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Photograph of Anya Royce

Anya Peterson Royce

Chancellors' Professor of Anthropology
Chancellors' Professor of Comparative Literature
Professor of Music [ballet] (part-time)
Adjunct Professor of Folklore
Adjunct Professor of Russian-East-European Studies
Adjunct Professor of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

Director, Library/Laboratory in Performaing Arts

(812) 855-0248 | Email | Office Hours
  • Ph.D. in Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley (1974)
  • M.A. in Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley (1971)
  • B.A. in Anthropology and Honors in Humanities, Stanford University (1968)

Geographical Areas of Specialization: Mexico

Topical Interests: Nationalism, anthropology of dance, anthropology of the arts, popular theater, ethnic identity, structural anthropology, anthropological writing

Current Courses: E200 Social and Cultural Anthropology, E460/E660 Dance Gender and Embodies Discourses

Selected Publications


Profile:

As an undergraduate at Stanford University I took Introductory Anthropology to fulfill a distribution requirement. Even though I did not understand all the many possibilities that Anthropology offered then, I declared it my major knowing that understanding people's lives and their values had caught my imagination.

At the end of my junior year, I received a Ford Foundation scholarship to do research for a summer in Mexico on the transition of dance from village to theatre. That summer I saw the Isthmus Zapotec of Juchitan, Oaxaca for the first time at a celebration of music and dance. I was astounded then by their vibrancy and self-confidence and, after thirty-five years of fieldwork among them, I continue to be profoundly impressed by their ability to move with assurance in Mexico and the world and maintain a powerful sense of themselves as Zapotec.

My first book, published in Mexico in 1975, explored this theme of identity, both ethnic and class, among the Zapotec of Juchitan. I have continued field research and writing about the Zapotec, dealing with such diverse topics as household economy, music, fiesta and dance, ethnicity, nationalism and the role of the intellectual. The Zapotec are an important focus for much of my teaching, believing, as I do, that ethnography and the intimate knowledge of a culture is the foundation of Anthropology. I am currently writing a book about Isthmus Zapotec beliefs about and rituals of death.

Ethnicity and identity, broadly speaking, have been other longstanding research and teaching interests. Questions such as how people define themselves and what contexts help or hinder that process came out of my work with the Zapotec but I have pursued those issues globally and comparatively, trying to develop a theoretical base for understanding those processes no matter what the group. While macro-level processes are crucial, so are the individual responses and balancing the two has been a goal for me.

The Anthropology of dance and performing arts brings together my initial experience as a dancer with my scholarly interest in what and how dance and the performing arts mean in a variety of cultures both past and present. Much of my research and writing lies in this field, first with a foundational book on the anthropology of dance (1977), then with a more specialized book on the relationship of movement and meaning in ballet and mime (1984), and lastly, in a book in press, The Anthropology of Performing Arts: Artistry, Virtuosity, and Interpretation. My students are taking the field in new directions both in terms of theory and in terms of the societies in which they are working.

 

Field Schools:

Heritage and Cultural Diversity in Oaxaca, Mexico


Selected Publications:

Books  
Forth Coming Becoming an Ancestor: The Isthmus Zapotec Way of Death, under review, University of Nebraska Press
2004 The Anthropology of Performing Arts: Artistry, Virtuosity, and Interpretation, AltaMira Press (date of publication May 2004)
2002 Chronicling Cultures: Long-term Field Research in Anthropology, co-editor with RV Kemper, AltaMira Press.
1984 Movement and Meaning: Creativity and Interpretation in Ballet and Mime . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
1982 Ethnic Identity: Strategies of Diversity . Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
1977 The Anthropology of Dance. Bloomington and London: Indiana University Press (American Dance Guild Book Club selection for January, 1982) (reprinted 2000, with new introductory chapter by DanceBooks, Ltd.)
1975 Prestigo y Afiliación en una comunidad Urbana: Juchitán, Oaxaca. (Serie de Antropologia Social #37) Mexico, D.F.: Instituto Nacional Indigenista. (reprinted in 1991)
Articles  
2002 With RV Kemper, " El Proyecto Etnografico y la Teoria Antropologico," in Homenaje por el Profesor Fernando Camara Barbachano, Mexico , DF, INAH Coleccion Cientifica, pp.139-148.
2002 With RV Kemper, "Cuestiones Eticas para los antropologos sociales en Mexico : Una perspectiva norteamericano a lo largo plazo," Boletin, Colegio de Etnologos y Antropologos Sociales, A.C., #4, Mexico DF, CEAS, pp.2-11.
2002 "Learning to See, Learning to Listen: Thirty Years of Fieldwork with the Isthmus Zapotec," in Chronicling Cultures: Long-term Field Research in Anthrpology, eds. RV Kemper and AP Royce, AltaMira Press, pp8-33.
  Poetry published in Qualitative Inquiry (2002, 2004) and in the anthology A Linen Weave of Bloomington Poets (2002)
1998 With Robert V. Kemper, "Finding a Footing on the Moral High Ground: Connections, Interventions, and More Ethical Implications," Human Organization 57 (3): 328-330.
1998 "Commedia dell' Arte," in Encyclopedia of Folklore and Literature, in press. pp.135-138
1996 "A Just Community: Social Implications of NAFTA," Keynote address presented at the Congreso Internacional sobre lós impactos del Tratado del Libre Comercio en la Educación, Puebla, Mexico, Universidad Madero, proceedings in press.
1992 "Music, Dance and Fiesta: Definitions of Isthmus Zapotec Community," Latin American Anthropology Review 3: 51-60, 1991.
1990 "Ethnicity, Nationalism, and the Role of the Intellectual," Ethnicity and the State , Judith Toland and Ronald Cohen, eds. Volume IX, Political Anthropology Series. Transaction Press, New Brunswick, N.J. and Oxford, UK. (Fall 1991).
1989 "Who was Argentina? Player and Role in the late 17th c. commedia dell'arte," Theatre Survey 30 (1/2): 45-57.
1986 "The Venetian Commedia: Actors & Masques in the Development of the Commedia dell'Arte." Theatre Survey 27 , (1/2):69-87.
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