Michael Blakey

NEH Professor American Studies, Africana Studies, Anthropology

Email : mlblak@wm.edu
Office:: Washington Hall 112
Area of Specialization: Biological anthropology, bio-history, bioarcheology; history and philosophy of science; White supremacy in science and society; publicly engaged archaeology; North America, African diaspora.

Education

PhD Massachusetts-Amherst 1985

Background

I have been working on the interface of human biology and culture in a variety of ways. These include an examination of the social history of theories that connect biology, "nature,'' social inequality, and behavior; the articulation between human biology, racial ideology, and public policy; the political economy of health in industrial society; the bioarchaeology of the African Diaspora; and the ethics and epistemology of publicly engaged research. I also have a long standing interest in how museum interpretations demonstrate ideology and in the development of methods in dental paleopathology. My research on the 17th and 18th century African Burial Ground in New York City and the comparative database on the bioarchaeology of the African Diaspora are being developed here at the Institute for Historical Biology which I direct.