University of San Francisco (USF) - Cultural Anthropology Faculty

Lindsay Gifford

Visiting Scholar

Lindsay Gifford holds a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Anthropology through UCLA. She received her Ph.D. in Anthropology at Boston University in 2009. Her research focuses broadly on the public sphere in the Middle East, with her current project looking into spatio-temporal patterns of violence in Baghdad since the inception of the 2003 US-led war and Iraqi refugee perceptions of and strategies toward those patterns internationally.

Tel:415.422.4365
gjgmelch@usfca.edu

George Gmelch

Professor

Dr. Gmelch is Professor of Anthropology at the University of San Francisco. He is a cultural anthropologist who studies tourism, sport, migration, and environmental anthropology with most of his fieldwork concentrated in Ireland, the Caribbean, and Alaska. He is the author of eleven books and has also written widely for general audiences.

Tel:(415) 422-4453
sbgmelch@usfca.edu

Sharon Gmelch

Professor

Sharon Bohn Gmelch earned her Ph.D in cultural anthropology from the University of California at Santa Barbara. Her interests include visual anthropology, gender, ethnicity, and tourism. She is the author of eight books, most recently Tasting the Good Life: Wine Tourism in the Napa Valley.

Tel:415-422-2721
phsu7@usfca.edu

Pattie Hsu

Adjunct Professor, Music

Pattie Hsu is an ethnomusicologist with a recent PhD from UC Berkeley. Her research interests include cultural intersections, musical communities, gender performance, and opera. Dr. Hsu's dissertation project is a performer-centered study on a type of folk opera in Taiwan.

Tel:(415) 422-5543
mjacquemet@usfca.edu

Marco Jacquemet

Associate Professor

Professor Jacquemet teaches courses in communication and culture, intercultural communication, and justice and social change. His scholarship focuses on the communicative mutations produced by the circulation of migrants and media idioms in the Mediterranean area. He is currently writing a book based on this research, called Transidioma: Language and Power in the Age of Globalization, to be published by Blackwell in 2012. He is also active in Italian media activist networks.

Tel:(415) 422-6914
cloperena@usfca.edu

Christopher Loperena

Assistant Professor

Christopher Loperena received his Ph.D. from the African Diaspora Program in Social Anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin. He holds an M.A. in Latin American Studies from the University of Texas- Austin and a B.A. in International Studies from the University of Chicago.

Tel:(415) 422-5837
nagarajan@usfca.edu

Vijaya Nagarajan

Associate Professor

Professor Vijaya Nagarajan teaches courses on Hinduism, Religion and Environment, Spiritual Autobiography, and Community Internships. Her scholarship has centered on the multivalent meanings in the kolam, a women's ritual art in southern India. She is currently working on her book, Feeding a Thousand Souls: Women, Ritual and Art in southern India---The Kolam (Oxford University Press). Her other research projects include: On the Languages of the Commons; Tree Temples, Mangroves and Temple Forests; and Twins and Hinduism in the California Diaspora. She has been active in the American Academy of Religion and in the environmental movement in India and the United States.

Tel:(415) 422-5093
nelsonj@usfca.edu

John Nelson

Professor

John Nelson is a Professor in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at the University of San Francisco. His areas of specialization are East Asian religions, contemporary Buddhism, cultural anthropology, globalization, secularism, and Asian Studies. Professor Nelson is the author of two books on Japanese Shinto, numerous articles, and a video documentary on Yasukuni Shrine. He has just completed a book-length manuscript on the "state and fate" of contemporary Buddhist temples in Japan. Professor Nelson received a Ph.D. from U.C. Berkeley and came to USF in 2000.

Tel:415-422-4368
fmrivera@usfca.edu

Francesca Rivera

Coordinator, Music Program, Assistant Professor, Music

Francesca will be on leave until Spring 2013.

Tel:(415) 422-4643
rziegler@usfca.edu

Rue Ziegler

Adjunct Professor

Rue Ziegler received her M. Phil. and Ph.D. degrees in Social Anthropology from Cambridge University in the UK. Before coming to USF she taught at Cambridge and at Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda. Her previous training and professional experience is in architecture and urban studies. At USF Ziegler teaches the Anthropology of Food and Anthropology and Global Health. In addition to teaching, she manages a research firm specializing in the history of land use in northern California.