Curriculum Vitae

 

James Lorand Matory

Department of Anthropology Harvard University 33 Kirkland Street, Rm 310 Cambridge, MA 02138 (617-) 495-7826

29 Blake Street Cambridge, MA 02140 (617) 576-1268

4/16/06 version

Education

Ph.D., Anthropology, University of Chicago , 1991
M.A., Anthropology, University of Chicago , 1986
B.A., Anthropology, Harvard University , 1982--Magna Cum Laude

Employment

Distinguished Visiting Scholar, Howard University , Spring 2002.
Professor of Anthropology and of African and African American Studies, Harvard University , 1998 to the present.
Hugh K. Foster Associate Professor of Anthropology and of Afro-American Studies Harvard University , 1995 to
1998.
Assistant Professor, Departments of Anthropology and of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University , 1991 to 1995.
Research Intern, Field Museum of Natural History ( Chicago ), Summer 1985
Research on Yoruba artifacts and master's thesis preparation.
Research Intern, National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.), Summer 1984
Research on Yoruba artifacts and master's thesis preparation.
Instructor, Phillips Academy ( Andover , MA ), 1983 to 1984
Taught English, Religion and Philosophy, and Jazz Dance.
Research Intern, National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C.), Summer 1981
Researched and accessioned collections of African bladed weapons.

Professional Memberships and Offices

Member, Presidential Advisory Committee on Cultural Property, Department of State, United States Federal
Government, July 2003-present.
Member, Editorial Board, Afro - Àsia (Journal of the Center of Afro-Oriental Studies , Federal University of Bahia, Brazil), 1997 to the present.
Member, Advisory Board, Afropaedia Encyclopedia, editors Kwame Anthony Appiah and Henry Louis Gates, Jr.
Member, American Studies Association, 1995.
Associate Editor, American Ethnologist , 1994 to 1998.
Member, Board of Advisors, Thirteen/WNET Humanities Programming Initiative, 1994 to the present
Member, Advisory Board, GLQ, A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies , 1993 to 2005.
Member, African Studies Association, 1993 to the present.
Member, American Anthropological Association, 1992 to the present.
Member, Committee on African Studies, Harvard University , 1991 to the present.
Founder and Chair of the "Afro-Atlantic Religions Lecture and Film Series," Williams College (1990) and Harvard University (1991, 1993, 1996, 1998, 2003, 2005). Intended primarily to allow priests of these often secretive and sometimes maligned religions to speak to the press and the public.

Selected Fellowships and Awards

Melville J. Herskovits Prize, awarded by the African Studies Association for the best book of 2005, 17 November 2006.
S. Allen Counter Award for Excellence in Faculty and Administration, Association of Black Harvard Women, 15 April 2006.
Spencer Foundation Major Grant, “The Other African Americans: Ethnicity and the Changing Culture of ‘Black' Higher Education”—2002-06.
National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship for University Teachers for overseas archival research and writing on Afro-Brazilian religion and politics--1995-1996.
Social Science Research Council Grant for Field Research in Bahia and São Paulo , Brazil --February-September 1992.
W. E. B. Du Bois Fellowship for Afro-American Research for the support of field research and writing on Afro-Brazilian culture--January-December 1992.
Post-doctoral Research Associateship in Anthropology, Princeton University --1991.
Charles Gaius Bolin Fellowship for teaching and dissertation write-up, Williams College, 1990.
Fulbright-Hays (Dept. of Education) Fellowship for pre-dissertation research-- Nigeria , 1988 to 1989.
National Science Foundation Fellowship for Graduate Study, University of Chicago --1985 to 1989.
Committee on Institutional Cooperation (CIC) International Studies Fellowship, Rio de Janeiro and Bahia , Brazil --August-December 1987.
Roy D. Albert Prize for Excellence in the Graduate Study of Anthropology, University of Chicago --1986.
Danforth-Compton Fellowship for Graduate Study--1984 to 1991.
CIC International Studies Fellowship, Nigeria --Summer 1986.
CIC Graduate Fellowship for Minorities, University of Chicago --1984 to 1985.
Rotary Scholarship for Graduate Study Abroad, Nigeria --1982 to 1983.

Selected Publications

“Tradition, Transnationalism and Gender in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé” (2006). In Cultural Agency in the Americas. Doris Sommer ed. pp.121-45. Durham , NC: Duke University Press.

Black Atlantic Religon: Tradition, Transnationalism and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (2005). Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion --second, revised edition (2005). New York and London: Berghahn Books.

The Other African Americans: Race, Ethnicity and Education in Black America and Beyond (book manuscript in progress). Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture and Monograph Series. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.

“The Homeward Ship: Analytic Tropes as Maps of and for African-Diaspora Cultural History” (forthcoming). In Ethnographic Appropriations: the New Uses of Ethnography, Personal Experiences of the Ethnographic Genre, Kamari Clarke and Rebecca Hardin eds.

“The Many Who Dance in Me: Afro-Atlantic Ontology and the Problem with ‘Transnationalism'” ( forthcoming ). In Transnational Transcendence, Thomas Csordas ed.

“Free to Be a Slave: Slavery as Metaphor in the Afro-Atlantic Religions.” Religion in Africa, special issue edited by Stephan Palmié and Brad Weiss, forthcoming.

