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Current

Current

January, 2024–

Co-Director, Center for Coastal Features and Adaptive Resillience (CFAR)

Rice University, Houston TX

July, 2023 –

Board of Governors, Rice Sustainability Institute

Rice University, Houston TX

July, 2013 –

Professor, Department of Anthropology

Rice University, Houston TX

Previous

Previous

April, 2013 – June, 2019

January, 2009 – June, 2013

July, 2006 – December, 2008

July, 2001 – June, 2006

July, 2000 – June, 2001

Founding Director, Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences (CENHS)

Rice University, Houston TX

 

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Rice University, Houston TX

 

Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

 

Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology

Cornell University, Ithaca NY

 

William Rainey Harper Fellow in the Society of Fellows and Collegiate Assistant Professor in the Social Sciences Collegiate Division,

University of Chicago, Chicago IL

Public
Education

Education

2000   

1994

1992

Ph.D. (with distinction),

University of Chicago, Chicago IL

 

M.A.,

University of Chicago, Chicago IL

 

B.A. (Magna Cum Laude, Phi Beta Kappa),

Brown University, Providence RI

Visiting Appointments

Visiting Appointments

2003 

2007 

2008- 2010

2009

2014

2020

2022

Visiting professor,
EHESS (Paris)


Visiting scholar,
University of Chicago


Guest professor,
Goethe Universität (Frankfurt am Main)


Fellow, Digital Anthropology M.A. Program,
University College London

 

International Senior Research Fellow,
Durham University Institute for Advanced  Studies

Axel Springer Fellow, American Academy in Berlin

Durham University Institute for Advanced  Studies

USC-Berggruen Institute Fellow

Durham University Institute for Advanced  Studies

Research and Teaching Interests

Research and Teaching Interests

Energy and political power; environment and climate change; experts, professionalism and cultures of expertise; infrastructure and statecraft; media and knowledge; intellectuals and social movements; late-, post- and neo-socialism; early and late liberalism; journalism and publics; universities and higher education; social theory and philosophy as resources for, and objects of, anthropological inquiry; Europe; Latin America; Germany; Mexico; Iceland; Houston.

Field Research

Field Research

  • Eight months (2022-2023) in Los Angeles, California, and Houston, Texas, focusing on electropolitics and climate migration

  • Two months (22) in Honolulu, Hawaii, focusing on sea level rice and climate adaptation.

  • Eleven months (2018) in Houston, Texas focusing on how repetitive catastrophic flooding is impacting Houstonians’ affective and epistemic relationship to their homes, neighborhoods and the city itself.
     

  • Two months (2017, 2019) in Reykjavík, Iceland focused on climate change and cryo-human relationships in the context of deglaciation. 
     

  • Sixteen months (2009, 2011, 2012-2013) in Oaxaca, Mexico focused on the political culture of wind power development in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
     

  • Eight months (2008, 2009, 2010) in Frankfurt, Berlin and Halle focused on digital media and the transformation of news journalism.
     

  • Fourteen months (1996-1997, 2002, 2004) in Berlin and eastern Germany focused on post-socialist politics of expertise and authority in Eastern German media.

Curren Research Projects

Current Research Projects

Electric futures and electropolitics; Social design and energy transition; Amphibious urbanism in coastal regions; Cryospheric diminishment and hydrological globalization (“Melt/Rise,” jointly with Cymene Howe); Parody, sincerity and political communication in late liberalism (jointly with Alexei Yurchak)

Publication

Publications

Books, volumes, pamphlets

Books, volumes, pamphlets, research reports:

  • Spirit and System: Media, Intellectuals, and the Dialectic in Modern German Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005 (323p.)
     

  • Understanding Media: A popular philosophy. Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2007 (103p.) 
     

  • The Life Informatic: Newsmaking in the Digital Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013 (248p.)
     

  • Theory can be more than it used to be: Learning Anthropology’s Method in a Time of Transition, with James Faubion and George E. Marcus (eds.) Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2015 (285p.)
     

  • Energy Humanities: An Anthology, with Imre Szeman (eds.) Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017 (595p.)
     

  • Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthropocene (single authored volume of a collaborative duograph with Cymene Howe) Durham: Duke University Press, 2019 (257p.)
     

  • Flooding, Recovery & Hydraulic Citizenship in Post-Harvey Houston (NSF research report). Houston: Center for Energy and Environmental Research in the Human Sciences, 2019 (25p.)
     

  • Collaborative Anthropology Today: A Collection of Exceptions, with George E. Marcus (eds.) Ithaca NY, Cornell University Press, 2021 (forthcoming)
     

  • Hyposubjects: Politics of the Ecological Emergency (Human Language Edition), with Tim Morton. Under revision, Open Humanities Press.

  • No More Fossils. Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 2023. Portuguese translation with UNISINOS Press (2023); Russian translation forthcoming with Academic Studies Press.

Journal articles (peer-reviewed)

Journal articles (peer-reviewed, single and co-authored):

  • “Electric Futures on the Road.” (under review at Journal of Architectural Education)

  • “Reinventing Sister Cities for the Anthropocene” (under review at Nature: Cities) (with Cymene Howe).

