Lina Fruzzetti
Professor of Anthropology:
Anthropology
Phone: +1 401 863 3251
Lina_Fruzzetti@brown.edu
Social anthropology, kinship, politics, study of ritual and the construction of gender, development and political studies, race and ethnic relations, Islamic societies and notions of identity, ethnographic film; feminist movement in Africa and Asia, study of ritual and kinship, construction of gender and identity, nationalism and post-colonial identity (India and Africa).
Interests
Within social anthropology, my specialty is in the relationship between kinship, marriage, and rituals and the meaning of the construction of gender in India. I have done extensive work on caste and the life cycle rites of Hindus; now I am addressing the recent structural changes to the institution of marriage and what constitutes the person. My research on nationalism and post colonial studies has taken me to a more comparative approach addressing the feminist movement, and the problems and politics of identity and citizenship within Islam and Hinduism. In addition to the primary research work in India, I also focus on East and North Africa communities.
My interest in visual anthropology took me beyond using films to teach. I co-directed four documentary films on varied themes and topics about the communities with which I work.
• Seed and Earth. Directed by Fruzzetti, L., Ostor, A., Guzzetti, A., and Johnston, N.
• Khalfan and Zanzibar. Directed by Fruzzetti, L., Ostor, A., and Guzzetti, A.
• Fishers of Dar. Directed by Fruzzetti, L., Ostor, A., Lihamba, A., and Ross, S.
• Singing Pictures. Directed by Fruzzetti, L., Ostor, A., and Sarkar, Aditinath
New research:
This project is about an Eritrean woman whose life spans four continents and three colonial regimes, over a period of seven decades. This study analyzes her life in Eritrea under Italian colonial rule and Ethiopian occupation, her life as a refugee in Sudan, and finally her return home to a liberated, independent Eritrea. The study centers on her life experiences, trials, and accomplishments, as well as her transnational family and how her experiences inform our interconnected, global world.
Degrees
Ph.D. U Minnesota 1975
Awards
2005:
Royal Anthropological Institute at the 9th International Festival of Ethnographic Film, held at Oxford, 18 – 21 September
Awarded the Material Culture and Archaeology Film Prize for the documentary film Singing Pictures: Women Painters of Naya (Lina Fruzzetti, Ákos Östör, and Aditi Nath Sarkar)
2003:
Black Maria Film Festival, Juror's Choice Award for Fishers of Dar
Awarded Best Documentary, Fishers of Dar, Athens, Ohio Film Festival
Fishers of Dar selected for featured screening at Rakumi Arts Film Festival, Seattle Museum of Art
Fishers of Dar selected for featured screening at Northwest Folk Life Film Festival, Seattle
Fishers of Dar selected for featured screening at Fine Arts Cinema, Berkeley, CA, February 23-28.
Award for best cinematography for Fishers of Dar at the Ann Arbor Film Festival. The film was selected for a traveling festival to be screened at 25 venues around this country.
2002:
Showing of Fishers of Dar at the Open House Festival at the Kennedy Center, Washington, D.C.
Zanzibar Film Festival Chairmen's Golden Show Award
Black Maria Film Festival Jury Award
2000:
Award for documentary Khalfan and Zanzibar, at Intercom, Chicago International Film Festival
Award, Margaret Mead Film and Video Festival, New York
Award, Brooklyn Film Festival, New York
Award presented by Onyx 2000
1999:
Award for Excellence in Teaching, presented by ONYX
1997:
Awards for the ethnographic film Seed and Earth, coproduced by L. Fruzzetti, A. Guzzetti and A. Ostor.
Invited screenings at two "Festival of Festivals," Mostra International Festival (Rio de Janiero) and Maremma Documentary Festival, (Italy)
1996:
Sinking Creek Film and Video Festival – award of merit, Fifth International Festival of Ethnographic Film, Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain
Best of Festival, Windy City International Documentary Film Festival, Jury Selection – Chicago
Göttingen International Ethnographic Film Festival
Association for Asian Studies Video Festival, Honolulu
Mostra International do Filme Etnografico, Rio de Janeiro
Mareme DOC Festival, Tuscany, Italy
International Festival of Ethnographic Film (Royal Anthropological Institute), Canterbury, U.K.
Finalist, National Short Film and Video Competition, USA Film Festival, Dallas
Prix Planet Cable, Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris
Director's Choice Award, Black Maria Film and Video Festival
Bronze Apple Award, National Educational Media Network Competition
Association for Asian Studies Video Festival, selected for showing of Seed and Earth, Honolulu
1995:
Premier at Wesleyan and Brown
Screenings at 35th Anniversary Bengal Studies Conference, Chicago.