“An African Empire in America: the Rise of Yoruba Religion in the United States.” In Religion Outside the Institutions (forthcoming). Karen McCarthy Brown and Lynn Davidman, eds. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

“The ‘ New World ' Surrounds an Ocean: On the Live Dialogue between African and African-American Cultures” (2006). In Afro-Atlantic Dialogues: Anthropology in the Diaspora, Kevin Yelvington ed. Pp.151-192. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research.

“Sexual Secrets: Candomblé, Brazi , and the Multiple Intimacies of the African Diaspora” (2004). In Off Stage/On Display: Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture, Andrew Shryock ed. pp.157-190. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press.

“Is There Gender in Yoruba Culture?” (forthcoming). In Orisa Devotion as World Religion: the Globalization of Yoruba Religious Culture, K. Jacob Olupona and Terry Rey, Eds. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.

“Gendered Agendas: the Secrets Scholars Keep about Yoruba-Atlantic Religion” (2004). In Dialogues of Dispersal: Gender, Sexuality and African Diasporas (A Gender and History special edition), Sandra Gunning, Tera W. Hunter and Michele Mitchell eds. Pp.13-43. Malden, MA, and Oxford, UK: Blackwell.

“Gendered Agendas: the Secrets Scholars Keep about Yoruba-Atlantic Religion” (2003). Gender and History 15[3]:408-38.

“Contradiction and Forgetting among the Yewésseys” (2002). Transforming Anthropology 10(2):2-12.

“El nuevo imperio Yoruba: Textos, migración y el auge transatlántico de la nación lucumí” (2001). In Culturas encontradas: Cuba y los Estados Unidos, Rafael Hernández and John Coatsworth, eds. Pp. 167-188. Havana: Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Cultura Juan Marinello and Cambridge, MA: David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University .

“Surpassing ‘Survivals': On the Urbanity of ‘Traditional Religion' in the Afro-Atlantic World” (2001). The Black Scholar, 30 (3): 36-43

“The Gullah and the Black Atlantic.” Footsteps: African American History and Heritage Magazine, (March/April 2001), pp. 10-11.

“Africans in the United States,” Footsteps: African American History and Heritage Magazine, (March/April 2001), pp. 6-9.

“The Other African Americans.” Footsteps: African American History and Heritage Magazine, (March/April 2001), pp. 24-25.

“The ‘Cult of Nations' and the Ritualization of their Purity” (2001). South Atlantic Quarterly (special issue on “Atlantic Genealogies”) 100(1):171-214.

"Jeje: Repensando Nações e Transnacionalismo” (1999). Mana: Estudos de Antropologia Social ( Rio de Janeiro ) 5(1): 57-80.

“Afro-Atlantic Culture: On the Live Dialogue between Africa and the Americas.” In Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (1999). Henry Louis Gates and K. Anthony Appiah, eds. Pp. 36-44. New York: Basic Civitas Books.

“The English Professors of Brazil: On the Diasporic Roots of the Yoruba Nation” (1999). Comparative Studies in Society and History 41(1): 72-103.

"Yorubá: As Rotas e as Raízes da Nação Transatlântica, 1830-1950" (1998). Horizontes Antropológicos (Porto Alegre, Brazil) 4(9): 263-292.

Book review (1998) of Yoruba Sacred Kingship: “ A Power Like that of the Gods ” (1996) by John Pemberton, III, and Funs? Af?layan. Anthropological Quarterly 71(3): 155-156.

"Yoruba: A World Civilization" (1998). Calliope: World History for Young People, February, pp. 4-8, 39.

"Religions, African, in the Americas " (1997). In The Encyclopedia of Sub-Saharan Africa , ed. John Middleton. New York: Simon and Schuster.

"African and Afro-Caribbean Religions in the United States" (1997). In On Common Ground: World Religions in America, Interactive CD-ROM, ed. Diana Eck. New York: Columbia University Press.

"The King's Male-Order Bride: the Making of a Yoruba Priest in a Post-Modern Age" (1997). In Queens , Queen Mothers, Priestesses, and Power: Case Studies in African Gender, ed. Flora Kaplan. Vol. 810 of the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, pp.381-400. New York: New York Academy of Arts and Sciences.

"Revisiting the African Diaspora" (1996) --book review essay concerning Joseph M. Murphy's Working the Spirit (1994), George Brandon's Santeria from Africa to the New World (1993), and Ysamur Flores-Peña and Roberta J. Evanchuk's Santería Garments and Altars (1994). American Anthropologist 88(1): 167-70.

Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in ?y? Yoruba Religion (1994). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. A Choice outstanding scholarly book of the year

"Rival Empires: Islam and the Religions of Spirit Possession among the ?y?-Yoruba" (1994). American Ethnologist 21(3): 495-515.

"Government by Seduction: History and the Tropes of 'Mounting' in ?y?-Yoruba Religion" (1993). In Modernity and Its Malcontents: Ritual and Power in Africa, eds. Jean Comaroff and John Comaroff. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Review article (1993) on Creativity of Power: Essays on Cosmology and Action in African Societies (1989), eds. Ivan Karp and William Arens. Journal of Religion in Africa 23(2): 175-80.

