Isidore Lobnibe, Assistant Professor and Chair
Robin Smith, Professor
William "Doug" Smith, Associate Professor (on leave)
Keni Sturgeon, Adjunct Professor
Misty Weitzel, Adjunct Assistant Professor
Julianne Freeman, Adjunct Assistant Professor
Mariana Pierce, Adjunct Assistant Professor
Erik Thorsgard, Adjunct Instructor
Isidore Lobnibe
Assistant Professor
Ph.D., Univerisity of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 2007 (Anthropology)
M.A., University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign 2002 (Anthropology)
B.A. Diploma of Education, University of Cape Coast 1995
HSS 210B
lobnibei@wou.edu
503 838 8306
Office Hours for Winter Quarter 2009: MW 10:00-12:00 and by appointment.
Research: I am a Socio-cultural anthropologist trained in the historical tradition, specializing in Ghana/ West Africa. My research interests include the peasant economy; agrarian and environmental systems, labor migration, political economy, social organization, historiography, popular culture and the Black diaspora. I conducted my most recent field research among northern Ghanaian migrant farmers in villages of south-central Ghana, which resulted in my doctoral dissertation. I had earlier also participated in several anthropological projects on Dagara settlement history and earthshine boundaries in northwestern Ghana and southern Burkina Faso under the direction of Professor Carola Lentz. Currently, I am embarking on a major research project on the ethnography of prison farms and labor in Ghana.
Teaching: the courses I teach are Cultural Anthropology, Transnational Migration, Africa, Africa through Film, and Ethnographic Methods. I am also developing a course in Transnational Islam in Europe and the US.
Web site: http://www.wou.edu/~lobnibi/
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Robin Smith
Professor and Head
Ph.D., University of Florida 1982 (Anthropology)
HSS 209
smithr@wou.edu
503 838 8357
Office Hours for Winter Quarter 2009: M-R 1200-1330 and by appointment.
Research: I am a North American archaeologist with interests in both prehistoric
and historic period cultures. I have worked at sites in the Southeast ranging
from the Late Archaic and Contact eras to the Spanish Colonial, Seminole War
and Plantation periods. In Oregon I have dug in the Cascades, Willamette Valley
and Coast regions at Native American and Euro-American sites. I enjoy initiating
students in the methods of scientific discovery and the joys and challenges
of teamwork. My courses are primarily related to archaeology but include a number
of other interests, including how humans evolved and gender as the fundamental
organizing principle in human societies. Currently I am pursuing opportunities
to increase my knowledge of past and present cultures of Canada.
Teaching: Physical Anthropology, Archaeology, Cultural Anthropology, World Prehistory, Human Evolution, North American Prehistory, Mothers and Daughters, Research Methods in Archaeology, Laboratory Methods in Archaeology, Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective, Women Anthropologists, Field Methods in Archaeology, History and Theory of Archaeology, Historical Archaeology, Northwest Indian Cultures, and Indian America.
Website: http://www.wou.edu/~smithr/
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William (Doug) Smith
Associate Professor
B.A., Middlebury College 1988 (English); M.A., Stanford 1999 (Anthropology); Ph.D., Stanford 2004 (Anthropology)
HSS 214
smithw@wou.edu
503 838 8372
Office Hours for Winter Quarter 2009:
Research: My recent field research has investigated ecological and economic history over the past century among Totonac peasant communities in east-central Mexico. Specifically, I am exploring how indigenous revitalization and ethnic rights movements in the region since the 1980s have combated social inequalities and influenced changes in peasant land use strategies. More locally, I plan to address social, economic, and environmental changes that have attended transformations in natural resource economies in Pacific Northwest communities.
Teaching: I teach courses on Environmental and Political Anthropology, Archaeology, Indigenous Peoples, Modernization and Development, Religion, and Latin American cultures.
Website: http://www.wou.edu/~smithw/
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Keni Sturgeon
Adjunct Instructor
M.A. Arizona State University 2000 (Museum Anthropology)
Office:
kenis@missionmill.org
503 585-7012
Office Hours for Winter Quarter 2009: T 3-4 and by appointment.
I have recently relocated to back to Oregon to become Mission Mill Museum's curator in May (2007). Before that, I was working as the curator for programs and education at Brown University's Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology in Rhode Island, as well as a lecturer for Brown's museum studies graduate courses. Prior to my brief sojourn at Brown, I was at WOU, where I was the director/curator of the Jensen Arctic Museum, adjunct faculty in the Anthropology Department, and the coordinator for two oral history projects. I have also worked as an education specialist with the Oregon Coast Aquarium, the assistant director of education at the Chesapeake Bay Maritime Museum in St. Michaels, Maryland, and as the interim assistant director and education and volunteer coordinator with Arizona State University's Deer Valley Rock Art Center in Phoenix, Arizona. My research interests include: Museum Anthropology, NAGPRA and Museums, Cultural Property Issues, Museums and Communities, Visitor Research, Museum Studies, Representation in Museums, Museum Education, Native North American Cultures and Visual Anthropology
Teaching: the course I am currently teaching at WOU is Museum Studies. I will also be teaching Museums: Objects & Artifacts and Museums: Exhibiting Cultures at Linfield College. Previous courses I have taught at WOU include: Archaeology, Circumpolar Peoples, Tribal Arts of the US and Canada Museum Studies, Visual Anthropology, What Star Trek Can Teach Us about Anthropology, Native American/Asian American Studies: Social Issues, Social Movements, and Northwest Indian Cultures.
Syllabus for ANTH 360D Museum Studies
Misty Weitzel
Adjunct Assistant Professor
B.A., OSU 1992 (Anthropology), MAIS, OSU 1998 (Archaeology), Ph.D., University
of Alberta 2005 (Bioarcheology)
Office:
weitzelm@onid.orst.edu
503 838 8288
Office Hours Winter Quarter 2009:
Research: My research is in the field of bioarchaeology. I am interested in
combining aspects of physical anthropology and archaeology, specifically the
excavation and analysis of human remains in both archaeological and forensic
contexts. I am primarily concerned with human taphonomy or all of the environmental
and cultural process that influence humans from the time of death to the time
of recovery. I have studied these processes at an early Bronze Age cemetery
in the Lake Baikal region of Siberia. Currently, I am developing replication
experiments in taphonomy in which domestic pigs are used as human analogues
as well as analyzing bone from a Bronze Age cemetery in Cyprus.
Teaching: I teach Archaeology at WOU. My other teaching interests are: Osteology,
Osteoarchaeology, Mortuary Archaeology, Forensic Anthropology, Physical Anthropology,
Biological and Cultural Constructions of Race
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