  • “Less is the New More” (under review at Resilience: A Journal of Environmental Humanities as part of the special issue “Affects of Energy Transition” (eds. T Kahle and V Googasian)

  • “Cascades of Un/becoming: What blackouts reveal about the politics of energy transition” (under review at Science, Technology and Human Values) (with Declan Kuch)

  • “Infrastructural Citizenship and Geosolidarity After Oil” (in press at American Ethnologist as part of the forum, “Citizenship, Solidarity and Futures of Nonbelonging”)

  • “Designs on Glaciers” (in press at Log for a special issue, “The Sixth Sphere”

  • “The Okjökull Memorial and Geohuman Relations” (in press at Social Anthropology as part of a special issue, “Vital Ice”) (with Cymene Howe)

  • “Infrastructural Futures in the Ecological Emergency: Gray, Green and Revolutionary.” Special issue of Historical Social Research, “Ruptures, Transformations, Continuities. Rethinking Infrastructures and Ecology,” eds. P Degens, I Hilbrich, & S Lenz) 47(4):48-65, 2022.

  • “Flooded City: Affects of (Slow) Catastrophe in Post-Harvey Houston.” Current Anthropology 63(6):615-636 (with Mark Vardy), 2022.

  • “Revolution and Revellion: Toward a Solarity Worth Living.” South Atlantic Quarterly 120(1):25-37, 2021.
     

  • “Our Post-Post-Truth Condition.” Berliner Blätter 80(1): 83-90, 2018.
     

  • “Aeolian infrastructures, aeolian publics.” Limn 7 http://limn.it/?p=4598&preview=1&_ppp=3f62f8a062 July 2016. (with Cymene Howe)
     

  • “Aeolian extractivism and community wind in Southern Mexico.” Public Culture 28(2):215-235, 2016. (with Cymene Howe)
     

  • “Paradoxical Infrastructures: Ruins, Retrofit, and Risk.” Science, Technology and Human Values 41(3):547- 565, 2015. (with Cymene Howe and twelve others)
     

  • “Anthropology Electric.” Cultural Anthropology 30(4):531-539, 2015.
     

  • “Aeolian Politics.” Distinktion 16 (1):31-48, 2015. (with Cymene Howe)
     

  • “Los márgenes del Estado al viento: autonomía y desarrollo de energías renovables en el sur de México” Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology, Special Issue, “Energy, Transition and Climate Change in Latin America” 2015. (with Cymene Howe and Edith Barrera).
     

  • “Energopower: An Introduction.” Anthropological Quarterly 87(2):309-334, 2014.
     

  • “Simply the Best: Parody and Political Sincerity in Iceland.” American Ethnologist 40(2):276-287, 2013.
     

  • “News Agency and News Mediation.” Social Anthropology 19(1):6-22, 2011.
     

  • “On the ethics and practice of contemporary social theory: from crisis talk to multiattentional method.” Dialectical Anthropology 34(3):305-324, 2010.
     

  • “American Stiob: Or, what late socialist aesthetics of parody reveal about contemporary political culture in the West” Cultural Anthropology 25(2):179-221, 2010. (with Alexei Yurchak)
     

  • “Digital Expertise in Online Journalism (and Anthropology).” Anthropological Quarterly 83(1):73-96, 2010.
     

  • “Thinking through the Anthropology of Experts.” Anthropology in Action, 15(2):38-46, 2008.
     

  • “Conspiracy, History, and Therapy at a Berlin Stammtisch.” American Ethnologist, 33(3):327-39, 2006.
     

  • “Ostalgie and the Politics of the Future in Eastern Germany.” Public Culture, 18(2):361-381, 2006.
     

  • “Turner’s Anthropology of Media and Its Legacies.” Critique of Anthropology, 26(1):47-60, 2006.
     

  • “Gender and the Solvency of Professionalism: Eastern German Journalism before and after 1989.”East European Politics and Society, 20(1):152-179, 2006.
     

  • “Introduction: Worlds of Journalism.” Ethnography, 7(1):5-17, 2006. (with Ulf Hannerz)
     

  • “Introduction to Turner Special Issue.” Critique of Anthropology, 26(1):5-13, 2006. (with Steve Sangren)
     

  • “Visiting Knowledge in Anthropology: An Introduction.” Ethnos 70(2):141-148, 2005.
     

  • “The Corporeality of Expertise.” Ethnos 70(2):243-266, 2005.
     

  • “Intellectuals and Nationalism: Anthropological Engagements.” Annual Review of Anthropology 34:105-120, 2005. (with Claudio Lomnitz)
     

  • “Censorship as a Vocation: The Institutions, Practices, and Cultural Logic of Media Control in the German Democratic Republic.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45(3):511-545, 2003.
     

  • “Foucault in the Bush. The Social Life of Post-Structuralist Theory in East Berlin’s Prenzlauer Berg.” Ethnos 66(2):207-236, 2001.
     

  • “Media Markets, Mediating Labors, and the Branding of East German Culture at ‘Super Illu.” Social Text 68(Fall):9-33, 2001.
     

  • “Yellow sand of Berlin.” Ethnography 2(3):421-439, 2001.
     

