthropologist, December, 1991.
Of Gone Primitive by Mariana Torgovnick, in the American Anthropologist, December, 1991.
Of the film, Black Harvest, by Bob Connolly and Robin Anderson, in the American Anthropologist, December, 1992, with Frederick Errington.
Of Stealing People's Names by Simon Harrison, in Man, September, 1993.
Of The Abandoned Narcotic by Ron Brunton, in the American Ethnologist, August, 1994.
Of Routes by James Clifford, in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, with Frederick Errington, June, 1998.
Of Encompassing Modernity by Edward LiPuma, in the Contemporary Pacific, Fall, 2002.
Of Intertwined Lives: Margaret Mead, Ruth Benedict and their Circle by Lois Banner, in Ms., Fall, 2003.
Of Venice, The Tourist Maze, by Robert Davis and Garry Marvin, in American Ethnologist, 2005, in press.
Of The Unseen City: Anthropological Perspectives on Port Moresby by Michael Goddard, in Australian Journal of Anthropology, November, 2006.
EDITORSHIPS
A member of the editorial board of the Monograph Series of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, 1982-1987.
Editor, Special Publications of the Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, 1987-1993.
Member of the editorial board of Oceania publications, 1989-present.
Associate Editor of the American Ethnologist, 1995-1998.
Associate Editor of Ethnos, 1997-2001
Associate Editor of the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 1998-2001
OTHER (SELECTED) PROFESSIONAL ACTIVITIES
Appointed the George and Mary Foster Lecturer for the year 2007, Southern Methodist University.
Appointed Lewis Henry Morgan Lecturer for the year 2002 (with Frederick Errington), University of Rochester.
Appointed a member of the review board of the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2001-2003.
Appointed to the selection committee for junior grants provided by the American Council of Learned Societies, 2003.
Appointed co-convener of the Melanesia Interest Group within the American Anthropological Association, 2001-2003.
Elected Five College 25th Anniversary Lecturer by colleagues from Amherst, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Hampshire and the University of Massachusetts.
Keynote speaker (with Frederick Errington) at the 1995 meetings of the Northeastern Anthropological Association.
Program Co-Chair (with Frederick Errington) of the 1993 meetings of the American Anthropological Association.
Participant and many national and international conferences. A list will be supplied upon request.
Author of numerous lectures, delivered in the United States and abroad. Some have been published in popular magazines. A list will be supplied upon request.
Organizer of symposia and discussant at colloquia. A list will be supplied upon request.
Grant proposal referee for the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Science Foundation and the Wenner-Gren Foundation.
Manuscript referee for the all major anthropological journals and for the University of California Press, Cambridge University Press, University of Washington Press, University of Chicago Press, University of Illinois Press, University of Hawaii Press.
Member of accreditation and review committees for the Anthropology Departments at Mount Holyoke, Trinity, Bates, and Union Colleges.
TEACHING SPECIALTIES
Contemporary Anthropological Theory
World Food Systems
The Anthropology of Gender
Sociocultural Anthropology
History of Anthropological Thought
The Pacific
Visual Anthropology
Globalism