Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Phone Number: (732) 932-5298
Office: RAB 308
E-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

I am a linguistic and sociocultural anthropologist who works on issues of gender, kinship, and marriage in Nepal. My book, Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal (University of Michigan Press, 2001), is about the new courtship practice of love letter writing in the Magar village where I was a Peace Corps volunteer for several years in the early 1980's. I am interested in agency, constraints on meaning in Nepali women's songfests, and the changing meanings and values surrounding childbirth in Nepal. Currently, I am finishing a linguistic anthropology textbook for Blackwell. Read the chapter overview for my new book, Language in Social Contexts: An Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology. During the 2009 - 2010 year, I will be on sabbatical.  For the most part, I will be remaining in New Jersey and can be reached by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it . I will, however, be taking two research-related trips -- one in December/January to Israel to explore opportunities for new research projects there, possibly among Nepali women who travel to Israel to work in eldercare, and the second in February/March to Nepal to follow up on previous research and to see old friends. Read a New York Times article on my research. Take a look at my CV .

Education

B.A. in Political Philosophy, Williams College, 1982
M.A. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1992
Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of Michigan, 1994

Awards, Fellowships, and Grants

Rutgers University Leader in Diversity Award, 2006
Faculty of Arts and Sciences Award for Distinguished Contributions to Undergraduate Education, 2005
Rutgers University Board of Trustees Award for Scholarly Excellence, 2004
Fellow, Rutgers Center for Historical Analysis, 2003-2004
Edward Sapir Book Prize Honorable Mention for Invitations to Love, 2002
Rutgers Dialogues Grant, Rutgers University, 2002
Mungo Teaching Award finalist, University of South Carolina, February 2001
Excellence in Teaching Award, Mortar Board Society, University of South Carolina, 2000
Provost’s Teaching Development Grant, University of South Carolina, 1999
Josephine Abney Fellowship for Research in Women’s Studies, University of South Carolina, 1999
Service-Learning Faculty Fellow, University of South Carolina, 1999
Professional Development Award, Professional Women on Campus, University of South Carolina, 1998
College of Liberal Arts Scholarship Support grant, University of South Carolina, 1998
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers, 1996-1997
Mellon Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship, University of Michigan, 1993-1994
National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, Nepal, 1992-1993
Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, Nepal, 1992-1993
Mellon Foundation Candidacy Fellowship, University of Michigan, Summer 1992
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, University of Michigan, 1991-1992
Margaret Wray French Anthropology Scholarship, Nepal, Summer 1990

Recent Publications

Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal. University of Michigan Press. 2001. This ethnography provides a close examination of the dramatic shift away from arranged marriage and capture marriage toward elopement in the Magar village of Junigau, Nepal. In this village, young people are applying their newly acquired literacy skills to love-letter writing, fostering a transition that involves not only a shift in marriage rituals, but also a change in how villagers conceive of their own ability to act and attribute responsibility for events. Awarded Honorable Mention in the Society of Linguistic Anthropology's Edward Sapir Book Prize Competition, 2002

Read the table of contents and other front matter of the book.

Read Appendix A and Appendix B, the complete love letter correspondences of two Nepali couples.

Read Mark Liechty's review of Invitations to Love in the journal American Ethnologist, Vol.30(2), May 2003.

Read Anita Wilson's review of Invitations to Love in the journal Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Vol.33(4), December 2002.

Read Anna Robinson-Pant's review of Invitations to Love in the International Journal of Educational Development, Vol.22(5):556-558, September 2002. (Not available to all viewers, unfortunately.)

Read Yoonhee Kang's review of Invitations to Love in the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, 14(1):112-113.

Read Gérard Toffin's review of Invitations to Love in the journal L'Homme: Revue française d'anthropologie, July 2006. (Review is in French.)

Articles

“Fateful Literacy: New Meanings, Old Ideologies, and Some Unexpected Consequences of Nepali Love Letter Writing.” In Literacies: Global and Local. Mastin Prinsloo and Mike Baynham (eds.), Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 93-116, 2008.

