Areas of Expertise
- Afghanistan
- Islam
- Political violence
- Documentary film & visual culture
- Humanitarianism & post-conflict societies
- Near East and South Asia
Education
B.A. Princeton University (1975)
M.A. University of Michigan (1979)
Ph.D. University of Michigan, Anthropology (1986)
Courses
- ANTH 208/ASIA 208/GBST 208 SEM The U.S. and Afghanistan: A Post-Mortem (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 210/ARAB 210/GBST 210/REL 240 LEC The Challenge of ISIS (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 222/REL 273 SEM Heroes, Saints and Celebrity (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 225 SEM Ways of Seeing (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 232 SEM Town and Gown: Investigating the Relationship of College and Community (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 270 SEM Object and Place/Memory and Nation (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 299/REL 274 SEM Ritual, Power and Transgression (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 335 SEM In Between: The Ritual Construction of Identity and Difference (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 347/ASIA 347 SEM Tribe and State on the Afghan-Pakistan Border (not offered 2026/27)
- ANTH 360 SEM Lessons Learned from Afghanistan on Governance and Development (not offered 2026/27)
Publications
SELECTED RECENT PUBLICATIONS & DOCUMENTARIES
-
-
Caravan of Martyrs: Sacrifice and Suicide Bombing in Afghanistan. University of California Press, 2017
-
Counterinsurgency as a Cultural System. Reprinted in Paul A. Erickson and Liam D. Murphy (editors), Readings for a History of Anthropological Theory (4th Edition), 2013
-
New Lessons from the Swat Pathans: State Building in Afghanistan, 1995-2010. In Benjamin Hopkins & Magnus Marsden (editors), Beyond Swat: History, Society and Economy along the Afghanistan-Pakistan Frontier, 2012.
-
Kabul Transit. Bullfrog Films, 2006.
-
Afghanistan, Ethnography, and the New World Order. Reprinted in Antonius C.G.M. Robben and Jeffrey A. Sluka (editors), Ethnogaphic Fieldwork: An Anthropological Reader, 2007.
-
Print Islam: Media and Religious Revolution in Afghanistan. Reprinted in June Nash (editor), Social Movements: An Anthropological Reader, 2005.
-
Affiliations
Board of Trustees, American University in Afghanistan
Grants
2012-2013 Fulbright Fellowship, Charles University, Prague, Czech Republic
2004-2005 Open Society Institute Fellowship
2003-2004 Carnegie Scholar, Carnegie Corporation of New York
1999 Williams Class of 1945 World Fellowship
1998-1999 National Endowment for the Humanities Resident Fellowship, School of
American Research, Santa Fe