Curriculum Vitae

Education

1998
Ph.D. in Folklore with Minor in Anthropology, Indiana University.

1990
M.A. in Folklore, Indiana University

1986
B.A. in Comparative Literature, Yale University

Fellowships, Grants and Prizes

2007-08
Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany, Senior Research Fellow

2006-07
Post-Doctoral Fellow in Silk Road Studies, Havighurst Center, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio

2005-06
International Scholar, Open Society Institute, Bishkek, Kyrgyz Republic

1996
NEH Summer Seminar Fellowship: “Ethnic Diversity in China.“ East-West Center Honolul

1994
American Folklore Society Folklore Fellow’s Prize, for Qazaqs in the People’s Republic of China
(http://homepages.utoledo.edu/nlight/qazaqs.htm)

1993-94
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship

1990-91
MacArthur Fellowship, Indiana Center on Global Change and World Peace, Bloomington

1989-90
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship

1988-89
University Fellowship, Indiana University Graduate School

Teaching and Academic Employment

2007-09
Instructor/Resource Fellow, ReSET Seminar “Building Anthropology in Central Asia”

2006-07
Visiting Faculty, Department of German, Russian, East Asian Languages and Cultures, Miami University

2005-06
Visiting assistant professor and co-chair. Department of Cultural Anthropology and Archaeology. American University-Central Asia.

2004
Summer Faculty. Boğaziçi University, Istanbul.

2003-05
Visiting Assistant Professor. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Toledo

1994-00
Adjunct Faculty. Department of Sociology and Anthropology, University of Toledo

Service and Collaboration

2006-2008
Mentor for a Fellow of the Central Asian Research and Training Initiative, Soros Fund.

2006
Co-Organizer and Plenary Address for Conference: “Empirical Culture in Central Asia: Innovative Ethnographic Studies of Daily Life.” AUCA, April 4, 2006.

2005-present
Collaboration with Aigine Cultural Research Center on their “Sacred Sites” research project in Kyrgyzstan.

1996-present
Website author, “Uyghur Culture, History and Politics”.

1996
Panel Organiser and Chair, “Connoisseurs of Chaos: Theory as Genre.” American Folklore Society, Pittsburg, October 17-20, 1996.