FACULTY

A medical and psychological anthropologist, AJ is broadly interested in exploring the aesthetic as a sensuous, political, and ethical way of interfacing with self, others, and the environment. Her ongoing work on the genetic condition Turner Syndrome has foregrounded performance ethnography with her interlocutors—including monologue work, group rehearsals, co-playwriting, and virtual and live performances—to promote collective analysis of how ambivalent sex, gender, and disability self-identification reflects larger trends in U.S. identity politics. She is currently designing two projects that center multimedia workshops: the first with queer individuals with 45,X cell lines and geneticists to explore how medical technologies like karyotyping shape sex classification; the second with asexual and aromantic communities to share their embodied experiences with intimacy, (re)productivity, and citizenship. Across her research, teaching, and service, she strives to promote accessibility and care as encompassing frameworks for the collaborative potential of anthropology and ethnography.

Areas of Interest: performance, photography and videography, mixed media, embodiment, aesthetics, accessibility, care-oriented methodologies

Professor Childs’ research occupies the interdisciplinary space between anthropology and demography, and thereby involves the integration of qualitative and quantitative methods. He uses demography as a tool to understand what is happening within a population, for example, to reveal the timing and magnitude of a fertility decline, or to discern patterns of out-migration. He then uses ethnography to gain leverage on what drives these trends, and how they impact the lives of individuals.

Working between a positivistic discipline (demography) whose practitioners prefer to study phenomena that can be measured and quantified, and a reflexive discipline (anthropology) whose practitioners tend to celebrate their innumeracy, poses certain challenges. But those challenges are outweighed by the rewards of stimulating research, collaboration with colleagues across the disciplines, and the ability to publish in professional journals outside of anthropology. Thus far Childs has completed research on four distinct Tibetan societies.

Assistant Professor Maddalena Canna (she/hers) is a sociocultural anthropologist specializing in global mental health, transcultural psychiatry, and the social studies of medicine. Her work explores the interplay between embodiment and consciousness, also called the “mind-body connection” across cultures. She has been conducting research in Afro-Indigenous societies (Nicaragua and Central America), in the US/Canada, and at a global scale.

Elaine A. Peña (PhD Northwestern University) is a Professor of Performing Arts, American Culture Studies, and Anthropology with Washington University in St. Louis. In addition to numerous journal articles, Peña’s publications include Performing Piety: Making Space Sacred with the Virgin of Guadalupe (University of California Press, 2011), ¡Viva George! Celebrating Washington’s Birthday at the U.S.-Mexico Border (University of Texas Press, 2020), and, with Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Ethno-techno: Writings on Performance, Activism, and Pedagogy (Routledge 2005). Her next book project, Time to Pray, is an ethnographic exploration of migrants’ devotional practices and faith rhythms in Nuevo Laredo, Tamaulipas (Mexico-US border). Peña’s work bridges multi-modal ethnographic method with performance theory and practice. Using photography, live art, and installation practice, her work draws attention to border zones’ politics and poetics to understand possibilities for cross-border collaboration during times of crisis.

Professor Rebecca Lester is a medical and psychological anthropologist with research interests in mental health, gender, sexuality, and religion.  She is also a practicing psychotherapist specializing in eating disorders, trauma, personality disorders, and gender/sexuality issues.

Her two award-winning books, Jesus in Our Wombs (2005) and Famished: Eating Disorders and Failed Care in America (2019) examine institutional processes of existential reshaping through moralized body discipline.

She is currently writing a book about Dissociative Identity Disorder, conducting research on ethics and the practice of polyamory in the contemporary United States, and initiating a new project on psychedelic-assisted therapies.