Book review (1991) of Africanisms in American Culture, ed. Joseph E. Holloway. American Anthropologist 93: 489-90.

"Homens Montados: homossexualidade e simbolismo da possessão nas religiões afro-brasileiras" ("Mounted Men: homosexuality and the symbolism of possession in the Afro-Brazilian religions," 1988). In Escravidão e Invenção da Liberdade , ed. João José Reis. São Paulo: Editora Brasiliense).

Selected Lectures, Workshops and Conference Papers

“The Many Who Dance in Me: On the Plural and Transnational Nature of the Afro-Atlantic Self” (2006). Department of Religion, Duke University, 28 September.

“Africa in the Americas : Re-Theorizing the African Diaspora” (2006). Bradford Morse Distinguished Lecture Series, African Studies Center , Boston University, 12 April.

“Africa in the Americas : Re-Theorizing Africa's Cultural Influence on the Americas ” (2006). The Jerry Wood Memorial Lecture, Swarthmore College, 13 February.

“The Trans-Atlantic Nation: Rethinking the African ‘Diaspora'” (2005). “Global Black Studies” series of the Department of African Studies, University of Illinois, Chicago , 18 Nov.

“Free to Be a Slave: Slavery as Metaphor in the Afro-Atlantic Religions” (2005) African Studies Program, University of Washington , Seattle , 20 May.

“Imaginando Puerto Rico, o “?Y tu abrigo, dónde está?” (2005). Public lecture for the Puerto Rico Winter Institute, University of Puerto Rico , 27 January.

“La Salsa en la Falla: Raza, Género y Nación en un Mundo Trasnacional” (“Salsa on the Fault Line: Race, Gender and Nation in a Transnational World”—2005). Two lectures for the Puerto Rico Winter Institute, University of Puerto Rico, 24 and 25 January

“Settler Colonialism as a Bloc Position” (2004). Keynote address for the meeting of the Legal Committee of the Harvard Model United Nations, 10 December.

“Sacred Misnomers and Israel 's ‘Right to Exist'” (2004). Morning Prayers, Memorial Church, Harvard University, 6 December.

“Para Inglês Ver: Sex, Secrecy and Scholarship in the Yoruba-Atlantic World” (2004). Ethnohistory Program (with the co-sponsorship of the African Studies Center and the Africana Studies Program), University of Pennsylvania, 28 October.

“ Africa is Not a Crisis” (2004). Keynote address. Rotary Club of Cambridge, MA, 25 August.

“Man in the 'City of Women': Ethnographic Allegories of Race, Sex and Nation” (2004). Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, 10 May.

“Para Inglês Ver: Black Matriarchy in the Transnational Drama of Racial Democracy” (2004). Brazilian Studies Program, Georgetown University, 26 March.

“'In their effect if not their intent': Confronting the New Anti-Semitism” (2004). Morning Prayers, Memorial Church, Harvard University, 15 January.

“Race, Rights, and Rank in the Nation-State: a Cross-Cultural Perspective on the 1963 March on Washington” (2003). Public Affairs Section, United States Consulate, Lagos, Nigeria, 21 August.

“Is There Gender in Yoruba Society?” (2002). Roundtable: The Invention of Women—Theorizing African Women and Gender Now and into the Future. African Studies Association, Washington, D.C., 6 December.

“Are Religions Inherently Transnational?” (2002). Transnational Religion and Migration: A Planning Meeting of the Social Science Research Council, Istanbul, 13 June.

“Sources of Sickness, Logics of Healing: An African Cultural View” (2002). Televised lecture for the Continuing Medical Education broadcast of the National Medical Association Convention, Maui, Hawaii, 8-12 August (recorded 6/5/02).

“Is Oppositional Culture Killing Our Kids?: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on African American Youth Resistance” (2002). Fourth Melvin E. Jenkins, M.D., Lectureship in Pediatrics, Howard University College of Medicine, 7 May.

“The ‘ New World ' Surrounds an Ocean: On the Afro-Atlantic Dialogue” (2002). Twenty-First Annual Lorraine A. Williams Lecture, Department of History, Howard University, 24 April.

“Who Is the Subject of History?” (2002). Keynote address, Induction Ceremony of the Phi Alpha Theta History Honors Society, Howard University, 22 April.

“Cooperation in the Workplace/la Cooperación en el Servicio” (2002). Bilingual workshop on Black-Latino Labor Relations for Howard University dormitory staff, 18 April.

“Are Black North Americans Cultural Imperialists?” (2002). Foreign Policy Forum of the Ralph E. Bunche International Affairs Center, Howard University, 16 April.

“The Other African Americans: Theorizing Ethnic Diversity at Howard University ” (2002). New Perspectives in Faculty Research Colloquium, Howard University, 6 February.

“Of Many Nations, We Are One” (2002). Annual Black History Month Lecture, Howard University Hospital . Sponsored by the Office of International Healthcare Services, 28 February.

“Identity and Difference: On Black Ethnic Diversity at Howard” (2002). Black History Month Series, Part Two, Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Alpha Chapter, Howard University, 20 February.

“Sex and Secrecy: Reflections on Herzfeld's Cultural Intimacy in the African Diaspora” (2001). Panel on “Cultural Intimacy and Mass Mediation: Articulating New Grounds for Ethnography between Public and Private Spheres,” organized by Professor Andrew Shryock, 100th Annual Anthropological Association Meeting, Washington, D.C., 29 November.

“Free to Be a Slave: Slavery as a Metaphor in the Afro-Atlantic Religions” (2001). “Slavery: A Comparative Exploration,” An Interdisciplinary Symposium on Slavery, Howard University, 18-19 May.

“An African Empire in the Americas: On the Trans-Atlantic Rise of Yoruba Religion” (2001). African Diaspora Series, University of California, Riverside, 20 April.

“The ‘New World' Surrounds an Ocean: Africa in the Making of the Modern World” (2001). Keynote Address at “Africa in World History: Thematic Connections,” the Wednesday Workshop of the Northeastern Regional Council for Social Studies (NERC), co-sponsored by the Center for World History (Northeastern University) and the African Studies Center (Boston University), Boston, 7 March.

“Hombre en la ‘Ciudad de las Mujeres'” (2001). Invited lecture at conference on “Cultural Agency in the Americas: Language, Ethnicity, Gender and Outlets of Expression” (sponsored by the Social Science Research Council), Cuzco, Peru, 30 January.

“The Road to Timbuktu and the Rivers of West Africa ” (2001). Lecture series sponsored by Harvard University Alumni Association Tour of Senegal and Mali, 15-27 January.

“Sex, Dialogue and Secrecy in the Yoruba-Atlantic Tradition” (2000). Panel on “Breaking Taboo: (Theorizing) Sex and Sexualities in the African Diaspora,” 99 th Annual American Anthropological Association Meeting, San Fransico, 15–19 November.

“The ‘ New World ' Surrounds an Ocean: On the Afro-Atlantic Dialogue” (2000). Colloquium Series on Transnationalism, Area Studies and Ethnographic Methods, Department of Anthropology, Yale University, 14 November.

“Disciplining Race: An Anthropological Perspective on ‘Race,' Migration, and ‘Identity” (2000). Black Cultural Studies Seminar, Tufts University, 28 September.

“Parables from the Afro-Atlantic: On the Dialectical Representation of Collective Black Selves” (2000). Conference on “Crossing Boundaries: The African Diaspora in the New Millennium,” New York University, 23 September.

“Afro-Atlantic Culture: Re-Thinking the Units of Anthropological Analysis” (2000). Anthropology Day, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 15 September.

“Afro-Atlantic Dialogue: A New Analytic Metaphor for an Old Reality” (2000). African Diaspora Program, Department of African-American Studies, University of California at Berkeley, 25 April.

“How I Became White: A Cross-Cultural Look at Race”/ “Contradiction and Forgetting in Yewessey Culture” (2000). The Tenth Emeritus Lecture, in honor of the late Professor Emeritus William Shack, Department of Anthropology, University of California at Berkeley, 24 April.

“Afro-Atlantic Dialogue: A New Analytic Metaphor for an Old Reality” (2000). Conference on “Transcending Traditions: African, Afro-American and African Diaspora Studies in the 21 st Century,” African Studies Center and the Afro-American Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania, 21 April.

“The New Yoruba Imperium: Texts, Migration, and the Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Lucumí Nation” (2000). Latin American Studies Association International Congress XXII, Miami, Florida, 14-18 March.

“Man in the ‘City of Women '” (1999). Lecture presented at conference on “The Globalization of Yoruba Religious Culture,” Department of Religious Studies and Department of African-New World Studies, Florida International University, 9-12 December.

“How I Became White: A Cross-Cultural Look at ‘Race'” (1999). The Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology and the Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 2 December.

“The ‘ New World ' Surrounds an Ocean: On the Live Dialogue between African and African-American Cultures” (1999). Atlantic Studies Group of the “Oceans Connect” Project, Duke University, 26 October.

“An African Empire in the Americas: On the Trans-Atlantic Rise of Yoruba Religion” (1999). Department of African and African-American Studies and the Atlantic Studies Group of the “Oceans Connect” Project, Duke University, 25 October.

“Contradiction and Forgetting in Yewéssey Culture” (1999). Ethnic Studies Fall Lecture, Shippensburg University (Shippensburg, PA), 18 October.

“Candomble's Newest Nation: Brazil ” (1999). Conference on “Regionalism and National Identity in Brazil and Mexico,” Brown University, 24 Sept.

Discussion of my forthcoming book Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism, and Matriarchy in the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé (1999). Atlantic History Seminar, Department of History, University of Pittsburgh, 19 March.

“The Trans-Atlantic Nation: Re-thinking Nations and Transnationalism” (1999). Council on African Studies and the Gilder-Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery, Resistance, and Abolition, Yale University, 5 February.

“El Nuevo Imperio Yoruba: Textos, Migración y el Auge Transatlántico de la Nación Lucumí” (1999). Conference on “Las Relaciones Sociales y Culturales entre Cuba y los Estados Unidos,” Centro de Investigación y Desarrollo de la Cultura Cubana “Juan Marinello,” Havana, 30 January.

“Basic Black: Ethnic Diversity, Immigration, and the Modern Making of Blackness in the United States ” (1998). CIC Fellows Conference on “Honoring the Past, Striving toward the Vision: 1978-1998.” Indiana University/Purdue University at Indianapolis, 24 October.

“Entrepreneurs of Nationhood” (1998). Conference on “Prophets, Visionaries and their Publics in the Afro-Atlantic World.” University of Maryland, College Park, 8 October.

“The Prestige of Scripture and the Rise of Yorùbá Religion in the United States ” (1998). Conference on “Religion Outside the Institutions,” Center for the Study of Religion, Princeton University, 5-7 June.

"The Trans-Atlantic Nation: Reconsidering Nations and Transnationalism" (1998). Conference on "Rethinking the African Diaspora: The Making of the Black Atlantic World in the Bight of Benin and Brazil ." Emory University, 18 April.

"Don't Take Yourself Too Literally!: On the Metaphors We Live By" (1998). Horace Mann Willard Endowed Lecture, Vermont Academy, Saxtons River, Vermont, 6 April.

"Basic Black: Ethnic Diversity, Immigration, and the Modern Making of Blackness in the United States " (1998). Conference on "New Directions in Diaspora Research," Northwestern University, 3 April.

A Discussion of Steven Spielberg's "Amistad" (1998). African American Resource Group, BankBoston International Headquarters, Boston, 24 February.

"La culture en tant que conflit: politique de la culture afro-atlantique" (1998). Colloquium on "Les arts de la rencontre triangulaire, ou les arts du marronnage," Institut Régional d'Art Visuel, Fort-de-France, Martinique, 17-18 February.

"The Trans-Atlantic Nation: Reconsidering Nations and Transnationalism" (1998). Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Georgetown University, 21 January.

"The Other African Americans: Reflections on Domestic Ethnography" (1998). Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, 26 January.

"Cultures and Clashes: a Cross-Cultural Look at 'Race'" (1998). The BankBoston Kick-Off to Black History Month. BankBoston International Headquarters, Boston, 27 January.

"Possessed: the Dizzying Politics of Afro-Atlantic Dance" (1997). Keynote address at Visions of Community: A Symposium in Honor of Five African-American Women in Dance, Smith College, Northampton, MA, 7 November.

"Revisiting the 'City of Women ': Matriarchy and Homosexuality in an African-Brazilian Religion" (1997). Center for Literary and Cultural Studies, Harvard University, 22 October.

"Embrace One Another: the Ties that Bind Brazil and Africa " (1997). Keynote address at the opening of the BankBoston Brazilian African Collection. Harvard University, 17 October.

"Culture as Controversy: the Politics of Afro-Atlantic Culture" (1997). Colloquium Series of the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University, 8 October.

"A Nação Trans-Atlântica" (1997). A series of three lectures presented at the Fundação Joaquim Nabuco, Recife , Brazil, 20, 21 and 22 August.

"As Raizes da Superioridade Nagô: Além do Evolucionismo e da Teoria da Manipulação Branca" (1997). Lecture presented at the Fifth Afro-Brazilian Congress, Salvador, Brazil, 17 August.

"The ' New World ' Surrounds an Ocean: the Case for Circum-Atlantic History" (1997). Keynote address at "Bringing Africa to Life: an African Studies Conference for Secondary School Teachers" at Phillips Academy, Andover, MA, 2 May.

"Money Whitens, Love Darkens: On the Ambiguity of Color Hierarchies in Brazil " (1997). Presented at the "Skin Trade: Women, Complexion and Caste" Conference at Brandeis University, 29 March.

"The Trans-Atlantic Nation: Reconsidering Nations and Transnationalism" (1997). Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan, 21 March.

"The Trans-Atlantic Nation: Reconsidering Nations and Transnationalism" (1997). Social Anthropology Seminar Series, Harvard University, 3 March.

"Yoruba: the Routes and the Roots of a Trans-Atlantic Nation, 1830-1950" (1997). Black History Month, Black Diaspora Series, Howard University, 21 February.

"The Real 'Af-Lat-Am': On the Shared Roots of Latin American and African-American Civilizations" (1997). Keynote address for Black Arts Weekend, Phillips Academy, Andover, 15 February.

"Transnationalism Before the Nation-State: On Trans-Atlantic Black Ethnicity" (1997). Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, 12 February.

"The Importance of Africa in World Civilization: the American Example" (1997). National Endowment for the Humanities Teacher Seminar on World History/World Civilization, Harvard University, 21 January.

"Return, 'Race,' and Religion in a Trans-Atlantic Yoruba Nation" (1996). African Studies Association, San Francisco, 24 November.

"'Race,' Ritual and the Meaning of 'African American'" (1996). Blacks in the Diaspora Conference, sponsored by the Harvard Black Students' Association, 16 November.

"Man in the 'City of Women ': Matriarchy and Homosexuality in an African-American Religion" (1996). African and Diaspora Studies, Tulane University, 25 October

"Agency: Re-thinking the Diaspora" (1996). Adirondack Work/Study Conference on "The Future of African Culture in the Americas," Jay, NY, 6 August.

"The Diaspora in the Making of the Homeland: Afro-Brazilian Religion and the Invention of 'the Yoruba'" (1996). African Studies Pro-Seminar, University of Pennsylvania. 5 April.