  • “On the Sedimentation and Accreditation of Social Knowledges of Difference: Mass Media, Journalism, and the Reproduction of East/West Alterities in Unified Germany.” Cultural Anthropology 15(4):459-491, 2000.

Journal articles (non-peer-reviewed)

Journal articles (non-peer-reviewed) and book chapters:

  • “Death, Anxiety and Fossil Fuels” in Anxiety Culture: The New Global State of Human Affairs, J Allegrante, I Hoinkes, M Schapira and K Struve (eds) Johns Hopkins U Press, 2024. In press.

  • “Degrowth” in Energized: Keywords for a New Politics of Energy and Environment, I Szeman and J Wenzel (eds) West Virginia U Press, 2024. In press.

  • “Aeolian Density” in More or Less Density, S Roesler (ed). MIT Press, 2024. In press.“Meeting Affect Half Way” (with Cymene Howe) in Affect as Cultural Critique, D White (ed). Cambridge UP, 2024. In press.

  • “Response to Adriana Petryna’s Futurities Rethought” Current Anthropology, 2024. In press.

  • “Digital Care: A Response to Lee” Current Anthropology, 2024. In press.

  • “On the Origins of Energy Humanities” (with Imre Szeman) in Teaching Energy Humanities, D Rosenthal and J Molesky (eds.) MLA Press. Under review.

  • “Amphibious Cities” in Climate, Science, and Society: A Primer, Z Baker, T Law, M Vardy and S Zehr (eds.) Routledge Press, 2023.

  • “The Energopolitics of the Russia-Ukraine War.” Geographica Helvetica 78 (part of the forum, “Russia, Europe and the colonial present: the power of everyday geopolitics,” A Vorbrugg and J Bluwstein (eds.), 78, 429–451, https://doi.org/10.5194/gh-78-429-2023, 2023.

  • “Response to Alpa Shah’s Why I Write” Current Anthropology 63(5), 2022.

  • “Houston, a Habitat for Hyposubjects” (with Timothy Morton) CITE: The Architecture and Design Review of Houston 103, 120-123, 2022.

  • “A Whole City on Stilts: Hydraulic Citizenship in Houston” in More City Than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas, LM Johnson and C Beckett (eds.) University of Texas Press, 2022.

  • “Colonialism, Indigeneity and Wind Power in the Anthropocene” (with Cymene Howe) in Altered Earth, JA Thomas and J Zalasiewicz (eds), 130-146. Cambridge University Press, 2022.

  • “Blob” in OIL: Beauty and Terror in the Petrol Age, A Beitin, A Klose, B Steininger (eds). Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, 2021, 90-98.

  • “Interview: The Anthropology of Energy” in Energy Worlds in Experiment, J Maguire, L Watts, and BR Winthereik (eds.) Mattering Press, 2021, 194-208.

  • “What is energy humanities and why it matters” (with Cymene Howe) in Boom or Bust?, R Babcock (ed). University of Oklahoma Press. In press.
     

  • “Memories and Futures of Hydraulic Citizenship in Houston” in More City Than Water: A Houston Flood Atlas, LM Johnson (ed.) In press. 
     

  • “At the End of Glaciers: Iceland in the Anthropocene” (with Cymene Howe) in Scenes from the Anthropocene, FP McDonald and J Kelly (eds). In press.
     

  • “Introduction: Collaborative Anthropology Today”  (with George E. Marcus) in Collaborative Anthropology Today: A Collection of Exceptions, D Boyer and GE Marcus (eds.) Cornell University Press. In press.
     

  • “Hypernormalization, Collaborative Analytics and the Making of “American stiob”” (with Alexei Yurchak)  in Collaborative Anthropology Today: A Collection of Exceptions, D Boyer and GE Marcus (eds.)  Cornell University Press. In press.
     

  • “An account of the Cultures of Energy podcast as collaboration— offered in podcast form, of course” (with Cymene Howe in Collaborative Anthropology Today: A Collection of Exceptions, D Boyer and GE Marcus (eds.) Cornell University Press. In press.
     

  • “Death of a Glacier” (with Cymene Howe). Anthropology News website, April 22, 2020. DOI: 10.1111/AN.1384 
     

  • “Verdant Optimism: On how capitalism will never save the world” (with Cymene Howe). Cultural Anthropology Online. 2020.
     

  • “Afterword” to Ecological Nostalgias: Affect, Memory and Creativity in the Anthropocene, eds. O Angé and D Berliner. 2020.
     

  • “Hyposubjects” in Anthropocene Unseen: A Lexicon, eds. C Howe and A Pandian. New York: Punctum, 233-6. (with Timothy Morton). 2020.
     

  • “Redistributions: From Atmospheric Carbon to Melting Cryospheres to the World Ocean” (with Cymene Howe) e-flux. 2018. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/accumulation/212496/redistributions/ 
     

  •  “Composing American stiob” in The Composition of Anthropology, M Nielsen and N Rapport (eds.) Routledge, 2018, 156-168.
     

  • “Infrastructure, Potential Energy, Revolution” in The Promise of Infrastructure, N Anand, H Appel,and A Gupta (eds.) Durham: Duke University Press, 2018, 223-243.
     

