Gerald Sider

Gerald SiderEducation:

BA with Honors in Anthropology and English, University of Pennsylvania, 1959

MA Anthropology, University of Toronto, 1960

PhD Anthropology, New School for Social Research, 1971

University of Chicago 1963-1965 (Anthropology)

London School of Economics 1960-1961 (Anthropology and Economic Development)

Position:

Adjunct Professor

Contact:

Email: gsider2@gmail.com
Phone: (917) 612 3965 or (212) 662 8326

Research Interests:

In addition to my recent book, Skin for Skin: Death and life for Inuit and Innu (Duke University Press, 2014) I have a forthcoming book (2015) on the changing production of race – and a broader range of inequalities – in the US since the Civil Rights Acts of the 1960s.

My current major research project has the working title “The Trajectories of State: Why states inevitably fail.” It is an attempt to reach several goals: to work toward constructing an anthropology of the state in historical motion, and to develop analytical perspectives on the production of a broader range of inequalities than the usual “class, race, and gender.” The major focus is on the intersection of daily life, state policies and practices, and economic organization. The current focus of this project is on Mesopotamia, early China, and feudal Europe. As the focus expands to the present it will enable a comparative analysis of the production ofpeoples the state once called “barbarians” and now calls “terrorists.

I also have three smaller projects for my spare time: writing, or perhaps co-writing, a very different kind of introductory anthropology text; doing more research in northern Newfoundland and Labrador on the aftermath of the 1918-19 Spanish Flu pandemic, to go along with my current analytical review of the aftermath of the Bubonic Plague in 14th century Europe; and producing a 120 page low-cost and more basic version of the Skin for Skin book for distribution in northern communities.

Publications:

Books:

  • Race Becomes Tomorrow: North Carolina and the shadow of civil rights. Duke University Press, 2015.
  • Skin for Skin: Death and life among Inuit and Innu. Duke University Press, 2014.
  • Between History and Tomorrow: Making and Breaking Everyday Life in Rural Newfoundland [2ed, substantially expanded and updated, of Culture and Class in Anthropology and History.] Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 2003.

  • Living Indian Histories: Lumbee and Tuscarora People in North Carolina [2ed, substantially expanded and updated, of Lumbee Indian Histories]. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003.
  • Between History and Histories: The production of silences and commemorations. co-edited with Gavin Smith. Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 1997.
  • Lumbee Indian Histories: Race, Ethnicity and Indian Identity in the Southern United States. New York, Cambridge University Press 1993; paperback ed., 1994.
  • Culture and Class in Anthropology and History: A Newfoundland Illustration. Cambridge Studies in Social Anthropology. (New York, Cambridge University Press; Paris, Maison des Sciences de l'Homme 1986; paperback ed., 1987; Korean Edition, forthcoming, 2003.
  • Klassen und Kultur: Sozialanthropologische Perspektiven in der Geschichtsschreibung. Robert Berdahl, Alf Lüdtke, Gerald Sider et al., eds. Frankfurt am Main, Syndikat, 1982.
  • Co-Editor 1991-97, With Kirk Dombrowski, of the series of ethnographic case studies of native political struggles: Fourth World Rising: Native people''s necessary and chosen struggles. University of Nebraska Press. Five books were published. Each book contains an editor's introduction and an analytical epilog co-authored by Gerald Sider and Kirk Dombrowski.

Articles and edited volume introductions and essays:

  • “Making and Breaking the Aboriginal Remote: Realities, languages, tomorrows.” Oceania 84, 2 (2014)
  • “Belonging to Tomorrow: Native Livelihoods and the problem of survival in the Carolinas and Labrador.” in Confronting Capital: Critique and Engagement in Anthropology ed by Belinda Leach, Pauline Barber, and Winnie Lem. NY, Taylor and Francis, 2012
  • “The Construction and Denial of Indigenous Identities: Recognition, misrecognition, and the question of “Natives” in Nation-States and Anthropology: a review essay” Dialectical Anthropology, Vol 31, January 2009.
  • “Anthropology, History, and the Problem of Everyday Life: Issues from the Field and for Discussion.” InAlltag, Erfahrung, Eigensinn: Historisch-Anthropologische Erkundungen. Belinda Davis, Thomas LIndenberger and Michaell Wildt, eds. Pp. 121-132. Frankfurt/New York: Campus Verlag, 2008

  • “Can anthropology ever be innocent?” Anthropology Now, Vol 1 No. 1, November 2008
  • "The Production of Race, Culture, and State: an anthropology." ( Distinguished lecture, Canadian Anthropological Society/ Societe Anthropologie Canadienne May 2003). Anthropologica, The Canadian Journal of Anthropology, Vol 48, 2, 2006.

