Ruth Behar is a Cuban-American anthropologist and writer. Her work includes academic studies,as well as poetry,memoir,and literary fiction. As an anthropologist,she has argued for the open adoption and acknowledgement of the subjective nature of research and participant-observers. She is a recipient of the BelpréMedal.
Gayle S. Rubin is an American cultural anthropologist,theorist and activist,best known for her pioneering work in feminist theory and queer studies.
Jeanine Basinger is an American film historian who retired in 2020 as the Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies,and Founder and Curator of The Cinema Archives at Wesleyan University,Middletown,Connecticut.
Feminist anthropology is a four-field approach to anthropology that seeks to transform research findings,anthropological hiring practices,and the scholarly production of knowledge,using insights from feminist theory. Simultaneously,feminist anthropology challenges essentialist feminist theories developed in Europe and America. While feminists practiced cultural anthropology since its inception,it was not until the 1970s that feminist anthropology was formally recognized as a subdiscipline of anthropology. Since then,it has developed its own subsection of the American Anthropological Association – the Association for Feminist Anthropology –and its own publication,Feminist Anthropology. Their former journal Voices is now defunct.
Regna Darnell is an American-Canadian anthropologist and professor of Anthropology and First Nations Studies at the University of Western Ontario,where she has founded the First Nations Studies Program.
Anne-christine d'Adesky is an American author,journalist and activist of French and Haitian descent living in New York. She has maintained a deep relationship with Haiti,reporting the 2010 earthquake from a feminist angle,especially noting the impact of the disaster on the lives of teenage girls. She has also contributed to humanitarian projects in East Africa,as well as conducting extensive research into HIV/AIDS and its treatment worldwide.
Adrienne Lois Kaeppler was an American anthropologist,curator of oceanic ethnology at the National Museum of Natural History at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington,DC. She served as the President of the International Council on Traditional Music between 2005 and 2013. Her research focused on the interrelationships between social structure and the arts,including dance,music,and the visual arts,especially in Tonga and Hawaii. She was considered to be an expert on Tongan dance,and the voyages of the 18th-century explorer James Cook.
Lori Gruen is an American philosopher,ethicist,and author who is the William Griffin Professor of Philosophy at Wesleyan University in Middletown,Connecticut. Gruen is also Professor of Science in Society,and Professor of Feminist,Gender and Sexuality Studies at Wesleyan.
Karen McCarthy Brown was an anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of religion. She is best known for her groundbreaking book Mama Lola:A Vodou Priestess in Brooklyn,which made great strides in destigmatizing Haitian Vodou. Until her retirement in 2009 due to illness,McCarthy Brown was a Professor of Anthropology at Drew University. At Drew University,McCarthy Brown was the first woman in the Theological School to receive tenure and to achieve the rank of full professor.
Sandra Lynn Morgen was an American feminist anthropologist. At the end of her career,she was a professor of anthropology at the University of Oregon,and previously served as vice provost for graduate studies and associate dean of the Graduate School,and director of the University of Oregon Center for the Study of Women in Society.
Irma P. McClaurin is an American poet,anthropologist,academic,and leadership consultant. She was the first female president of Shaw University,and is the author or editor of several books on topics including the culture of Belize,black feminism,African-American history,and her own poetry.
Erika Eichhorn Bourguignon was an Austrian-born American anthropologist known primarily for her work on possession trance and other altered states of consciousness. She was “considered the premier anthropological authority on trance,possession,and altered states of consciousness”and "one of the founders of the field of anthropology of consciousness." She was born in Vienna,Austria,but left with her parents in 1938. After receiving a B.A. from Queens College in 1945,she began graduate studies at Northwestern University,working there under Melville J. Herskovits and Alfred Irving Hallowell. She did field research among the Chippewa in Wisconsin and in Haiti (1947–48).
Val Jeanty,also known as Val-Inc,is a Haitian electronic music composer,turntablist,and professor at Berklee College of Music who evokes the musical esoteric realms of the creative subconscious self-defined as “Afro-Electronica.”She incorporates her African Haitian musical traditions into the present and beyond,combining acoustics with electronics and the archaic with the post-modern. Jeanty is a pioneer of the electronic music subgenre Afro- Electronica also called "Vodou-Electro".
Gina Messina,previously known as Gina Messina-Dysert,is an American religious studies and women's studies scholar and activist. She gives particular attention to gender issues in religion.
Paulette Poujol-Oriol was a Haitian educator,actress,dramaturge,feminist and writer. Fluent in French,Creole,English,Spanish,German,and Italian,she contributed to Haitian arts and literature,and founded Picolo Teatro,a performing arts school for children. She has been recognized as one of Haiti's leading literary figures as well as one of the most active players in Haiti's feminist movement.
Iris López is a contemporary professor,anthropologist,sociologist,and author,whose work focuses on feminist,Latino,and Latin American studies. She has one full-length book published,an ethnography about sterilization within female Puerto Rican populations,titled Matters of Choice. She received both her Masters and Doctoral degrees in Anthropology from Columbia University. Currently,López teaches sociology at the City College of New York,part of the City University of New York (CUNY),where she has been the Director of the Latin American and Latino Studies Program since 2016.
The Waterloo Center for the Arts is an art museum in Waterloo,Iowa. It is home to the largest collection of Haitian art outside of Haiti. It also includes the Phelps Youth Pavilion,where children learn about art through art activities;as well as the Black Hawk Children's Theatre. The center has a permanent section of works by American artist Grant Wood. With Brown University and the Rhode Island School of Design,the Center sponsored a series called Reframing Haiti:Art,History,and Performativity. The center's official slogan is "Stimulating inquiry,provoking dialogue and connecting people through the arts."
Dr. Faye Venetia Harrison is an American anthropologist. Her research interests include political economy,power,diaspora,human rights,and the intersections of race,gender,and class. She is currently Professor of African American Studies and Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. She formerly served as Joint Professor of Anthropology and African American Studies at the University of Florida. Harrison received her BA in Anthropology in 1974 from Brown University,and her MA and PhD in Anthropology from Stanford University in 1977 and 1982,respectively. She has conducted research in the US,UK,and Jamaica. Her scholarly interests have also taken her to Cuba,South Africa,and Japan.
Rachel Beauvoir-Dominique was a Haitian anthropologist and Vodou mambo.
Aimee Meredith Cox is an American cultural anthropologist,former dancer,and choreographer.
