Dr. Laura A. Lewis
 Professor of Anthropology
Co-Editor, Visual Anthropology Review (http://www.societyforvisualanthropology.org/)

Contact: James Madison University, MSC-7501 (Sheldon 120), 800 S. Main St. Harrisonburg, VA 22807;  (540) 568-7856; (540) 568-6112 (fax), lewis2la@jmu.edu

Education: Ph.D. University of Chicago; B.A., State University of New York at Stony Brook

Teaching Areas: Cultural Anthropology; Theory; Methods; Latin America and the Caribbean; Mexico; Race, Nation and Culture; Gender; Migration; Visual Culture; Globalization

Courses: Cultural Anthropology; History of Theory in Sociocultural Anthropology; U.S. Latin/American Borders; Peoples and Cultures of Latin America and the Caribbean; The Idea of Race; Political Culture, Indians and Nation-States in Latin America; Topics in the Anthropology of Gender; The Anthropology of Globalization; Afro-Latin America; Latin America and Latin Americans through Film; Study Abroad-Mexico, Study Abroad-Britain and the Caribbean

Research Interests:  Anthropology and History; Latin America; Mexico; Afro-Latin American Culture and History; Race and Gender; the Anthropology of Place; Colonialism, Nationalism, Migration and Transnationalism; Visual Culture, Globalization

Recent Fellowships and Grants: James Madison University Diversity Initiatives Award (Spring 2009); Rockefeller Foundation Scholarly Residency, Bellagio Study and Conference Center, Bellagio, Italy (March 2008); National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship (2007-2008), James Madison University, Summer Research Grant (2007), James Madison University, Faculty Enhancement Initiative Grant (2006); James Madison University Office of International Programs, Internationalization at Home Initiative Grant for Development of Interdisciplinary (Soc/Anth) Masters Program in Global Studies (with Damian White) (2005-2006); Smithsonian Institution Fellowship (2004); John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship (2002-2003); NEH Summer Stipend (2002); Joint University of Chicago/University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Center for Latin American Studies Visiting Scholar's Award (2002); James Madison University Edna T. Shaeffer Humanist Award (2001); James Madison University Summer Research Grant (1999); Research Institute for the Study of Man, Landes Award (1997-1998); Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research Small Grant (1997-1998) 

Book:  Hall of Mirrors: Power, Witchcraft and Caste in Colonial Mexico, Duke University Press, 2003

Award: Erminie Wheeler-Voegelin Best Book Award, American Society for Ethnohistory, 2004

          www.dukeupress.edu           

Articles:

• "From Sodomy to Superstition: The Active Pathic and  Bodily Transgressions in New Spain," Ethnohistory, Special Issue on Colonial Latin American Sexualities, 54 (1), Winter 2007

• "Home is Where the Heart Is: North Carolina, Afro-Latinos Migration and Houses on Mexico's Costa Chica," South Atlantic Quarterly, Special Issue The Last Frontier: The Contemporary Configuration of the U.S.-Mexico Border 105 (4), Fall 2006 pdf

• "Negros, negros indios, afromexicanos: raza, nación e identidad en una comunidad mexicana morena (Guerrero)," Guaraguao: Revista de Cultura Latinoamericana 9 (20),    Summer 2005

• "Modesty and Modernity: Photography, Race and  Representation on Mexico's Costa Chica (Guerrero)," Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power, 11 (4) Fall 2004

• "Of Ships and Saints: History, Memory and Place in the Making of Moreno Mexican Identity," Cultural Anthropology, 16:1, February 2001

• "Blacks, Black Indians, Afromexicans: The Dynamics of Race, Nation and Identity in a Moreno Mexican Community (Guerrero)," American Ethnologist 27:4, November 2000.

• "Colonialism and Its Contradictions: Indians, Blacks and Social Power in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Mexico," Journal of Historical Sociology 9 (4), December 1996 

• "The Weakness of Women and the Feminization of the Indian in Colonial Mexico," Colonial Latin American Review 5 (1),  June 1996

• "'Blackness,' 'Femaleness' and Self-Representation: Constructing Persons in a Colonial Mexican Court," PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 18 (2), November 1995

Book Chapters:

• "The Guerreran Coast in Black, White and Indian," in Black Mexico (Ben Vinson III and Matthew Restall, eds.), University of New Mexico Press (forthcoming)

• "Bartolomé de Las Casas for Anthropologists," in Approaches to Teaching the Writings of Bartolomé de Las Casas, Santa Arias and Eyda Merediz (eds.); Modern Language Association, Teaching Approaches to World Literature, 2008
• "Spanish Ideology and the Practice of Inequality in the New World," in Benjamin Bowser, ed., Racism and Anti-Racism in World Perspective. Sage Series on Race and Ethnic  Relations, Vol.13, Sage Publications, 1995: 46-66

Book: Corn Flour and Chocolate: History, Race and Place in the Making of Black Mexico (under contract, Duke University Press)