Anthropology of Modernity at UCSD

Recent Books and Edited Collections
By Anthropology of Modernity Faculty

Program Description

The Anthropology of Modernity Program explores how human societies are interacting and altering worldwide.  From different vantage points, across a variety of geographical and historical scales, and using ethnographic, archival and other forms of evidence, scholars associated with the program critically examine what it is to live amidst, participate in, and make sense of such things as: colonial and imperial relations; capitalist restructuring and state transformation; the global resurgence and growing public role of religion; rivalries around definitions of progress and development;  rapid cultural change and shifts in paradigms of knowledge production as well as ethical and aesthetic standards; struggles over how to mark and record competing histories, memories and desires; and the uneven patterning of life and relations of power around such distinctions as age, ethnicity, citizenship, gender, nationalism, race, and sexuality.

The Anthropology of Modernity Program is concerned with the way that particular aspects and qualities of social life have been pulled out and held still as dominant standards and models, suppressing other durable modalities and ways of being human in specific contexts. How and why have certain places, time periods, populations and definitions of personhood become established as exemplary templates?  Where, when, what and who counts as being part of a leading edge, “the modern?”  What are the effects and consequences of such material and discursive narratives of normativity?   In what ways do contradictory alternatives often emerge alongside these, existing in less regnant, but sometimes more widespread fashion?  How to explain their limited visibility from some perspectives and their glaring appearance from others?   What kinds of theoretical and methodological approaches are appropriate for developing more dynamic and inclusive accounts of human life, acknowledging, explaining and perhaps even altering the domination of some modalities over others?  These fundamental questions orient much of the work undertaken by scholars associated with the Anthropology of Modernity Program.

For graduate students and faculty, the Anthropology of Modernity Program also features a Workshop Series titled “New Directions in Culture, Politics and History” that usually meets four times during each academic quarter.  Graduate students may receive credit for participation.

Return to top.

Recent Books and Edited Collections
by Anthropology of Modernity Faculty

The Making of Global and Local Modernities in Melanesia
Edited by Joel Robbins and Holly Wardlow

Becoming Sinners
By Joel Robbins

Money and Modernity
Edited by David Akin and Joel Robbins

Cultural Anthropology, Special Theme Issue, "Value in Circulation"
Co-edited by Paul K. Eiss and David Pedersen

The Struggle for Indigenous Rights in Latin America
Edited by Nancy Grey Postero and Leon Zamosc

Now We are Citizens
By Nancy Grey Postero

The Domestication of Desire
By Suzanne April Brenner

The Politics of Public Memory in Turkey
Edited by Esra Özyürek

Nostalgia for the Modern
By Esra Özyürek

Return to top.