Honorable Mention, Society of Visual Anthropoology Film and Video Festival, Washington
1993:
Awarded the Sarat Chandra Roy Memorial Medal by the Asiatic Society, for outstanding work on anthropology of India.
1992:
Honored at second annual Celebration of Black Scholarship in New England, at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, MA.
Affiliations
Fellow, American Anthropological Association
Fellow, American Association for Asian Studies
Founding Fellow, Association for Anthropological Diplomacy
Life Member, Nari Seva (Women's Organization), Calcutta
Member of the Bengal Studies Association
Member of the Leadership Alliance
Docent, University of Finland
Faculty for the University Field Staff International
Teaching
Anthro 66, Freshmen Seminar: Politics of Race and Culture, this course addresses the subjects of race, culture and ethnicity, focusing on minority groups in the U.S. Seeks to clarify the philosophical and theoretical issues in contemporary America using a cross-disciplinary approach.
Anthro 90, Culture and Politics of Colonial Cities, This undergraduate course attempts to understand the nature of colonialism in Africa and India. Comparative methodological approach to the study of colonial cities introduces the students to a multiple and interlocking idea and symbols used by colonial power to create in their images, cities which reflect their own image. The colonial power for the study of these two cities is the British Empire, whose policies in Asia (India) differed from that of Africa (Ghana).
Anthro 106, Culture, Race & Ethnic Politics is an undergraduate seminar solely for Freshmen and Sophomores. This is becoming a popular seminar for undergraduates Spring of 1996, 280 students signed for the course and it had to be taught as two separate courses in the same semester. For the seminar of 20-25 students, I develop the scientific and biological debates, philosophies and beliefs behind the concept of race , followed by analysis of ethnicity, culture and nationalism. We use anthropological and socio-historical literature on race as well as life histories of different communities in the USA. The class is divided into 5 groups - each student selecting one of the American minority groups they want to research on. Groups meet individually to discuss the chosen topics for research, presenting the bibliography for their project for evaluation and approval.
Anthro 117, People's and Cultures of India is an undergraduate course, which covers aspects of Hinduism and Islam in India. The course combines texts, novels and films to explore issues of caste, gender and kinship relationships, contemporary politics and religious difference amongst the different Indian communities.
Anthro 129, Film and Anthropology: Arab and Images of Societies, this course examines representation of Arab society in film and anthropological literature. We compare how gender, national identity, religious practices, and historical events are portrayed in films and anthropological literature. We will explore the relationship between visual and textual, showing how film reflect and make comprehensible anthropological concepts of Arab culture, and creates different images of the society.
Anthro 130, Themes in Anthropology is a required seminar for majors in anthropology. I choose to develop the anthropological notion and idea of "culture". The seminar covered major anthropological classics and related these theories and studies to contemporary ethnographies and treatment of anthropological analysis. I conduct the seminar by lecturing the first hour on a topic, followed by a number of students to lead the discussion and report on select articles from the recommended weekly readings. The class participates in raising questions and debating the weekly thematic issues. The discussions facilitate and assist in relating various theories to contemporary anthropological concerns and to the changing definitions of "culture". From the discussions and the weekly readings, along with the expected one page paper, I could assess how effective the course was conducted and what were the major failings.
Anthro 134, Comparative Sex Roles. Looks at the construction of gender within specific cultures. The comparative approach and case studies from Africa & Asia, attempts to portray women's roles, positions and status cross culturally. Goals and mission of the course is to present ethnographic representations of women and the underlying question is to understand differences within culturally contextualized structures.
Anthro 138, Seminar on Women in Socialist, and Developing Countries. This seminar, jointly sponsored by a sociologist and an anthropologist, explores the changing role of women in the former socialist countries of Eastern Europe and developing countries in Africa and Asia. The course will cover the position of women in the personal as well as in the broader social, economic, and political context. We will discuss prevalent ideologies and choices within these contexts.
Anthro 204, Ideology of Development, a graduate seminar covers different theoretical approaches to the study of development. For our class discussion we draw from the experience and case studies of many developing countries. Throughout the seminar we question the role of the funding agencies, we investigate the indigenous meaning and concept of progress and growth ideas these analysis is done within the cultural context and specifics of the communities under study. We concentrate on gender and development, urban and rural dichotomy, on the different issues and theories of modernization and Westernization. These are a few of the interrelated themes that we do cover and discuss in the seminar.
