RPCV Laura Ahearn is a linguistic and cultural anthropologist who works on issues of gender, kinship, and marriage in Nepal
Laura M. Ahearn
Ph.D. Michigan 1994
Assistant Professor
Phone Number: (732) 932-5298
Office: RAB 308
E-mail: Ahearn@rci.rutgers.edu
I am a linguistic and cultural anthropologist who works on issues of gender, kinship, and marriage in Nepal. My most recent project is a book, Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal (University of Michigan Press, 2001), which is about the new courtship practice of love letter writing in the Magar village where I was a Peace Corps volunteer for several years in the early 1980's. I am interested in agency, constraints on meaning in Nepali women's songfests, and the changing meanings and values surrounding childbirth in Nepal.
Read a New York Times article on my research.
Recent Publications
Books
Awarded Honorable Mention
in the Society of Linguistic Anthropology's
Edward Sapir Book Prize Competition, 2002
Invitations to Love: Literacy, Love Letters, and Social Change in Nepal. University of Michigan Press. 2001. This ethnography provides a close examination of the dramatic shift away from arranged marriage and capture marriage toward elopement in the Magar village of Junigau, Nepal. In this village, young people are applying their newly acquired literacy skills to love-letter writing, fostering a transition that involves not only a shift in marriage rituals, but also a change in how villagers conceive of their own ability to act and attribute responsibility for events.
Read the complete love letter correspondences of two Nepali couples.
Read Mark Liechty's review of Invitations to Love in the journal American Ethnologist, Vol.30(2), May 2003.
Read Anita Wilson's review of Invitations to Love in the journal Anthropology and Education Quarterly, Vol.33(4), December 2002.
Read Anna Robinson-Pant's review of Invitations to Love in the International Journal of Educational Development, Vol.22(5):556-558, September 2002.
(Not available to all viewers, unfortunately.)
Articles
"The Magars of Banyan Hill and Junigau: A 'Granddaughter's' Reflections." Himalayan Research Bulletin, 22(1). Forthcoming, 2003.
"Literacy, Power, and Agency: Love Letters and Development in Nepal." Language and Education. Forthcoming, 2003.
"Writing Desire in Nepali Love Letters." Language and Communication, 23(2)):107-122, 2003. [Link to article may not work for all viewers.]
Comment on Alessandro Duranti's "Language as Culture in U.S. Anthropology: Three Paradigms." Current Anthropology, 44(3):335, June 2003. [Link to article may not work for all viewers.]
"What's Love Got To Do With It?" Anthropology News, 43(9). December 2002.
""We Were Kings Here Once": