Curriculum Vitae
BRAD WEISS
ACADEMIC POSITIONS
1993 - College of William & Mary Professor of Anthropology (Chair, from 07/07)
present (1999-2005 Associate Professor; 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
2003 American Council of Learned Societies, Frederick Burkhardt Fellow
-2004 Awarded Nationally to Ten Recently Tenured Faculty in the Humanities.
For Residence at the National Humanities Center. 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 School of American Research, NEH Resident Scholar
-1997 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 U.S. Department of Education Fulbright-Hays Doctoral
-1989 Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, (no. PO22A80012)
To support field research in Northwest Tanzania.
1984 Special Humanities Fellow University of Chicago
-1988 University-wide fellowship, full tuition and stipend. Awarded to ten
incoming students for four years of graduate studies.
SCHOLARSHIP
Research
2009- Field Research Character and Connection in "Local Foods"
present Niche Breed Pig Production, Distribution, and Consumption in Central
North Carolina
1999, 2000, Field Research Popular Culture in Post-Socialist Tanzania (Arusha)
2003, 2006 Research on 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 Field Research Haya communities of Northwest Tanzania.
-1990 Studied socio-cultural constructions of space and time.
Refereed Publications and Manuscripts
Books
2009 Street Dreams and HipHop Barbershops: Global Fantasy and
Popular Practice in Urban Tanzania Indiana University Press.
2003 Sacred Trees, Bitter Harvests: Globalizing Coffee in Colonial
Northwest Tanganyika . "Social History of Africa" Series.
Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.
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.
Edited Volume
2004 Producing African Futures: Ritual and Reproduction in a Neoliberal
Age. Leiden: Brill
Articles and Chapters
Forthcoming "Making Pigs Local: Discerning The Sensory Character of Place" Cultural
2011 Anthropology
Under "The Pigness of the Pig: Character and Connection in the Making of
Review Locality" Food, Culture & Society
2008 "Chronic Mobb Asks a Blessing: Apocalyptic Hip-Hop in a Time of Crisis"
in Figuring the Future: Children, Youth, and Globalization, Cole, J. and
Durham, D editors. Advanced Seminar Series at the School of Advanced
Research, Sante Fe, NM.
2007 "Plastic Teeth Extraction: The Iconography of Hay Gastro-Sexual
Affliction" in Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of
Material Life, Lock, M and Farquhar, J editors. pp 531-549 Duke U Press:
Durham (reprinted from American Ethnologist vol 19)
2007 "Modernity and Modernization: Anti-Modern and Post-Modern
Movements" to appear in the New Encyclopedia of Africa second
edition, J, Middleton, Executive Editor, J. Miller Editor. Vol 3 pp 566-
570. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons.
2006 "Cowries, Coffee, and Currencies: Transforming Material Wealth in
Early 20th Century Bukoba." in Commodification: Objects and
Identities- The Social Life of Things Revisited. P. Geschiere and W.
van Binsbergen eds
2005 "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. James Currey
2004 "Contentious Futures: Past and Present" introduction to Producing
African Futures: Ritual and Reproduction in a Neoliberal Age. B.
Weiss, ed. Leiden: Brill
2004 "Street Dreams: Inhabiting Masculine Fantasy in Neoliberal Tanzania
in Producing African Futures: Ritual and Reproduction in a
Neoliberal Age. B. Weiss ed. Leiden: Brill
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
2001 "Editorial Introduction" to Mal-Adjustments: Ritual and Reproduction
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 rassassié jamais: Une histoire sociale du café
haya." (Note de recherche invitée) ["The Food That's Never Filling: A
Social History of Haya Coffee." (Invited Research Note)] in "Frontières
Culturelles et Marchandises" Anthropologie et Sociétés 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.
Invited Papers
2011 "In Tastes, Lost and Found" To be presented in the session on "The
Evanescent: Tasting" part of Sensing the Unseen, a John E. Sawyer
Seminar on the Comparative Study of Cultures at MIT. April 11
2010 "Making Pigs Local: Discerning The Sensory Character of Place"
The University of Chicago, Dept of Anthropology. October 11
2008 "Enacting the Invincible: Youthful Performance and Conflict in Urban
Tanzania." University of Washington, Simpson Center for the
Humanities. January 7
2007 “Captivating Exclusion” Socio-Cultural Dynamics in an Era of Excess.”
The University of Pennsylvania, Dept of Anthropology. March 19
2006 "The One True Religion and Reality Rap: Millenial Hip-Hop in Urban
Tanzania" Presented at the African Studies Seminar at Indiana
University. Oct 11.
2006 “Captivating Exclusion” Translations of Value in an Era of Excess.”
Plenary speaker at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Cultural
Anthropology. Milwaukee, WI May 3-5.
2004 "The Barber in Pain: Consciousness, Affliction, and Alterity in Urban
Tanzania" Harvard University. December 6.
2004 "Chronic Mobb Asks a Blessing: Apocalyptic Hip-Hop in a Time of Crisis"
Global Comings of Age. Advanced Seminar, School of American
Research. Santa Fe, NM April.
2004 “Gender (In)Visible: Contesting Style in Urban Tanzania.” Presented to the
Carolina Seminar on African Environments. April 1.
2004 "Chronic Mobb Asks a Blessing: Apocalyptic Hip-Hop in a Time of Crisis"
Presented to the Departments of Anthropology, Duke University and the
University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, January 16. Tulane University
March 11. Cornell University November 5
2003 "Commodities, Values and Globalization." Honors Colloquium, Sweet
Briar College, September 24.
2002 "Chronic Mobb Asks a Blessing: Apocalyptic Hip-Hop in a Time of
Crisis" 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
PROFESSIONAL AND MAJOR UNIVERSITY SERVICE
2007-2010 Chair, Department of Anthropology, College of William & Mary
2006-10 Society for Cultural Anthropology, Treasure and Member Executive
Board
2005-2009 Journal of Religion in Africa Executive Editor
1999-2004, Editorial Board and Deputy Editor
2010
2000- Symposium on Contemporary Perspectives in Anthropology
Founder and Organizer, Guerneville CA (2000, 2004. 2008), Harpers
Ferry WV (2001, 2005) Lafitte LA (2002) Lakeside MI (2003) Lambertville,
NJ (2009)
2005- 2007 Transforming Anthropology Contributing Editor
2002-3 Director Program in African Studies, College of William & Mary
2005-06
1999-2000 Chair, International Studies Committee, College of William & Mary
1998-99 and German-American Frontiers of the Social and Behavioral
1999-2000 Sciences Symposium
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.