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faculty
Lisa Maya Knauer, PhD
Associate Professor
Sociology / Anthropology
Contact
508-999-8405
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Balsam Hall 9180
Teaching
Courses
A survey of various social problems in the contemporary world. Special emphasis is placed upon analysis of social problems in American society.
An introduction to the basic concepts of social and cultural anthropology. Readings emphasize the comparative study of societies at different levels of socio-cultural integration and from different areas of the world. This may include a brief introduction to physical anthropology and archaeology.
Exploration of how understandings of the past are shaped by present-day politics. Students investigate how collective memories are represented and contested in public spaces such as memorials, museums and schools while honing research and writing skills. Why do we celebrate some aspects of a nation's past, while ignoring or suppressing others? Case studies include controversial events from around the world.
An exploration of the manifold interactions between human populations, cultures, and the environment from varied disciplinary perspectives including environmental anthropology, cultural ecology, and feminist and indigenous scholarship. Topics include: the racialized and gendered nature of population policy and debates, struggles over reproductive justice, challenges to our food systems, the relationship between human consumption and sustainability, and environmental activism.
Internships in community-based, social service, cultural or other relevant organizations. Work will be supervised by an on-site sponsor as well as the seminar instructor. Students are responsible for securing their own placements, and are encouraged to consult the list of potential placements on the department website. All placements must be approved by the instructor. Students are required to attend several seminar meetings during the scheduled class time, keep a journal and write a final paper.
Internships in community-based, social service, cultural or other relevant organizations. Work will be supervised by an on-site sponsor as well as the seminar instructor. Students are responsible for securing their own placements, and are encouraged to consult the list of potential placements on the department website. All placements must be approved by the instructor. Students are required to attend several seminar meetings during the scheduled class time, keep a journal and write a final paper.
Study under the supervision of a faculty member in an area not otherwise part of the discipline's course offerings. Conditions and hours to be arranged.
Multi-disciplinary introduction to /sustainability/, defined as balancing present human needs and desires against the future's capacity to support human needs and desires. Mixed faculty from Arts and Sciences, Business, Engineering, Nursing, and Visual and Performing Arts will explore current and alternative social systems within a single theme, thereby demonstrating the interrelationships between natural and social systems. Topics will change depending on faculty, but will include such interests as food, energy, biodiversity, biotechnology, economic development and environmental stewardship, public health, business and law, representations of culture, technology, and/or nature in literature and art and climate change. Students from all majors welcome.
Teaching
Online and Continuing Education Courses
Internships in community-based, social service, cultural or other relevant organizations. Work will be supervised by an on-site sponsor as well as the seminar instructor. Students are responsible for securing their own placements, and are encouraged to consult the list of potential placements on the department website. All placements must be approved by the instructor. Students are required to attend several seminar meetings during the scheduled class time, keep a journal and write a final paper.
Exploration of how understandings of the past are shaped by present-day politics. Students investigate how collective memories are represented and contested in public spaces such as memorials, museums and schools while honing research and writing skills. Why do we celebrate some aspects of a nation's past, while ignoring or suppressing others? Case studies include controversial events from around the world.
Register for this course.
Dr. Knauer’s teaching, scholarship and community service are closely linked. They are rooted in her passion for social justice and the idea that anthropology – the study of human culture and difference -- can provide tools to understand, engage with and help foster change in a transforming world.
Dr. Knauer’s dissertation on Afrocuban music and religion in Cuba and New York explored the intersection of racialized identities and transnational cultural flows. An active participant in the NYC Afrocuban scene since the mid-1990s, her current work looks at cultural performance, the politics of representation and the role of digital media. In 2007, following an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raid on a factory in New Bedford, she began to work with and study the local Central American community, and helped found an immigrant workers’ center and a Mayan women’s organization. She spent 2011 in Guatemala as a Fulbright scholar, and her current research looks at the representation and self-representation of Mayan women, focusing on community radio. Additional areas of interest include public history and the politics of memory; and the gendered dynamics of genocide, violence and migration.
She believes the best way to learn anthropology is by doing anthropology, and to read what anthropologists write (rather than textbooks) and so students in all her classes conduct original ethnographic fieldwork, and read classic and cutting edge anthropological studies. .
A committed interdisciplinary scholar, she is a affiliate of the Women, Gender and Sexuality Program, the Black Studies Program, and Sustainability Studies.