Faculty - Mark Liechty

Mark Liechty
Curriculum Vitae

Rank:

Assistant Professor, Departments of History and Anthropology

Mailing Address:

Department of Anthropology (m/c 027)
2102 Behavioral Sciences Building
University of Illinois at Chicago
1007 W. Harrison Street
Chicago, IL 60607-7139

Phone: (312) 413-3576
Fax: (312) 413-3573
Email: liechty@uic.edu


Education:

Fellowships and Awards:

OVCR-AAH Award, University of Illinois at Chicago, 2000

Regents' Junior Faculty Fellowship, U.C. Santa Barbara, 1997

International Institute for Asian Studies, Post-doctoral Fellowship, 1995

University of Pennsylvania Dissertation Fellowship, 1993-1994

Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, 1991

Department of Anthropology, Summer Research Grant, 1989

Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellow, 1987-1990

Holden Furber Prize for essays in South Asian Studies, 1988

Research Interests:

Media and consumer culture, class formation, 3rd world modernity, youth culture, culture history, medical anthropology, South Asia, East Asia

Publications:

Suitably Modern: Making Middle-Class Culture in a New Consumer Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, forthcoming 2002)
"Film, Video, Television Viewing: Nepal," in South Asian Folklore: An Encyclopedia. P. Claus, S. Diamond, and M. Mills, eds. (New York: Routledge, forthcoming)
"'Out Here in Kathmandu': Youth and the Contradictions of Modernity in Urban Nepal," in Everyday Life in South Asia. Diane Mines and Sarah Lamb, eds. (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, forthcoming)
"The Kathmandu Valley," in Encyclopedia of Asia (Great Barrington, MA: Berkshire Reference Works, forthcoming)
"Consumer Transgressions: Notes on the History of Restaurants and Prostitution in Kathmandu," Studies in Nepali History and Society (forthcoming)
"Women and Pornography in Kathmandu: Negotiating the 'Modern Woman' in a New Consumer Society," in Images of the 'Modern Woman' in Asia: Global Media/Local Meanings. Shoma Munshi, ed. (London: Curzon Press, 2001), 34-54
Review of Daniel Miller, ed., Material Cultures: Why Some Things Matter in American Anthropologist 101, No. 2 (1999), 458-459
"Parsis and the Postcolonial Predicament." Review of Tanya M. Luhrmann, The Good Parsi: The Fate of a Colonial Elite in a Postcolonial Society in Current Anthropology 39, No. 1 (1998), 176-177
"The Social Practice of Cinema and Video Viewing in Kathmandu," Studies in Nepali History and Society 3, No. 1 (1998), 87-126
Review of John A. Lent, ed., Asian Popular Culture in Journal of Asian Studies 56, No. 1 (1997), 153-155
"Film and Fashion: Media Signification and Consumer Subjectivity in Kathmandu," Himalayan Research Bulletin 17, No. 1 (1997), 33-38
"Selective Exclusion: Foreigners, Foreign Goods, and Foreignness in Modern Nepali History," Studies in Nepali History and Society 2, No. 1 (1997), 5-68
"Taking Liberties: Women's Freedom and Sexual Harassment in Kathmandu," Labour, Capital and Society 29, No. 1-2 (1996), 56-84
"Paying for Modernity: Women and the Discourse of Freedom in Kathmandu," Studies in Nepali History and Society 1, No. 1 (1996), 201-230
"Kathmandu as Translocality: Multiple Places in a Nepali Space," in Geography of Identity. Patricia Yaeger, ed. (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996), 98-130
Review of Richard G. Fox, Gandhian Utopia: Experiments with Culture in American Ethnologist 20, No. 1 (1993), 209
"Modernization, Media and Markets: Youth Identities and the Experience of Modernity in Kathmandu, Nepal," in Youth Cultures: A Cross-Cultural Perspective. Vered Amit-Talai and Helena Wulff, eds. (London: Routledge, 1995), 166-201
Manuscripts in Preparation:
- "Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Kathmandu" (article manuscript)
- "Building Body, Making Face, Doing Love: Consumer Practice and Consumer Identity in Kathmandu, Nepal" (article manuscript)
Professional Experience:
University of Illinois at Chicago, Assistant Professor (1999--), Departments of History and Anthropology
University of Illinois at Chicago, Department of History, 1997-98. Visiting Assistant Professor. South Asian and World history.
Studies in Nepali History and Society, 1996-present. Founding co-editor. Interdisciplinary Nepal Studies journal.
University of California, Santa Barbara, Dept. of Anthropology, 1995-present. Assistant Professor. Graduate and under-graduate instruction.
International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, Netherlands, spring 1995. Post-doctoral fellow. Six month fellowship with the Institute's "Changing Life-styles in Asia" program.
Ursinus College, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, fall 1994. Instructor. "Introduction to Sociocultural Anthropology."
Philadelphia College of Pharmacy and Science, Social Science Dept., fall 1994. Instructor. "Medical Anthropology."
Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan, 1989-1990. Visiting Research Associate. Research on relations between social structure and material culture in Taipei.
West China University of Medical Sciences, Chengdu, Sichuan, People's Republic of China 1985-1986. Lecturer in English. Taught English at graduate and undergraduate levels.

