Department of Anthropology                                                                     2210 Stuart Ave.
College of William & Mary                                                                          Richmond, VA 23220
P.O. Box 8795                                                                                             (804) 359-3030
Williamsburg, VA 23187-8795                                                                      blweis@wm.edu
(757) 221-1209                                                                                              FAX 757-221-1066
http://www.wm.edu/CAS/anthropology/faculty/Weiss

ACADEMIC POSITIONS

1993 - College of William & Mary Associate Professor of Anthropology
present (1993-1999, Assistant Professor)

EDUCATION

1992 University of Chicago Ph. D. Anthropology
        Doctoral Dissertation, "The Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World: Commoditization in Everyday Practice "
        Committee: Jean Comaroff (chair), Nancy D. Munn, James W. Fernandez, William F. Hanks.

1986 University of Chicago M.A. Anthropology
         Thesis, " The Ritual Process Embodied: A Reinterpretation of Ndembu Cosmology."

1984 Dartmouth College B.A. with Highest Honors in Religion
         Honors Thesis in Religion: "Social Structures and Religious Systems."

HONORS, PRIZES, AND AWARDS

1992 Doctoral Dissertation Awarded with Distinction,
        The University of Chicago

1984 Phi Beta Kappa,
         Dartmouth College

1984 Summa cum Laude,
         Dartmouth College

FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS

2002  American Council of Learned Societies, Frederick Burkhardt Fellow
          Awarded to Recently Tenured Faculty in the Humanities.
          For Residence at the National Humanities Center (2003-04).
          Preparation of Manuscript on "Conflicted Fantasies:
          Popular Cultural Practices in Urban Tanzania"

2000 Wenner-Gren Foundation, Small Grant
         Pop Culture, Post-Socialism: Tanzania's Transforming Cultural Imagination

1996-1997 School of American Research, NEH Resident Scholar
         Preparation of manuscript on "Coffee Breaks, Coffee Connections: Local and Global Perspectives on a Transnational Good"

1996 The University of Helsinki, Visiting Research Fellow
         Department of Anthropology. Helsinki, Finland

1996 Faculty Summer Research Grant, College of William & Mary Funding for Archival Research on "The Multiple Meanings of Haya Coffee"

1995 The University of Manchester, Visiting Fellow
        International Centre for Contemporary Cultural Research, Department of Social Anthropology. Manchester UK.

1994 Faculty Summer Research Grant, College of William & Mary Funding for Revision of "The Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World: Consumption and Commoditization in Everyday Practice"

1993 Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences, Nominee for Fellowship. Stanford, CA.

1993 Harper Fellow, Instructorship in Division of Social Sciences
       The University of Chicago (Unable to Accept).

1990 Social Science Research Council Workshop Participant
        "Gender and Social Transformation in Africa and South East Asia." Monterey, California

1988-1989 U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, (no. PO22A80012)
            To support field research in Northwest Tanzania.

1984-1988 Special Humanities Fellow University of Chicago
            University-wide fellowship, full tuition and stipend. Awarded to ten incoming students for four years of graduate studies.
 

SCHOLARSHIP

Research

1999             Field Research Popular Culture in Post-Socialist Tanzania (Arusha)
and 2000      Research into popular culture, performance, and consumerism

1996             Archival Research White Fathers' Collection (Rome, Italy).
                    Studied mission station diaries of early 20th century examining mission transformations of coffee cultivation and agriculture in
                    Haya communities.

1988-1990    Field Research Haya communities of Northwest Tanzania.
                    Studied socio-cultural constructions of space and time.
 

Refereed Publications and Manuscripts

Books

1996           The Making and Unmaking of the Haya Lived World: Consumption, Commoditization and Everyday Practice. "Body, Commodity,
                    Text" Series. Durham and London: Duke University Press.

Forthcoming Sacred Trees, Bitter Harvests: Globalizing Coffee in Northwest Tanzania. "Social History of Africa" Series. Portsmouth,
                     NH: Heinemann.