  • “Introduction: On the Energy Humanities” (with Imre Szeman) in Energy Humanities: An Anthology, I Szeman and D Boyer (eds.) Johns Hopkins University Press, 2017, 1-13.
     

  • “Energopolitics” In Fueling Culture: Energy, History and Politics, I Szeman (ed.) Fordham University Press, 2016.
     

  • “Revolutionary Infrastructure” in Infrastructures and Social Complexity, P Harvey, C Bruun Jensen, A Morita (eds.) Routledge, 2016, 174-186.
     

  • “The Necessity of Being a Writer in Anthropology Today” In The Anthropologist as Writer, H Wulff (ed.) Berghahn, 2016, 21-32.
     

  • “Introduction: New Methodologies for a Transformed Discipline.” In Theory can be more than it used to be: Learning Anthropology’s Method in a Time of Transition, D Boyer, J Faubion and G Marcus (eds.) Cornell University Press, 2015, 1-11. (with George Marcus)
     

  • “Portable Analytics and Lateral Theory.” In Theory can be more than it used to be: Learning Anthropology’s Method in a Time of Transition, D Boyer, J Faubion and G Marcus (eds.) Cornell University Press, 2015, 15- 38. (with Cymene Howe)
     

  • “Afterword: On the Need to Reinvent Anthropological Teaching and Training in Theory.” In Theory can be more than it used to be: Learning Anthropology’s Method in a Time of Transition, D Boyer, J Faubion and G Marcus (eds.) Cornell University Press, 2015, 233-240.
     

  • 30(1):1-5, 2015 Cultural Anthropology“Editors’ Introduction: Circles not Pyramids.” (with James D. Faubion and Cymene Howe)
     

  • “Wind at the Margins of the State: Autonomy and Renewable Energy Development in Contested Powers: The Politics of Energy and Development inSouthern Mexico” In J-A McNeish, A Borchgrevink and O Logan (eds.), Zed Books, 2015, 92-115.Latin America, (with Cymene Howe and Edith Barrera)
     

  • “Energy, Anthropology of” In The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, J Wright (ed.), Reed Elsevier, 2015.
     

  • “Experts and Expertise, Anthropological Approaches to” In The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd edition, J Wright (ed.), Reed Elsevier, 2015.
     

  • “Reflexivity Reloaded: from anthropology of intellectuals to critique of method to studying sideways” In Anthropology Now and Next: Essays in Honor of Ulf Hannerz, C Garsten, T H Eriksen, S Randeria (eds.) Berghahn, 2014, 91-110.
     

  • “Paul Radin” In The Sage Encyclopedia of Theory in Social and Cultural Anthropology, J McGee and R Warms (eds.) Sage, 2014. (with Ian Lowrie)
     

  • “On Happiness and Politics: Jón Gnarr’s Best Party (2009-2013).” Perspectives on Europe 42(3):22-28, 2013.
     

  • “Postcard from Berlin: Rethinking the Juncture of Late Socialism and Late Liberalism in Europe” In The Soviet Society in the Era of Late Socialism, 1964-1985, N Klumbytė and G Sharafutdinova (eds.) Lexington, 2013.
     

  • “Media Anthropology and the Anthropology of Mediation” In The ASA Handbook of Social Anthropology, R Fardon (ed.) Sage, 2012.
     

  • “European Media and the Culture of Europeanness” (with Miklós Sükösd) In Media, Nationalism and European Identities, M Sükösd and K Jakubowicz (eds.) Central European University Press, 2011.
     

  • “The Institutional Transformation of Universities in the Era of Digital Information” In Making the University Matter, B Zelizer (ed.) Routledge, 2011.
     

  • “Parody and Sincerity in Western Political Culture. “ In The Democratic Imaginary in the Era of Globalization, C Mendes (ed.) Educam Editora Universitária Candido Mendes, 2011.
     

  • “Biopower.” In Companion to the Anthropology of the Body and Embodiment, F Mascia-Lees (ed.) Wiley-Blackwell, 2011.
     

  • “Energopolitics and the Anthropology of Energy.” Anthropology News May:5,7, 2011.
     

  • “Divergent Temporalities: On the Division of Labor Between Journalism and Anthropology” Anthropology News April:6,9, 2010.
     

  • “Professionalism between Cooperation and Competition.” In Travail Social a l’Epreuve des Coopérations Ouvertes et des Coopération Fermées, H Khabbache (ed.) Fes-Saiss Imprimerie, 2010.
     

  • “From Algos to Autonomos: Nostalgic Eastern Europe as Postimperial Mania.” In Postcommunist Nostalgia, M Todorova and Z Gille (eds.) Berghahn, 2010.
     

  • “Making (sense of) News in the Era of Digital Information.” In The Anthropology of News and Journalism: Global Perspectives, SE Bird (ed.) Indiana University Press, 2009.
     

  • “Of Dialectical Germans and Dialectical Ethnographers: notes from an engagement with philosophy.” In Ways of Knowing, M Harris (ed.), Berghahn, 2007.
     

  • “Ostalgie – oder die Politik der Zukunft in Ostdeutschland,” transl. O Hall. Deutschland Archiv 39(4):690-703, 2006.
     

