The Ethnology/Linguistics Program emphasizes comparative and historical perspectives on critical social issues, focusing on both the social and cultural aspects of class, gender, ethnicity, nationalism, and territoriality. Power and difference as they are expressed in language, the politics of representation, the cultural construction of identity, expressive culture, political economy, immigration, and tourism are key areas of concern. Issues of social justice, human rights, and applied ethics inform faculty research and teaching in all of these areas. The Ethnology/Linguistics Program is also concerned with the study of language and language use from a distinctly anthropological perspective, recognizing the roles of social, cognitive, symbolic, and biological factors. There is particular focus on forms of linguistic interaction in their sociocultural settings.

Graduate degrees offered: MA in Anthropology; PhD in Anthropology.

Ethnology / Linguistics Faculty
Below is a description of each faculty member. More information about each faculty member can be found by clicking the profile link below each faculty's description.

Dinwoodie, David (PhD, Chicago)
Research interests include linguistic anthropology, sociocultural anthropology, historical consciousness, social organization and change, pragmatics, Athabaskan linguistics; Native North America, contemporary North America.
Dinwoodie Profile >>

Feld, Steve (PhD, Indiana)
Steven Feld's academic research principally concerns the anthropology of sound and voice, incorporating studies in linguistics and poetics, music and aesthetics, acoustics and ecology. Since the mid-1970s he has studied the sound world --from environmental sounds to bird calls to language, poetry and music -- of the Bosavi rainforest region in Papua New Guinea. He has more recently researched the sound world of Greek Macedonia and Romani ("Gypsy") instrumentalists, and is currently producing a 5 CD, DVD, and book project on the worldwide history and culture of bells, with initial European research and recording in France, Finland, Norway, Greece, Italy and Denmark, and a special non-European focus on Ghana and Japan. His new research, in Ghana since 2004, focuses on contemporary jazz, and on the history of union drivers and truck horn music in Accra.
Feld Profile>>

Field, Les (PhD, Duke)
His work, which spans both Latin America and Native North America, has focused upon indigenous identities, the making of nation-states and nationalist ideologies, and control over and uses of natural resources. Professor Field has concentrated upon issues of sovereignty, cultural heritage, and anthropological history in his work with unrecognized tribes; in his work with federally recognized tribes, his work focuses upon resources, narrative, identity, and Native scholarship.
Field Profile >>

Lamphere, Louise (PhD, Harvard)
Research interests include the development of public anthropology and in creating new strategies for making anthropological research more relevant to public policy. She teaches courses on Women, Culture, and Society, Feminist Urban Anthropology, The History of Theory in Anthropology, and Public Policy and Anthropology. She is also interested in social organization and kinship, theory, political economy, gender, women and work, urban anthropology; and the US Southwest.
Lamphere Profile >>

Nagengast, Carole (PhD, UC-Irvine)
Research interests include class, nationalism, ethnicity and culture, political economy, transnationalism, human rights, public policy; east-central Europe, Mexico, US-Mexico border
Nagengast Profile >>

Oakdale, Suzanne
Research interests include Amazonian indigenous peoples; ritual; social change; self and person; autobiographical narrative and life history; Latin America; Brazil.
Oakdale Profile >>

Rodríguez, Sylvia (PhD, Stanford)
Research interests include: interethnic relations; tourism; ritual; land and water issues; U.S. Southwest; Upper Rio Grande Valley.
Rodriguez Profile >>

Singer, Beverly (PhD, UNM)
Research interests include indigenous media, Native American art, history and culture, video production.
Singer Profile >>

Stuart, David
Research interests include: Evolutionary Anthropology, Power and efficiency in Cultural Evolution, Southwestern Archaeology, South American Archaeology, Contemporary Mexico/Ethnology/Social Conditions.
Stuart Profile >>

Weigle, Marta (PhD, Pennsylvania)
Chief concern at this point is the development of tourism in the Southwest and elsewhere and the construction of region. Interests include mythology, narrative studies, ritual and celebration, nonverbal communication, and women and oral tradition. Mythology, especially women and mythology, plays an increasingly important role in my future research, writing and teaching.
Weigle Profile >>