Conference Participation and Invited Lectures:
Pioneering the Middle: Processes of Youth and Class Formation in Kathmandu. American Anthropological Association, 100th Annual Meeting, Washington, DC, Nov. 28 - Dec. 2, 2001
Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Kathmandu. South Asia Seminar, University of Chicago, Oct. 11, University of Iowa, Nov. 15., 2001
Carnal Economies: Notes on the History of Restaurants and Prostitution in Kathmandu. 29th Annual Conference on South Asia, October 13-15, University of Wisconsin, Madison, 2000
Pioneering the Middle: Processes of Youth and Class Formation in Kathmandu. International Crossroads in Cultural Studies Conference, University of Birmingham (UK), June 21-25, 2000
Women and Pornography in Kathmandu: Negotiating the "Modern Woman" in a New Consumer Society. Gender and Women's Studies seminar series, University of Illinois, Chicago, March 22, 2000
Transnational Mediation: Shifting Patterns of Pop Music Promotion and Consumption in Kathmandu Nepal. American Anthropological Association, 98th Annual Meeting, Chicago, Nov. 17-21, 1999
Class as Cultural Practice: Middle-Class Experience in Nepal. 28th Annual Conference on South Asia, University of Wisconsin, Madison, October 15-18, 1999
Mandalas and Cultural Geography: Cartography and Cosmography in South Asia. NEH Summer Institute, "Cartographic Traditions in World History." University of Illinois, Chicago, July 23, 1999
Class as Cultural Practice: Middle-Class Experience in Nepal. Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois, Chicago, April 26, 1999
The Struggle for Modernity in Nepal. Seminar on Call of the Himalayas: Through Local Eyes, Through Foreign Eyes, South Asia Outreach Project, University of Chicago, May 30-31, 1998
Women, Pornography, and Consumer Sexuality in Kathmandu. 26th Annual Conference on South Asia, Oct. 16-19, 1997, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Consumer Bodies: Youth, Media, and Identity in Kathmandu, Nepal. Department of Anthropology, Notre Dame University, April 14, 1997.
Organizer and chair, panel entitled Mediated Modernities: Mapping Culture in an Era of Electronic Capitalism. American Anthropological Association, 95th Annual Meeting, November 20-24, 1996, San Francisco.
Film and Fashion: Commercial Signification and Consumer Identity in Kathmandu. American Anthropological Association, 95th Annual Meeting, November 20-24, 1996, San Francisco.
How Media "Work": Commercial Promotion and Consumer Identity in Kathmandu. Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago, October 21, 1996.
Building Body, Making Face, Doing Love: Youth, Media, and Identity in Kathmandu, Nepal. Department of Anthropology, University of Illinois at Chicago, April 2, 1996.
"This kind of `love' I don't like too much": Women's Identity, Pornography, and Consumer Sexuality in Kathmandu. Conference on Images of Women in Media, November 6-8, 1995, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Inside/Outside: Middle-class Identity and Public Space in Kathmandu. 24th Annual Conference on South Asia, October 20-22, 1995, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Building Body, Making Face, Doing Love: Consumer Practice and Consumer Identity in Kathmandu, Nepal. Conference on Changing Lifestyles in Asia: Media, Consumption, Religion, December 19-21, 1994, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden, The Netherlands.
Consumer Culture and the Construction of Modern Youth: `Teenagers' in Kathmandu, Nepal. American Anthropological Association, 93rd Annual Meeting, November 30 - December 4, 1994, Atlanta.
Organizer, panel entitled Ethnography of Media Audiences: Processes of Production and Reception. American Anthropological Association, 92nd Annual Meeting, November 17-21, 1993, Washington DC.
`Teens' in Kathmandu: Media Assemblage, Audience, and the Consumer Sphere in Nepal. American Anthropological Association, 92nd Annual Meeting, November 17-21, 1993, Washington DC.
Body and Face: Mass Media, Gender and the Construction of Consumer Identities in Kathmandu, Nepal. American Anthropological Association, 91st Annual Meeting, December 2-6, 1992, San Francisco.
Co-organizer (with Carolyn Behrman), panel entitled Trans-mutations: Cultural Experience and Process in a Global World. American Anthropological Association, 91st Annual Meeting, December 2-6, 1992, San Francisco.
Mass Media and `Visualization' in an Emerging Consumer Culture: Kathmandu, Nepal. 21st Annual Conference on South Asia, November 6-8, 1992, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
Chair and organizer, panel entitled Technology and Media Representations in Complex Societies. 21st Annual Conference on South Asia, November 6-8, 1992, Center for South Asian Studies, University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Department of History