"The 'Coast' Revisited: the Lagosian Bourgeoisie and the Making of the Yoruba-Atlantic Complex, 1840-1950" (1996). Colloquium on Humanities and Social Sciences in Africa and the Department of Anthropology, Columbia University, 27 February.

"Candomblé and the Creole Nation-State" (1995). American Academy of Religion, Boston, 31 March.

"Faculty Perspectives on Diversity" (1995). Address to students at Minority Pre-Freshman Weekend. Harvard-Radcliffe Office of Admissions, 22 April.

"The Other African-Americans: Recent Black Immigration and the Refiguring of 'Race,' 'Ethnicity,' and 'Assimilation'" (1995). American Studies Association Annual Meeting, Pittsburgh, 11 November.

"The Making of an Anthropologist" (1994). The Maret School, Washington, DC, 10 November.

"Afro-Brazilians and the Quandary of Human Rights Intervention" (1994), Cultural Survival, Cambridge, MA, 1 June.

"The Other African Americans" (1994). Mather House, Harvard University, 16 March.

"Towards the 21st Century: African Belief Systems in New York City " (1994). Caribbean Cultural Center lecture series on "Yoruba Philosophy in the Diaspora," New York City, 12 March.

"Afro-Brazilian Religion: Culture as Controversy" (1993). Iberian and Latin American Studies Seminar, Harvard University, 23 November.

"Nagôs and Ìndios: Tattered Memories of Africa in an Afro-Brazilian Religion" (1993). Colloquium at the W. E. B. Du Bois Institute for Afro-American Research, Harvard University, 19 May.

"Nagôs and Ìndios: Tattered Memories of Africa in an Afro-Brazilian Religion" (1993). Lecture Series of the Center for the Study of World Religions, Harvard University, 4 May.

"Faculty Perspectives on Diversity" (1993). Address to students at Minority Pre-Freshmen Weekend, Harvard-Radcliffe Office of Admissions, 24 April.

"The Other African Americans" (1993). Talcott Parsons Sociology Conference, Harvard University, 13 March.

"Sobre o 'Natural' no Candomblé: Planejando uma Resposta ao Eco '92" (1992). Acervo da Memória e do Viver Afro-Brasileiro, São Paulo, 25 April.

"Idosu: the Making of a Yoruba Priest in a Post-Modern Age" (1991). African Studies Seminar, Harvard University, 6 December.

"The Production and De-Construction of African-American Culture: A Case Study of the Brazilian Candomblé" (1991). Anthropology Department Colloquium Series, Princeton University, 19 February.

"Rival Empires: Islam and the Religions of Spirit Possession among the Oyo-Yoruba" (1990). Conference on Islam and the Religions of Spirit Possession, Harvard University, June.

"Women and Their Sango: Yoruba Women's Religion and a History of Its Metaphors" (1990). Conference on Ritual, Power and Politics in Africa, University of Chicago, February.

"Homens Montados: O Simbolismo da Possessão no Candomblé" (1987). Sociedade Protetora dos Desvalidos, Salvador, Brazil, 8 October.

"A Refined Heathen: the Mythic Construction of the Other and Cultural Synthesis in the Travel Account of an American Missionary among the Yoruba" (1986). Central States Anthropological Society, Chicago, 21-23 March.

Courses Taught

"Afro-Atlantic Religions"
"Syncretism"
"Afro-Latin Society and Politics"
"West African Cultures"
"The Other African Americans"
"Introduction to Social Anthropology"
"Communities of Harvard Square "
“History and Theory of Social Anthropology” (required graduate pro-seminar in Anthropology)
“Key Controversies in the Social Scientific Study of African Americans” (required graduate pro-seminar in African and African American Studies)