  • “The Medium of Foucault in Anthropology.” The Minnesota Review 58-60:265-272, 2003.
     

  • “The African Crisis in Context: Comparative Encounters with Educational Rationalization.” African Studies Review 45(2):205-218, 2002.
     

  • “The Impact and Embodiment of Western Expertise in the Restructuring of the Eastern German Media after 1990.” Anthropology of East Europe Review 19(1):77-84, 2001.

Commentaries, debates, editorials

Commentaries, debates, editorials, interviews, online and reviews:

  • Review of Elderflora by Jared Farmer. New York: Basic Books, 2022. The Berlin Journal 36 (2022-23): 92-3.

  • “Hyperobjects, Hyposubjects and Solidarity in the Anthropocene: Anthropocenes Interview with Timothy Morton and Dominic Boyer” Anthropocenes – Human, Inhuman, Posthuman, 1(1), 10. DOI: http://doi.org/10.16997/ahip.5, May 2020
     

  • Interview with Le foucaldien blog: https://www.fsw.uzh.ch/foucaultblog/essays/246/biopower-energopower-infopower-interview, November 23, 2019
     

  • “Let’s Do This Together: A Cooperative Vision for Open Access.” Anthro(dendum), June 27, 2018 (with Marcel LaFlamme, Kirsten Bell, Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Christopher Kelty and John Willinsky) https://anthrodendum.org/2018/06/27/lets-do-this-together-a-cooperative-vision-for-open-access/ 
     

  • “What is Energy Humanities?” Interview with West Texas Talk, Marfa Public Radio, March 2, 2018 (with Cymene Howe) 
     

  • “Crisis of Liberalism.” Hot Spots, Cultural Anthropology website, October 27, 2016. https://culanth.org/fieldsights/989-crisis-of-liberalism
     

  • “Why An Open-Access Publishing Cooperative Can Work: A Proposal for the AAA’s Journal Portfolio” (with Alberto Corsín Jiménez, John Willinsky, Giovanni da Col and Alex Golub) culanth.org October 20, 2015 (http://culanth.org/fieldsights/743-why-an-open-access-publishing-cooperative-can-work-a-proposal-for-the-aaa-s-journal-portfolio)
     

  • “Open Access: A Collective Ecology for AAA Publishing in the Digital Age” (with Alberto Corsín Jiménez, John Hartigan and Marisol de la Cadena) culanth.org May 27, 2015 (http://culanth.org/fieldsights/684-open-access-a-collective-ecology-for-aaa-publishing-in-the-digital-age)
     

  • “Attack on Titan” CENHS YouTube May 6, 2014. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2uRVDQbLyR4)
     

  • “On the Anthropology of Infrastructure” (with Ian Lowrie) CASTAC blog March 3, 2014. (http://blog.castac.org/2014/03/dominic-boyer-on-the-anthropology-of-infrastructure/)
     

  • “The Rise of Energy Humanities” (with Imre Szeman) University Affairs March:40, 2014.
     

  • “Interview with Ulf Hannerz” Public Culture 26(1):187-199, 2014.
     

  • “On Business Anthropology” Business Anthropology 1(2):251-4, 2012.
     

  • “A tragédia sincera da política americana” Folha de S. Paulo, 9 August 2011: A3.
     

  • “A Gallery of Prototypes: Ethnographic Terminalia 2010” Visual Anthropology Review 27(1):94-6, 2011.
     

  • “Why not Neosocialism?” Savageminds.org (http://savageminds.org/2010/02/16/why-not-neosocialism/). Originally posted February 16, 2010.
     

  • “What is driving university reform in the age of globalization?” (debate with Elizabeth Rata). Social Anthropology 18(1):74-82, 2010.
     

  • “Postsocialist Studies, Cultures of Parody and American Stiob” (with Alexei Yurchak)  Anthropology News November:8-9, 2008.
     

  • “There are Still Thinkers in Germany” in My Idea of the Land of Ideas: How the World Sees Germany,  T Sommer (ed.), pp.44-50. Munich: Droemer Verlag, 2006.
     

  • “Do the Humanities Have to be Useful?” in Do the Humanities Have To Be Useful?, GP Lepage, C Martin, and M Mostafavi (eds.), pp.1-6. Ithaca: Cornell University Office of Publications, 2006.
     

  • “Welcome to the New Europe.” American Ethnologist 32(4):521-523, 2005.
     

  • “Vitaler Stau.” Zeitschrift für KulturAustausch 55(3+4):89-91, 2005.
     

  • “Productivity, Professionalism, and the Academic Labor Market in Anthropology” (with Vilma Santiago-Irizarry) Anthropology News 44(4):20-21, 2003.
     

  • Review of Divided in Unity: Identity, Germany, and the Berlin Police by Andreas Glaeser. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 2000. Ethnography 4(4):556-560, 2003.
     

  • Review of Integral Europe: Fast-Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism by Douglas R. Holmes. American Ethnologist 29(4):1034-5, 2002.
     

  • Review of Liquid Modernity by Zygmunt Bauman. Malden, MA: Polity, 2000. Modernism/Modernity 9(2):354-6, 2002.
     

