Expressive Culture

Expressive culture features as a critical site of investigation for cultural anthropology and archaeology faculty, crosscutting area specialties of Latin America, Europe and Japan. Faculty frame the topic broadly to include ritual, political performance, art, architecture, and material culture. Research projects have addressed such questions as: How is material culture used to construct and challenge social memory? How do native paintings reflect and channel community politics? How do cultural assumptions about "indigenous" crafts shared by marketers and buyers of folk art affect how Oaxacan woodcarving are depicted and sold? Beyond their own work, faculty members have organized and participated in International conferences here at the University of Iowa that have taken the topic of expressive culture in new directions, including, “Fleeting Objects, Enduring Communities: New Work in the Study of Material Culture (Spring 2001)” and “The Cultured Body: African Fashion and Body Arts (Fall 2002)”

Faculty with Current or Recent Research Projects in Expressive Culture

Thomas Charlton
Michael Chibnik
Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld
Laura Graham
Katina Lillios
Scott Schnell

Recent graduate student projects in expressive culture include the following:

Jacqueline Marie Comito - “Remembering Nana and Papu: The Poetics of Pasta, Pane and Peppers Among an Iowan Calabrian Family”, Ph.D. 2001.

Balmurli Natrajan - “Ailing Artisans, Dubious Development: Potters in Central India”, Ph.D. 1999.

Judith Siebert - “Expressions of Ethnic Identity in the German-Chilean Community”, currently writing up dissertation.

Jerry Wever - “Shaping Creolization and Folklorization Processes: Expressive Culture and Creole Identity in St. Lucia and the Seychelles”, doctoral research supported by Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and Wenner-Gren Foundation.

Benjamin Willett - “Ethnic Tourism in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala”, Ph.D. 2007.

College of Liberal Arts and Sciences