Anthro 205, Ethnography and Literature: Representations of "Woman, Native, Other", This interdisciplinary graduate seminar will address the cultural construction of subaltern groups under the signs of "woman", "native" and "other" in texts generically differentiated as ethnographic and fictional. As part of critical endeavor, the seminar will raise questions about "truth" genres, the interpretive anthropological project of "writing culture" and the production of a hegemonic discourses on "woman, native, other". By turning to the texts and counterdiscourses of the subalterns, we hope to discuss and problematize issues of empowerment and authority as they relate to self-representations by the dis-empowered, the production of cultural fictions-autoethnographies by such groups as political acts of self-empowerment, and to explore the possibilities for ethnographies of "fiction". Much of our material will focus on the cultures of North and West Africa, and the North American African Americans.
Anthro 223 Social Structure - is a graduate seminar on different aspects of social structure. Last spring the theme was on Kinship Theory and the Construction of the Person. Weekly, I introduce the topic in the first hour, have a break and the second half of the seminar is devoted to discussion of the ideas and related works. Students can choose one of the weekly topics that interests them and these students will be responsible to lead the discussions. The seminar attracts students from Anthropology, Sociology, Development Studies, English and MCM.
Anthro 237, Colonialism and Neo Colonialism is a graduate seminar, a course used to fulfill requirements for a number of concentration programs such as Development Studies and International Relations. The seminar draws students from diverse disciples. The underlying theme of the seminar is a comparative analytical approach to the study of colonialism in East and West Africa, deciphering the difference between English and French political rule, and the effects of colonialism on contemporary African Anglophone and Francophone countries.
Funded Research
2006: A grant from Carnegie Corporation of New York for an ethnographic case study on an Eritrean woman's national and transnational experiences
2002-04: A joint three-year grant through the University of Helsinki from the Finnish Academy of Social Sciences with A. Ostor (Wesleyan University) and S. Tenunhen (University of Helsinki) for research in exchange and kinship systems in Bengal
1995-1996: National Institute of Health (through the Minority International Training and Research Department of Howard University), support for summer research for ongoing research in central rural Ethiopia on "The Social Production and Migration of Disease in Southern Ethiopia"
1995: Mellon Foundation (through Brown University), summer research support for Ethiopia
1995: National Institute of Health (through the Minority International Training and Research Department of Howard University), support for summer research on the "Social Production and Migration of Disease in Southern Ethiopia"
1995: President's Fund, support to initiate new research on gender, health and the spread of diseases in Ethiopia
1994: Research support from the Center for the Comparative Study of Development for summer research in Ethiopia
1994: Odyssey Grant for summer research on new course on Race, Culture and Ethnicity in America
1993-94: President Gregorian Fund (Brown), grant to complete research/survey on "Causes for female student's high dropout rate from higher education at Addis Ababa University"
1993: Travel grant, Center for the Comparative Study of Development, to begin pilot research in Eritrea/Ethiopia
1991: Curricular Development Grant to offer new course, Anthro 108, "The Culture and Politics of Colonial Cities: Calcutta and Sekondi-Takoradi," as a Modes of Analysis course with Afro-American Studies
1990: Research and travel grant from Development Studies to undertake research in India
1990: Mellon Fresh Combination Grant to teach a graduate seminar on "Gender and Representation in Ethnography and Literature"
1989-90: Smithsonian Grant to complete work on the film Seed and Earth
1989-90: Curricular Development Grant to teach a new course, "Words and Worlds: Anthropology and Indian Fiction," with Nila Chatterjee
1988: Smithsonian Grant to initiate documentary film on The Ritual and Physical Uses of Rice in India
1988-89: Curricular Development Grant to teach new courses on "India and America in Cross-Cultural Comparison" with T. Gernes
1987: The Francis Wayland Collegium Planning Grant, for summer research on "Calcutta, the social and cultural city"
1983: Planning grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Post Secondary Education (FISPE)
1982: The Francis Wayland Collegium Planning Grant on the social and cultural constructions of "Calcutta: The City"
1978: Grant from the Economic and Social Research Council (National Council for Research, Sudan) for research and fieldwork in Sudan
1977: Faculty Grant from Social Science Research Council (New York) for research and fieldwork in Sudan
1976: Henry Merritt Wriston Grant for Improvement of Education, Brown University, to prepare for a course on the comparative approaches of Islam and nationalism in Sudan and Senegal
1971-73: Social Science Research Council (New York), doctoral research grant
1971-73: American Institute of Indian Studies, travel and research grant for study in India
1969-70: University of Chicago South Asian Language and Area Center Fellowship