  • "The Walls Came Tumbling Up: The production of culture, class, and Native American Societies." (Keynote lecture, Australian Anthropological Society Annual Meetings, Oct. 2003) The Australian Journal of Anthropology, Vol 17, 3, 2006.
  • "Between Silences and Culture: A partisan anthropology" in Maria-Luise Achino-Loeb, ed., Silence: The currency of power. New York, Berghahn Books, 2005.

  • "Anthropology and History: Opening points for a new synthesis" in Don Kalb, Ed., Oxford, Berghahn Books, 2005.
  • "Introduction" (co-authored with Gavin Smith) Between History and Histories: The production of silences and commemorations. University of Toronto Press, 1997.

  • "Against Experience: The struggles for history, tradition and hope among a Native American people." 1997.

  • In Between History and Histories: The production of silences and commemorations. University of Toronto Press, 1997.
  • "The Making of Peculiar Local Cultures: Producing and surviving history in peasant and tribal society." in Was Bleibt von Marxistischen Perspectiven in der Geschichtsforschung? Alf Luedtke, ed. Goettingen, Germany, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1996.

  • Co-editor, with Simon Middleton, and co-author, of Introduction "The Praxis of Anthropology and History" Special Issue: Radical History Review 65, March 1996.

  • "Cleansing History: Lawrence, Massachusetts, the strike for four loaves of bread and no roses, and the anthropology of working class consciousness" Radical History Review 65, March 1996. (This article was published with responses by David Montgomery, Paul Buhle, Christine Stansell, Ardis Cameron, and my reply)

  • "Anthropology and History: Opening points for a new synthesis" Focaal (Netherlands), 1996.
  • "Identity as History: Ethnohistory, cultural differentiation, and the politics of Native American identity in the southeastern United States" in Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power (Vol 1 no.1, Spring 1994).
  • "The Contradictions of Transnational Migration: a discussion" in Towards a Transnational Perspective on Migration Nina Glick Schiller, et. al., eds. (New York, New York Academy of Sciences; Annals645, 1992)
  • "House and History at the Margins of Life: Domination, domesticity, ethnicity and the construction of ethnohistories in ''the land God gave to Cain''" in Golden Ages, Dark Ages, Jay O'Brien and William Roseberry, eds. (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1991).
  • "History and Hope among the Barbarous Indians," Geschichtswerkstatt, August, 1989.

  • "A Delicate People and Their Dogs: the cultural economy of subsistence production. -- A critique of Chayanov and Meillassoux." of Historical Sociology, 2,1, Jan. 89.
  • revised and expanded: "Wenn Papageien Sprechen Lernen" in Herrschaft als Sozial Praxis, Alf Lüüdtke, ed. Gööttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1988.
  • "When Parrots Learn to Talk, and Why They Can't: domination, deception and self-deception in Indian-White relations." Comparative Studies in Society and History, 29,1 1987
  • "Family Fun in Starve Harbour: custom, history and confrontation in village Newfoundland." in Hans Medick and David Sabean, eds., Interest and Emotion: Essays on the Study of Family and Kinship (Cambridge and Paris: Cambridge University Press/Editions de la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme) 1984 in translation.

  • "Familienvergnugen in Starve Harbour: Brauchtum, Geschichte und Konfrontation auf dem Dorf in Neufundland." in Hans Medick und David Sabean, Hg., Emotionen und Materielle Interessen. (Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1984).
  • "Der Kulturelle Nationalismus der Lumbee-Indianer" Sozialwissenschaftliche Informationen fur Unterricht und Studium Heft 3, 1981.
  • "The Ties that Bind: Culture and Agriculture, Property and Propriety in the Newfoundland Village Fishery." Social History V, 1, 1980.

  • in translation: "Bande, die zusammenbinden: kultur und agrikultur, eigenheit und eigentum in der Dorffischerei Neufundland." in Klassen und Kultur, 1980.
  • "Christmas Mumming and the New Year in Outport Newfoundland." Past and Present 71, 1976.