  • Interview with Por Moira Fradinger: https://letraurbana.com/articulos/el-viento-es-politico/, Berlin, September 3, 2020.

Art, Media and Curation

Art, Media and Curations

2021

SoMa. TV series pilot (with Cymene Howe)

 

Featured in the "TROST". Exhibition at the Museum für Sepulchralkultur, Kassele)

 

Artist in Residence, The Factory. Djúpavík, Iceland. (with Cymene Howe)

 

Petropolis. TV series pilot and episode guide. (with Cymene Howe)

 

The Condor and the Eagle. (documentary film). Associate Producer. Winner, Best Documentary Feature, Buffalo International Film Festival.

 

Okjökull Glacier Memorial. (with Cymene Howe and Andri Snaer Magnason) Coverage by 10k+ media outlets across the world including AFP, Associated Press, BBC News, CNN, NBC, Reuters, Washington Post, among others, August

 

Not Ok: a little movie about a small glacier at the end of the world (documentary film). (with Cymene Howe) Press and reviews in the Reykjavík Grapevine, Fréttabla∂i∂, Houston Public Radio, RÚV, Iceland Review

 

Co-host and producer, Cultures of Energy podcast. 200 episodes, with 270,000+ downloads (as of May 2020)

 

“Another Storm is Coming” (Judy Natal) and “Dear Climate” (Marina Zurkow), Rice University, Houston TX (co-curator with Joseph Campana), March-April

 

“Aeolian Politics” installation at the Emmanuel Gallery, Denver CO (artistic collaboration with Cymene Howe, curated by the Ethnographic Terminalia collective), November. [Reviewed by Lenore Manderson (2016), “Ethnography at its edges: Forces in the wind.” American Ethnologist, 43: 752–754. doi:10.1111/amet.12389

2015

2019

2018 

2016-2019

2016

2019

2021

2023

2023

Awards and Honors

Awards and Honors

2019

2018

2018-2019

2017-2018

2015

2014-2018

2014

2014

2012-2013

2010

2009

2006

2005

2003

2002-2003

2002-2003

2002

2000-2001

1998

1996

1996

1996

1995

1993

1992-1996

1992

National Science Foundation Grant #2323312, “SAI: Enhancing flood resilience in coastal urban communities through infrastructural citizenship and green stormwater infrastructure” (PI) $750,000

 

Texas Sea Grant, “Identification of cost-effective green stormwater infrastructure to mitigate flooding in Houston’s vulnerable communities and improve Galveston Bay fisheries” (co-PI with Jessica Eisma, Siddarth Saksena, and David Coursey) $300,000

 

National Science Foundation Grant #2148673, “Multi-Level Negotiations in Electric Infrastructure Planning” (PI) $80,025

 

Edinburgh-Rice Strategic Collaboration Grant, “Climate Infrastructure Research Network” (co-PI with Jamie Cross) $38,129

 

National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Grant, “Identification of Cost-Effective, Climate-Informed Green Infrastructure Adaptations to Reduce Flood Risk in Houston’s Vulnerable Communities” (co-PI with Jessica Eisma + 4) $299,468

 

National Science Foundation EAGER Grant #2030474, “Hydrological Globalization: Exploring Urban Adaptations to Arctic Melt” (co-PI with Cymene Howe) $301,694

 

USC Berggruen Institute Fellowship

 

Finalist, Beazley Design of the Year Award, London Design Museum

 

Diluvial Houston Initiative, “Exploring Amphibious Acceptance in Diluvial Houston” (PI) $16,750

 

Berlin Prize, American Academy in Berlin

 

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Extension Fellowship.

 

Rice Energy and Environment Initiative Creative Ventures Fund, “Living Grid: Optimizing the energy and environmental design of accessory dwelling units in Houston” (PI) $50,000

 

Rice Public Humanities Initiative, “Mapping Climate Vulnerability in
Post-Harvey Houston,” (PI) $38,500

 

Rice Seminar co-leader, “Waste: Histories and Futures,” $200,000

 

National Science Foundation RAPID Grant #1760400, “Recovery, Relocation, and Alluvial Awareness in Post-Harvey Houston” (PI), $95,000

 

Rice University Arts Initiative Fund, “The Art of Energy”
(co-PI with Joseph Campana), $35,000

 

National Science Foundation Research Grant #1417570,
“Energy Futures of the High North” (co-PI with Arthur Mason), $769,000

 

Faculty Leadership Award, Rice Energy and Environment Initiative, $168,000

 

Durham University Institute for Advanced Studies,
International Senior Research Fellow (May-June)

 

National Science Foundation Research Grant #1127246, “The Political Culture of Wind Power Development in Southern Mexico” (co-PI with Cymene Howe), $148,000

 

Social Science Research Institute Seed Grant, Rice University
(co-PI with Cymene Howe), $12,000

 

Fulbright Senior Specialist, 2009-2014, with grants awarded
to visit Morocco and New Zealand

 

Humboldt Foundation Research Fellowship, 2008-2010

 

Faculty Research Grant, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University

 

Institute for European Studies, Faculty Research Grant, Cornell University

 

Faculty Fellowship, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University

 

International Research Collaboration Grants, Society for the Humanities,
Cornell University.