In                Conflicted Fantasies: Popular Cultural Practices in Urban Tanzania
Preparation

Edited Volume

2001              Mal-Adjustments: Ritual and Reproduction in Neo-Liberal Africa.
                     Special Issue of Journal of Religion in Africa vol xxxi-4

Articles and Chapters

Under
Review        "The Barber in Pain: Consciousness, Affliction, and Alterity in Urban  East Africa." in Makers and Breakers; Made
                      and Broken:Children and Youth as Emerging Categories in Postcolonial Africa. F. De Boeck and A. Honwana eds.
                      Durham: Duke University Press

Under           "Cowries, Coffee, and Currencies: Transforming Material Wealth in
Review          Early 20th Century Bukoba." in Commodification: Objects and Identities- The Social Life of Things Revisited. P.
                     Geschiere and  W. van Binsbergen eds. Durham: Duke University Press

2002             "A Religion of the Rupee: Imagining Markets in Northwest Tanganyika"
                    Africa vol. 72 no. 3

2002           "Thug Realism: Inhabiting Fantasy in Urban Tanzania."
                    Cultural Anthropology vol 17 no 1, pp. 93-128

In Press      "Editorial Introduction" to Mal-Adjustments: Ritual and Reproduction 2001 in Neo-Liberal Africa. Special Issue of
                    Journal of Religion in Africa vol xxxi-4

2001          "Coffee Breaks and Coffee Connections: The Lived Experience of a Commodity in Tanzanian and European Worlds" in
                    Consumption:Critical Concepts in the Social Sciences. D. Miller ed., pp. .         Routledge.

1999         "Good-for-Nothing Haya Names: Powers of Recollection in Northwest Tanzania" Ethnos vol. 64 no. 3., pp. 397-420.

1998         "Electric Vampires: Haya Rumors of the Commodified Body" in Bodies and Persons in Africa and Melanesia. A
                    Strathern and M. Lambek eds., pp. 172-194 Cambridge U. Press.

1997         "Materializations of Memory: The Substance of Remembering and Forgetting. Introduction" With D. P. Mines.
                Introduction to Papers Collected in Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 70 no. 4, pp. 161-63.

1997         "Forgetting Your Dead: Alienable and Inalienable Objects in Northwest Tanzania" Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 70
                  no. 4, pp. 164-72.

1997        "Northwestern Tanzania on a Single Shilling: Sociality, Embodiment, Valuation" Cultural Anthropology. vol. 12 no. 3,
                pp. 335-362.

1997        "Objects and Bodies: Some Phenomenological Implications of Knowledge and Practice in Mayotte" Cultural
                Dynamics. vol. 9 no. 2,pp. 161-172.

1996         "Coffee Breaks and Coffee Connections: The Lived Experience of a Commodity in Tanzanian and European Worlds" in
                Cross-Cultural Consumption. D. Howes, ed., pp. 93-105. Routledge & Kegan Paul.

1996         "Dressing at Death: Haya Adornment and Temporality " in Clothing and Difference: Embodied Identities in Colonial
                and Post-Colonial Africa H. Hendrickson, ed. pp. 133-154. Duke University Press.

1995      "La Nourriture qui ne rassassi* jamais: Une histoire sociale du caf* haya." (Note de recherche invit*e) ["The Food That's
                Never Filling: A Social History of Haya Coffee." (Invited Research Note)] in "Fronti*res Culturelles et Marchandises"
                Anthropologie et Soci*t*s vol. 18 no. 3, pp. 91-100.

1993         "'Buying Her Grave': Money, Movement, and AIDS in Northwest Tanzania." Africa vol. 63 no. 1. pp. 19-35.

1992         "Plastic Teeth Extraction: The Iconography of Haya Gastro-Sexual Affliction." American Ethnologist vol. 19 no. 3. pp.
                538-552.

1985         "Mediations in the Myth of Savitri." Journal of the American Academy of Religion vol. 50, no. 2. pp. 259-270.
 

Conference Presentations (Since 1995)

2002  "Chronic Mobb Asks a Blessing: Apocalyptic Hip-Hop in a Time of Crisis" to be presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Washington, D.C.

2002  "Swahili 'Sunset Beach': The Cosmopolitan at Home." To be     presented at Postcolonialism Today: Theoretical Challenges and   Pragmatic Issues: An Interdisciplinary and International    Conference.  University of Toronto, Victoria College. September 26-29

2001 "Enacting Violence: Youthful Performance in Urban Tanzania" Presented at the Conference Youth in Africa: The Legacy of the Past, the Challenge of the Future Amherst College, November 9-11; also presented at the Symposium on Contemporary Perspectives in Anthropology. Harpers Ferry, WV December 2-4

2001 "Getting Ahead When We're Behind: Time and Value in Urban Tanzania."
Presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Washington, D.C.