Community Service

Member, Selection Committee, Burckhardt Fellowship, American Council of Learned Societies, 2005.
Faculty Adviser, Association of Black Radcliffe Women, 2005-06.
Senior Faculty Mentor , Woodrow Wilson Foundation National Fellowship, Princeton, NJ, 2005-06.
Keynote Speaker, Faculty Perspectives on Diversity Pre-Freshman Orientation Session titled “Faculty Perspectives on Diversity,” Harvard College Admissions Office, Harvard University , 30 April 2005.
Member, Presidential Cultural Property Advisory Committee, U.S. Department of State, 2003-present.
Panelist/Evaluator, American Studies Panel, Collaborative Research Grants, National Endowment for the Humanities, 11 February 2005.
Member, Advisory Committee, African and African-American Baskets Exhibition, Museum of Natural History (directed by Enid Schildkrout), New York , 2005.
Chair, External Review Board, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Howard University , 12 February 2004.
Co-Chair, Search Committee, Joint Search in the Departments of Anthropology and African and African American Studies, 2004-present.
Chair, External Review Committee, Program in Anthropology, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Howard University, 11-12 February 2004.
Chair, Exploratory Committee, Joint Search in Departments of Anthropology and African and African American Studies, 2003-04.
Chair, Social Anthropology Seminar Series, Harvard University, 2002-03.
Chair, Graduate Admissions Committee in the Social Sciences, Afro-American Studies, 2003.
Lecture: “Africa in the Americas : Icons in Afro-Latin Culture.” Assembled third- and fourth-grade classes, Tobin School , Cambridge , MA , 25 October 2002.
Art Exhibit: “Africa in the Americas : Icons in Afro-Latin Culture,” Tobin School , Cambridge , MA , October 2002-March 2003.
Member, Senior Faculty Search Committee, Afro-American Studies, Harvard University 2002-03.
Member, Junior Faculty Search Committee, Afro-American Studies and Committee on the Study of Religion, Harvard University , 2002.
Member, Latin American Studies Junior Faculty Search Committee, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University , 2002.
Member, External Review Board, Department of Anthropology, Duke University , 6-8 March 2002.
Lecture-Demonstration: “Àfrica en las Américas: Lo Africano en la Música y el Baile de Latinoamérica y E.E.U.U.” Annual Black History Month Assembly, Grades K-6, Escuela Bilingüe Oyster. 22 February 2002.
Art exhibit: “Los Espíritus de la Unidad: los Íconos en las Culturas Afro-Latinas/The Spirits of Unity: Icons in Afro-Latin Culture.” Foyer, Escuela Bilingüe Oyster, Washington , D.C. , 13 February to 30 June 2002.
Presentation on “La Iconografía de las Religiones Afro-Latinas.” Second-grade art classes, Escuela Bilingüe Oyster, Washington, D.C., 1 February 2002.
Discussant, Invited Session on “2001 Black Odyssey: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation at the Dawn of the Millenium,” organized by Professors Deborah A. Thomas and Kamari M. Clarke. 100 th Annual American Anthropological Association Meeting, 30 November 2001.
Member, Cora DuBois Fellowship Committee, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, 1999-2001.
Member, Advisory Board, Boston Healing Landscape Project (Dr. Linda Barnes, Director), Boston University School of Medicine / Boston , Medical Center , 2000 to present.
Member, Advisory Board, Black Ethnic Diversity Project (Ms. Joanne Jones-Rizzi, Director), The Children's Museum, Boston , 2000 to present.
Member, Standing Committee on Expository Writing, Harvard University , 2000 to 2002.
Member, External Review Board, African and African-American Studies, Dartmouth College , 1999.
Member, Ethnic Studies Committee, 1998 to 2003.
Member, Faculty Committee on Public Service, Harvard University , 1998 to 2002.
Member, Hoopes Prize Committee, 1997 to the present.
Policy Committee of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University , 1995 to the present.
Research Committee of David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies, Harvard University , 1995 to the Present.
Member, Committee on Iberian and Latin American Studies, Harvard University , 1993 to the present.
Member, Faculty Advisory Council on Social Sciences, Center for the Study of World Religion, Harvard University, 1992 to the present.
Center for Brazilian Studies and Committee on Latin American Studies, Harvard University, 1999-present.
Faculty Adviser, Haitian Student Alliance , Harvard University , 2001 to 2002.
Faculty Adviser, Caribbean Club, Harvard University, 1997-98, 2000-2001.
Faculty Adviser, Ballet Folclórico de Aztlán, Harvard University, 1997-98.
Faculty Adviser, Harvard Debate Society, 1997-1998.
Chair, Selection Committee for the Jonathan M. Levin Prize for Teaching and Social Justice, Harvard University, 1999-2000.
Member, Faculty Search Committee to fill joint position on the Committee on Social Studies and the Department of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University .
Curator, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Harvard University , Cambridge , MA , 1998 to present.
Discussant, Panel on “Historicizing Central Africans: Brazil ” at conference titled “Bantu Into Black: Central Africans in the Atlantic Diaspora,” Howard University , 17 Sept. 1999.
Chair, Thirtieth Anniversary Celebration Planning committee, Department of Afro-American Studies, Harvard University , fall 1998 to present (event held on 7-8 April 2000).
Member, External Review Committee, Program in African and African American Studies, Dartmouth College , 13-14 May 1999.
Co-Chair, Organizing Committee, "Africa in the Americas " conference, Harvard University , scheduled for 1-2 May 1998.
Project Reviewer and Adviser, Landscape Planning and Design Studio (on the design of religious communities), Graduate School of Design, Harvard University , spring 1997 and spring 1996.
Judge, Hoopes Prize Committee, Harvard University , spring 1997.
Reviewer, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Autumn 1996 applicants for pre-doctoral and faculty research grants.
Member, Graduate Admissions Committee, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University --1997, 1994.
Member, Junior Faculty Search Committee, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University , 1996
Member, Senior Faculty Search Committee (Middle-Eastern Studies), Harvard University , 1996.
Member, International Advisory Panel, "The Development of an African Diaspora: the Slave Trade of the Nigerian Hinterland, 1650-1900," research project of Professors Robin Law et al., 1995 to present.
Discussant, "Revolutionary Politics and Cultures of Black Atlantic Dance," panel at the American Anthropological Association convention, 21 November 1996
Guest lecturer, "On the Meaning of 'Diaspora,' “ Blacks in the Diaspora conference, Black Students' Association, Harvard University , 16 November 1996
Panelist, Conference on "Sexuality, Binary Categories and Religion," The Park Ridge Center , 1 November 1996.
Discussion leader, African and Diaspora Studies Fall Planning Seminar, 26 October 1996
Member, Senior Faculty Search Committee--Middle Eastern Studies, Department of Anthropology, Harvard University, 1996.
Judge, Romance Languages Travel Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching, spring 1996.
Guest discussion leader, Woodbridge Society (foreign undergraduate students' association), Harvard University , 28 Feb. 1996
Commentator, Program on " Le Dixième Doué [The Talented Tenth]," Voice of America, with correspondent Maimouna Mills, Francophone Africa Service, 9 April 1996
Commentator, Commémoration du Jour de Martin Luther King [Martin Luther King Day Commemoration], Voice of America, with correspondent Maimouna Mills, Francophone Africa Service, 15 Jan. 1996
Discussant, "Translocal and Transnational Cultural Currents and Gender," panel at the American Anthropological Association convention, 15 November 1995.
Judge, Weissman Travel Fellowship, Harvard-Radcliffe College , Spring 1995.
Guest lecturer, "African Cultures" class (Prof. Rosalind Shaw), Tufts University , 4 April 1995.
Judge, Selection Committee for the Luard Scholarship, the English-Speaking Union of the United States , 1995, 1993.
Guest lecturer, Afro-American Studies 10, 27 September 1993