 

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Research Extension Fellowship.

 

William Rainey Harper Post-Doctoral Fellowship, University of Chicago.

 

Starr Lectureship, University of Chicago, Department of Anthropology.

 

Alexander von Humboldt Foundation Bundeskanzler Fellowship 1996/97.

 

Social Science Research Council (SSRC) Berlin Program Fellowship. (Declined)

 

Fulbright-IIE Full Maintenance Grant. (Declined)

 

Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Small Grant.

 

Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst (DAAD) Summer Language
Grant for German Study.

 

University of Chicago Century Fellowship.

 

Brown University Bennett Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Anthropology.

2019

2019

2020

2020

2021-2022

2021-2023

2021-2023

2022

2022-2023

2022-2024

2024-2026

Teaching

Teaching

Faculty Instructor,
Rice University

2009 -

Faculty Instructor,
Cornell University

2001-2008

Faculty Instructor,
University of Chicago

 

2000-2001 

Guest Professor,
University of Frankfurt

2008, 2010

Lecturer, Graham School, University of Chicago

1998-1999, 2002-2012, 2014, 2015, 2016 

ANTH 317/517, “Revolutions and Utopias;” ANTH 340/540, “Neoliberalism and Globalization;” ANTH 385/585, “Media, Culture and Society;” ANTH 445/645, “Experts and Cultures of Expertise;” ANTH 448/648 “Phenomenological Anthropology;” ANTH 601, “Graduate Proseminar;” ENST 100, “Introduction to Environmental Studies;” GLBL 510, “Cultural Dimensions of Policy”

 

“Classics in Social Theory;” “Media, Culture, and Society;” “Introduction to Anthropological Theory;” “The Anthropology of Intellectuals;” “Censorship and the Production of Knowledge;” “The University as a Locus of National Culture;” Ethnographic Approaches to Studying Institutions and Professionals;” “European Socialism and Post-Socialism;” “Proseminar in Sociocultural Anthropology – I;” “Proseminar in Sociocultural Anthropology – II”

 

“Self, Culture and Society - I;” “Self, Culture and Society - II;” “Self, Culture and Society – III”

 

 

“Experts and Cultures of Expertise;” Doktorandenworkshop

“The Social Life of Clean Energy;” “Media, Culture and Society;” “Anthropology and Mass Media;” “Mass Media, Culture, and Reunification in Germany at the Millennium”

Invited Lectures, Keynote and presentations

XXIII Conference of the Academy of Latinity (2011), Annenberg School University of Pennsylvania (2007, 2009), Cambridge University (2016), Carnegie-Mellon University (2015), Central European University (2005, 2007), Columbia University (2008), EHESS-Marseilles (2003), Cornell University (2001, 2019), Deakin University (2019), Durham University (2014), German Chancellor Fellowship Program Alumni Meeting (2013), Göttingen University (2012), Hosei University Tokyo (2015), Humboldt University Berlin (2010, 2012, 2017), IUPUI (2017), Johns Hopkins University (2002), London School of Economics (2014), Manchester University (2012), Max Planck Gesellschaft (2018, 2019), McGill University (2004), Miami University of Ohio (2009), New York University (2004, 2017), New School University (2005), Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (2011), Petrocultures Glasgow (2018), Portland State University (2019), Princeton University (2017), Reed College (2000), Rice University (2005, 2008), SOYUZ Postsocialist Cultural Studies Conference (2008), Stockholm University (2003, 2007, 2008, 2009), Syracuse University (2005), Temple University (2014), Trinity College (2009), Universidad Alberto Hurtado (2017), University College London (2013), University of Auckland (2014), University of California-Berkeley (2007, 2008, 2012), University of California-Davis (2015), University of California-Irvine (2007, 2007, 2017), University of California-Los Angeles (2015, 2020), University of California-San Diego (2008), University of California-Santa Barbara (2019), University of Chicago (2004, 2005, 2014), University of Fés (2010), University of Frankfurt (2008), University of Illinois-Urbana-Champaign (2006), University of Illinois-Chicago (2018), University of Michigan (2006), University of New South Wales (2019), University of Oslo (2011), University of St. Andrews (2005, 2006), University of Southern California (2020), UT Sydney (2019), University of Utrecht (2009), Washington University (2017), Yale University (2003, 2014), ZFP-Wiesbaden Fortbildungsseminar (1998).

Invited Lectures
Service
Editorial

Service

Editorial

  • UNESCO Task Force 1 ‘“Global Campaign for International Year of Glaciers' Preservation 2025”, 2024

  • Editor, Cultural Anthropology, 2015-2018
     

  • Series editor, Expertise: Cultures and Technologies of Knowledge, Cornell University Press, 2010-
     

  • Series co-editor, Energy Humanities, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2018-
     

  • Editorial Board, “World Anthropologies” Section of American Anthropologist, 2013-
     

  • Editorial Board, JRAI, 2020-2024
     

  • Editorial Board for American Ethnologist, 2011-2014
     

  • Editorial Board for Dialectical Anthropology, 2008-
     

  • Editorial Board for Journal of Business Anthropology, 2011-
     

  • International Advisory Board for the journal, Critical Discourse Studies, 2003-
     

  • International Editorial Board for the Journal of Higher Education in Africa, 2003-2008.
     