2001 Roundtable Participant, "Teaching as Translation; The Use of African Literature in Teaching Social Sciences." Presented at the annual meeting of the African Literature Association. Richmond, VA

2000 "Thug Realism: Inhabiting Fantasy in Urban Tanzania."
Presented at the inaugural Symposium on Contemporary Perspectives in Anthropology. Guerneville, CA; also presented at The Politics of Social Reproduction in Neoliberal Africa University of Chicago,
African Studies Workshop.

2000 "Swahili 'Sunset Beach': The Cosmopolitan at Home." Presented in the Invited Session "Back to the Village, Off to the City: Ethnographies of African Cosmopolitans" of the American Anthropological Association. San Francisco, CA

2000 "The Barber in Pain: Consciousness, Affliction, and Alterity in Urban East Africa." Presented at the Sixteenth Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Ritual and Religion. Satterthwaite, U. K.

1999 Discussant: "Mal-Adjustments: Ritual and Reproduction in Neo-Liberal Africa." Presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Chicago, IL

1999 "Cowries, Coffee, and Currencies: Transforming Material Wealth in Early 20th Century Bukoba." Presented at the Conference " Commodification: Objects and Identities- The Social Life of Things Revisited." University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

1999 "Catechumens, Rouleurs, and Motorcycles: Creating a Coffee Market in Early 20th Century Bukoba." Presented at the Fifteenth Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Ritual and Religion. Satterthwaite, U. K.

1998 "Roots of Reluctance: Contentions in Agricultural Innovation in Northwest Tanzania" Presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Philadelphia, PA.

1998 Discussant: "Experiencing the State, States of Experience, and the Politics of Shadows." Panel presented at the annual meeting of the American Ethnological Society. Toronto, Canada.

1998 "The Sacred Life of Plants: Placing Royal Growth." Presented at the Fourteenth Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Ritual and Religion. Satterthwaite, U. K.

1996 Panel Chair/Organizer and Discussant: "The Moral Force of Death in Africa and the Diaspora." Panel presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. San Francisco, CA.

1996 "Good-for-Nothing Haya Names: The Power of Recollection in Northwest Tanzania." Presented at the annual meeting of the European Association of Social Anthropology. Barcelona, Spain.

1995 "Northwest Tanzania on a Single Shilling: Valuation, Embodiment, Representation." Presented at the Eleventh Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Ritual and Religion. Satterthwaite, U. K.
 

Invited Papers
2002  "Chronic Mobb Asks a Blessing: Apocalyptic Hip-Hop in a Time of    Crisis" to be presented to the Program in African Studies,
Northwestern University. Evanston, IL, October 14

2001 "Thug Realism: Inhabiting Fantasy in Urban Tanzania."
Presented at Mary Washington College, Fredericksburg, VA (February); Franklin & Marshall College, Lancaster PA (March)

1998 Discussant for Morgan Lectures, presented by Daniel Miller on "The Dialectics of Shopping." University of Rochester, Rochester NY

1997 "'A Wakeful and Civil Drink': The Virtues of Coffee" Presented at the School of American Research. Santa Fe, NM.

1997 "Coffee Breaks, Coffee Connections: Local and Global Perspectives on a Transnational Good." Presented to Departments of Anthropology at University of New Mexico March 1997, Harvard University February 1997, University of Chicago January 1997.

1996 "Coffee Breaks and Coffee Connections: The Lived Experience of a Commodity in Tanzanian and European Worlds." Presented at the Department of Anthropology, University of Helsinki. Helsinki, Finland.

1995 "Dressing at Death: Time and Adornment in Buhaya" Presented at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Manchester, Manchester U.K.

1992 "Electric Vampires: Haya Rumors of Wealth." Presented at the Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley. Berkeley, California
 

Reviews

2002   Three Faces of Beauty: Casablanca, Paris, Cairo. Susan Ossman   American Ethnologist vol 29 no 4

2001 Mary Douglas: An Intellectual Biography. Richard Fardon Ethnos vol. 66 no. 1., pp. 128-29

2000 A Politics of Presence: Contacts between Missionaries and Waluguru in Late Colonial Tanganyika. Peter Pels Journal of Religion in Africa vol xxx-2, pp. 267-269.