" Literacy, Power, and Agency: Love Letters and Development in Nepal. " Language and Education, 18(4):305-316, 2004. [Link to .pdf version of this article provided with permission of Multilingual Matters.]

"Writing Desire in Nepali Love Letters." Language and Communication, 23(2)):107-122, 2003. [Link to article may not work for all viewers. If you cannot access the article and would like a copy, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .]

Comment on Alessandro Duranti's "Language as Culture in U.S. Anthropology: Three Paradigms." Current Anthropology, 44(3):335, June 2003. [Link to article may not work for all viewers. If you cannot access the article and would like a copy, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .]

"The Magars of Banyan Hill and Junigau: A 'Granddaughter's' Reflections." Himalayan Research Bulletin, 22(1), 2002.

"What's Love Got To Do With It?" Anthropology News, 43(9). December 2002.

""We Were Kings Here Once": Gendered Constructions of Magar Ethnicity in a Speech by Gore Bahadur Khapangi." Himalayan Research Bulletin 21(1):7-10.

"A Traditional Massacre, or a Massacre of Tradition?" Anthropology News 42(8), November 2001.

"Language and Agency." Annual Review of Anthropology , Volume 30, 109-137, 2001. [Link to article may not work for all viewers. If you cannot access the article and would like a copy, please This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .]

"Agency." In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), Key Terms in Language and Culture. London: Blackwell, 2001, 7-10. [Reprint of Journal of Linguistic Anthropology piece.]

"Agency." In special issue, entitled, "Language Matters: Lexicon for the New Millennium," Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(2), 1999, 9-12.

"True Traces: Love Letters and Social Transformation in Nepal." In Barton, David and Nigel Hall (eds.), Letter Writing as a Social Practice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press, 1999, 199-207.

"'A Twisted Rope Binds My Waist': Locating Constraints on Meaning in a Tij Songfest." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Volume 8(1), 1998, 60-86.

"Reading, Writing, and Romance: Literacy, Love Letters, and Agency in a Nepali Village." Texas Linguistic Forum, Volume 39, 1998, 248-258.

Anth 108 Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

Anth 291 Language and Gender

Anth 292The Anthropology of Love Letter Writing

Anth 312 Language and Social Diversity

Anth 317 Method and Analysis in Cultural Anthropology
This class involved students in hands-on research in the community of Highland Park, New Jersey.

Anth 506 Research Design and Methods in Cultural Anthropology.

Anth 514 Language as Social Action
This course is now a required core course for CITE graduate students.

Anth 515 Theories of Agency

Upcoming Conferences

I will be attending the following events in 2009 and would be happy to meet with students or colleagues also attending who share similar research interests:

l'École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Paris, France.  I will be participating in a seminar on literacy studies, 9 - 13 February 2009.

American Anthropological Association Annual Conference, Philadelphia, PA, 2 - 6 December 2009.

Miscellaneous Links

Society for Linguistic Anthropology, the American Anthropological Association's linguistic anthropology section

Turtle Light Press, a small press founded by my husband, Rick Black, and for which I designed a website

Douglass Child Study Center, a wonderful daycare center and preschool on the Rutgers campus, for which I designed a website

Agency Reading Group at the University of South Carolina

Peace Corps Writer, an organization devoted to the fiction and nonfiction writing of returned Peace Corps Volunteers

StoryCorps, a national project to instruct and inspire people to record one others' stories in a StoryBooth, such as the one in Grand Central Station in New York City

Media Coverage

Rutgers Sciwomen interview on my research and graduate school experiences -- three excerpts can be viewed at http://www.youtube.com/profile_videos?user=RUsciwomen 

Interviewed for a Discovery Channel documentary, entitled, "Royal Inquest," about the massacre of the Nepali royal family, March 2009.

Jiba Kumari Rana and Sunita Lamthari look at Invitations to Love