Over the years, I have also reviewed numerous book manuscripts for Princeton University Press, University of Minnesota Press , Temple University Press, Columbia University Press and Routledge, and have reviewed article manuscripts for journals of which I am not officially served as an editorial board-member, such as Cuban Studies , Transforming Anthropology , and American Anthropologist .

I have conducted intensive field research in Nigeria (1982-83; Summer 1986; 1988-89) and Brazil (July-December 1987, February-September 1992; November 1995-January 1996). Since 1981, I have also conducted frequent research among communities of Cuban-American, Puerto Rican and African-American practitioners of African religions. I speak Spanish, French, Portuguese and Yoruba.

Professional Trajectory

My several years of field research in Nigeria and the People's Republic of Benin (1982-83, 1986, 1988-89, 1992, 1995, 2003, 2005) have led to the publication of a book entitled Sex and the Empire That Is No More: Gender and the Politics of Metaphor in Oyo Yoruba Religion (University of Minnesota Press, 1994; Berghahn Press, 2005 [second edition]). It concerns the changing but still central role of female and transvestite male possession priests in the Yoruba political order of the past two centuries. A several years of field research in Bahia ( Salvador and Ilhéus), Rio de Janeiro , and São Paulo has given me a fundamental understanding of the rites, beliefs, and organization of the Candomblé, as well as the controversies that surround it in the Brazilian academic community and the larger society. I have conducted numerous interviews with priests, observed a range of public and private rites in a dozen temples, and studied newspaper, missionary, and governmental archives documenting the history of the Candomblé. This research has led to the numerous articles and a book titled Black Atlantic Religion: Tradition, Transnationalism and Matriarchy in the Rise of the Afro-Brazilian Candomblé , (Princeton University Press, 2005). It concerns Afro-Brazilian history, the ritual construction of personhood, and a circum-Atlantic dialogue between Candomblé and other discourses of collective identity, ranging from Brazilian nationalism and regionalism to transnational feminism, environmentalism and Black racial nationalism. Black Atlantic Religion is a companion volume to my first book, intended to illuminate the study of cultural diasporas and the importance of historical and socio-political context in the study of "African" culture in the Americas.

Black Atlantic Religion and its ethnographic twin are part of an overall trajectory that leads homeward. I have presented several lectures and written a preliminary 90-page draft of the subsequent book-- The Other African Americans . Under the sponsorship of the Spencer Foundation, I have now conducted 4 years of research on Black ethnic diversity at Howard University and in its alumni networks in New Orleans , Trinidad , Jamaica and Nigeria . The book will address the identities, cultures and political strategies of various ethnic groups of African origin or descent in the United States who have sometimes resisted assimilation to the "Negro/Black/African-American" legal and political category. These ethnic groups include Nigerian, South African, Cape Verdean, and Jamaican immigrants, Louisiana Creoles, various "tri-racial isolates" in the South, and many Indian tribes east of the Mississippi. Ironically, these groups have also, at times, exercised a disproportionate influence upon African-American culture and politics.

The next book will be a collaborative effort with my wife, a presidential protocol officer during the rule of Nigerian president Ibrahim Babangida. We have planned it as a culturally sensitive account of the inner workings of the dictatorship that ruled Africa 's largest nation from 1985 to 1993. It is intended both as a corrective to standardized journalistic and political science clichés about the nature of autocracy and corruption in Africa and as a historical study of the genesis of Nigeria 's current political crisis.

In between these major projects, I would like to undertake the translation of several important books on African-American religions into English. Among these books are Raimundo Nina Rodrigues' L'animisme fétichiste des nègres de Bahia (1900) and Fernando Ortiz's Los Negros Brujos (1906). One might think that such translation work is better suited for non-scholars or persons in other disciplines, but I have found that the vocabulary specific to African-American religions requires translation by specialists, and the vocabulary of writings influenced by old-fashioned anthropology, psychiatry and criminology requires careful annotation.