1998 Tense Past: Cultural Essays in Trauma and Memory. Paul Antze and Michael Lambek, eds. American Ethnologist vol 25 no 3
pp. 504-505.

1998 Things as They Are: New Directions in Phenomenological Anthropology. Michael Jackson, ed. American Ethnologist vol 25 no 3 pp. 505-506.

1997 Craft and the Kingly Ideal: Art, Trade and Power. Mary Helms. American Ethnologist vol. 24 no 2. pp. 466-7.

1996 Patterns of Thought in Africa and the West: Essays on Magic, Religion and Science. Robin Horton. Journal of Religion in Africa
vol. XXVI no. 1 pp. 73-80.

1995 When We Began There Were Witchmen: An Oral History From Mount Kenya. Jeffrey Fadiman. American Anthropologist vol. 97 no. 3. pp. 608-609.

1994 African Divination Systems: Ways of Knowing. Philip M. Peek, ed. African Systems of Thought Series. Charles S. Bird and Ivan Karp, gen. eds. American Ethnologist vol. 21 no 4. pp. 951-952.

1994 Curing Their Ills: Colonial Power and African Illness. Megan Vaughan. American Ethnologist vol. 21 no 4. pp. 952-953.

1993 Sacred Void: Spatial Images of Work and Ritual among the Giriama of Kenya. David Parkin. American Anthropologist vol. 95 no. 1 pp. 232-233.

1992 Culture, Experience and Pluralism: Essays on African Ideas of Illness and Healing. Anita Jacobson-Widding and David Westurlund, eds. American Ethnologist vol. 19 no. 3. pp. 628-629.
 

LANGUAGE STUDY

1986-1988 Swahili Language Study, Northwestern University

1987 Intensive Program in Swahili, Michigan State University
 

LANGUAGE PROFICIENCY

Swahili (fluent; three years of course work, twenty two months of field experience).
Haya (some reading and speaking; eighteen months of field experience).
French (good command of reading and speaking).
Spanish (some reading and speaking).
 

SPECIALIZATIONS

Ritual and Religious Practice                                                                     Phenomenology
Commoditization and Social Transformation                                            History and Ethnography of
Local/Global Processes of Cultural Production                                           Africa  (especially East
Anthropology of the Body                                                                                      and Central Africa)

COURSES TAUGHT

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology                                                      Peoples and Cultures of Africa
Graduate Seminar in Socio-Cultural Theory                                                East African Cultures and History
Medicine and Culture                                                                                 African Ritual and Religious Practice
Culture and Cuisine                                                                                   Gender and Power in Africa
Folk Tales and Fairy Tales                                                                          African Cultural Economies
                                                                                                                 African Popular Cultural Practice

PROFESSIONAL SERVICE

2000- Symposium on Contemporary Perspectives in Anthropology Founder and Organizer, Guerneville CA (2000), Harpers Ferry WV (2001), Lafitte LA (2002)

1999- Journal of Religion in Africa
Editorial Board and Deputy Editor

1998-99 and German-American Frontiers of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Symposium
1999-2000    Member of the Organizing Committees (One of six American scholars chosen by the Social Science Research Council
                    to organize two three-day conferences).

1998-99 The Fifteenth Satterthwaite Colloquium on African Ritual and Religion.
Convener, Satterthwaite, U. K.

1994 Association for Third World Studies,
Liaison for Annual Meeting, Williamsburg VA

Manuscript Reviewer, Books:
Stanford University Press, University of Michigan Press, Routledge

Manuscript Reviewer, Articles:
American Ethnologist, American Anthropologist, Cultural Anthropology, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Social Science and Medicine, Anthropologie et Soci*t*s, Journal of Anthropological Research, Anthropological Quarterly, Journal of Religion in Africa, Africa

Grant Proposal Reviewer:
Social Science Research Council

Tenure Reviewer
Sweet Briar College
Mary Washington College
James Madison University
University of Wisconsin

Member
African Studies Association
American Anthropological Association
American Ethnological Society
Society for Cultural Anthropology