  • International Advisory Board for the journal, Ethnos, 2006-10.
     

  • Editorial Board for Signale: Modern German Letters, Cultures, and Thought series, Cornell University Press, 2007-2008.
     

  • Manuscript Reviewer, American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Anthropological Theory, Anthropology and Humanism, Anthropology Today, Communication Theory, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cultural Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Ethnography, Ethnos, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Journalism, positions, Reviews in Anthropology, Social Anthropology, The Communication Review, Theory and Psychology, CODESRIA Press, Columbia University Press, Cornell University Press, Duke University Press, MIT Press, Stanford University Press, University of Chicago Press, University of Indiana Press.

Public

Public
Professional

Professional:

  • American Anthropological Association, Member, Committee on Labor Relations, 2010-2013; Member, Committee on World Anthropologies, 2011-2014; Annual Meeting Audit Task Force 2012-2013.
     

  • Council for European Studies, Executive Committee, 2008-2012; CES Treasurer, 2011-2013; CES Networks Committee, 2009-10; CES Conference Committee, 2005-2008.
     

  • Application Review Panels: ACLS/Mellon (2010, 2011, 2013), Fulbright Specialist Program (2017), German Marshall Fund (2002-3), NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (2007, 2009, 2010, 2014; Panel Chair, Cultural Anthropology and Linguistics 2011, 2012), SSRC (2004-7, 2010; IDRF Selection Committee 2013, 2014, Panel Chair 2014), Wenner-Gren Foundation (2008-10).

Institutional

Institutional:

  • Faculty Advisory Board for the Program in Writing and Communication, 2023-

  • Faculty Planning Group, Rice Sustainability Institute, 2022-3

  • University Committee for the Library, Rice University, 2022-3.

  • Examinations & Standings Committee, Rice University, 2021-2.

  • Chair, Environmental Faculty (Envirofac) Steering Committee, 2020-

  • Faculty Advisor, Environmental Studies minor program, Rice University, 2015-9
     

  • Co-Chair, Environmental Studies Faculty Working Group, Rice University, 2014-9
     

  • Executive Committee, Energy and Environment Initiative, Rice University, 2012-9.
     

  • Co-leader, Cultures of Energy Initiative, Rice University, 2011-2013.
     

  • Dean of Humanities Review Committee, Rice University, 2014.
     

  • Website Committee (2009-), Graduate Admissions Committee (2009-), Undergraduate Curriculum Committee (2010-2011), Library Liaison (2010-2012), Department of Anthropology, Rice University.
     

  • Lead author, Rice Department of Anthropology Self-Study (87p.), 2010.
     

  • Humanities Council, Cornell University, 2004-7.  Council Chair, 2006-7.
     

  • Social Sciences Internal Advisory Council, Cornell University, 2006-9.
     

  • Co-organizer, Mellon Humanities Seminar, Cornell University, 2005-6.
     

  • Steering Committee, Institute for German Cultural Studies, Cornell University, 2001-5.
     

  • Hull Fund Committee, Cornell University, 2003-7.  Committee Chair, 2004-6.
     

  • Educational Policy Committee, Cornell University, 2007-10.
     

  • Scholarly Communications Council, Cornell University, 2007-8.
     

  • Reader, Undergraduate Admissions Committee, Cornell University, 2002.
     

  • Chair, Website Development Committee (2001-6), Chair, Curriculum Committee (2005-7), Member, Colloquium and Search Committees, (2001-2, 2003-4), Member, Graduate Affairs Committee (2004-5), Department of Anthropology, Cornell University.
     

  • External Thesis Examiner: Stockholm University, Dept. of Anthropology (October, 2008). Bielefeld University, Dept. of Sociology (July, 2012), Durham University, Dept. of Anthropology (March, 2016), Cambridge University, Dept. of Social Anthropology (March, 2016)
     

  • External Reviewer, Icelandic Research Fund (2012), Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland (2013).
     

  • Anthropology of Europe Workshop (Chicago) Co-chair, 1998-2000.
     

  • Faculty Associate, McMurtry College, Rice University, 2011-.
     

  • Resident Head in the University of Chicago College Housing System, 1999-2001.

Referees

Referees

Prof. Catherine Alexander

Department of Anthropology

Durham University

Email: catherine.alexander@durham.ac.uk

Prof. Faye Ginsburg

Department of Anthropology

New York University

Email: faye.ginsburg@nyu.edu

Prof. Caroline Levander

Vice President for Global and Digital Strategy

Carlson Professor in the Humanities

Rice University

Email: clevande@rice.edu  

Prof. Dr. Jörg Niewöhner

Technical University of Munich

School of Social Sciences and Technology

Email: joerg.niewoehner@tum.de

Prof. Paul Stoller

Department of Anthropology and Sociology

West Chester University

Email: PStoller@wcupa.edu

Prof. Imre Szeman

Director of the Institute for Environment, Conservation, and Sustainability

University of Toronto Scarborough

Email: imre.szeman@utoronto.ca

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