Faculty
Richard Davis, Professor and Chair
Ph.D., Columbia University
Email: rdavis@brynmawr.edu
Phone: 610-526-5029
Office: Dalton Hall, Room 306
Office Hours: T 11:30-12:30; Wed 10:00-12:00; or by appointment
Davis is a prehistoric archaeologist who has conducted field work in several Asian locations with particular focus on northern Afghanistan, southern Tajikistan, eastern Turkey, and central Siberia. Since 1995, he has had an excavation program in the eastern Aleutian Islands, Alaska, which is oriented toward the investigation of the origin and development of maritime cultures in this area. His basic research interests center on the study of human adaptations to the changing environments of the Pleistocene and Holocene, and also on the development of technology in its social context. His teaching interests have grown out of his research activities, and he regularly offers courses in North American Archaeology, Human Ecology, Traditional Technology, and Method and Theory in Archaeology.
Philip Kilbride, Professor
Ph.D., University of Missouri
Email: pkilbride@brynmawr.edu
Phone: 610-526-5025
Office: Dalton Hall, Room 212C
Office Hours: By appointment
Philip Kilbride has conducted research projects in East Africa where his field research has primarily focused on family studies, childhood, and social change. Most recently his research and teaching include the Irish Diaspora, especially the Irish living in Kenya. Whenever feasible, students have accompanied Professor Kilbride into the field in Kenya to investigate such subjects as child behavior and nutrition, the impact of formal education on indigenous values, and the plight of street children in urban environments.
Tamara Neuman, Visiting Assistant Professor
Email: tneuman@brynmawr.edu
Phone: 610-526-5652
Office: Dalton 212D
Office Hours: Mon 11:30-12:30; Thu 4:00-5:00
The Tri-College Middle Eastern Studies Initiative and the Bi-College Peace and Conflict Studies Program welcome Visiting Assistant Professor Tamara Neuman to the Bryn Mawr campus. Neuman, an anthropologist who studies the religious dimensions of the Israeli settlement movement, has taught at Reed College and the University of Chicago and comes to Bryn Mawr from a research affiliation at Harvard University. She earned her B.A. in classics and anthropology from Brandeis University and a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Chicago. During her time at Bryn Mawr, Neuman will be working on a book titled Seizing Zion: Jewish Militancy and Israeli Settlement Over the Green Line. The manuscript is based on extensive ethnographic fieldwork she conducted, primarily in Hebron, with the support of Fullbright Hays, the CASPIC/John T. and Catherine D. MacArthur Foundation, and the Henry Frank Guggenheim Foundation.
Melissa Pashigian, Assistant Professor
Email: mpashigi@brynmawr.edu
Phone: 610-526-5002
Office: Dalton Hall, Room 208
Office Hours: M 1:00-2:00; Wed 1:00-3:00; or by appointment
Ph.D., UCLA; MA, Stanford; BA, Stanford
Melissa Pashigian is a cultural and medical anthropologist. She has conducted research on the social politics of infertility in Vietnam and the intersection of reproductive health policy, reproductive experience and treatment seeking surrounding infertility and involuntary childlessness. She is currently working on a study of the globalization of assisted reproductive technologies in Vietnam, France and Southeast Asia. Her other research interests include the relationship of race, ethnicity and identity in the use of donor gametes, cross-cultural experiences of healing, the dynamics of global flows of pharmaceuticals, medical knowledge and technology and the use of public space in shaping subjectivities among marginalized populations. Her course offerings include medical anthropology, anthropology of reproduction, anthropology of Southeast Asia, introduction to cultural anthropology, and senior conference.
Amanda Weidman, Assistant Professor
Email: aweidman@brynmawr.edu
Phone: 610-526-5033
Office: Dalton Hall, Room 212B
Office Hours: M 10:00-12:00; W 2:30-3:30
Ph.D., Columbia University; M.A., University of Washington; B.A., Bryn Mawr College
Amanda Weidman is a cultural anthropologist with an area specialization in South Asia. Her previous research in South India examined the creation of South Indian classical music as a high cultural genre in the context of late colonialism, Indian nationalism, and regional politics in South India. This project combined ethnographic research, examination of archival sources, and her own study and performance of South Indian classical music. Her current research focuses on the people who create the music for South Indian popular cinema: playback singers, music directors, and studio musicians. She examines the social organization of the studios and discourses about voice and sound that emerge in recording sessions, relating these to broader politics and cultural movements. In addition to the introductory cultural anthropology course and senior conference, she teaches South Asian Ethnography, Language in the Social Context, and Cultures of Technology: Aesthetics, Senses, and the Body. In coming years she is looking forward to teaching courses in ethnomusicology, the anthropology of performance, and postcolonial theory.
Jill Rhodes, Visiting Assistant Professor
Office: Dalton Hall, Room 310
Office Hours: T 1:00-4:00
Jill Rhodes is a biological anthropologist specializing in functional morphology. Her primary research focus is the investigation of biomechanical adaptations and architectural modifications to the upper limb related to habitual use and activity patterns. Recent work includes the examination of humeral torsion as an adaptation to strenuous activity, the relationship between humeral architecture and biomechanical efficiency, as well as the identification through cross-sectional analysis of different movement patterns likely related to weapon use in a sample of medieval combatants. This work has formed a methodological basis to investigate the evolution of projectile weaponry from skeletal remains - to identify when in evolutionary history long-range projectile weapons become an important component of hunting tool kits. Jill has worked in South Africa, Israel, England and Mexico and is currently the principle osteologist on the Archaeological Investigations in the Coastal Zone of Jalisco (Mexico) project where she works with student assistants in applied bioarchaeology and funerary archaeology. Her research interests include bioarchaeology, paleopathology, mortuary practices, and osteological approaches to weapon use and warfare in the past.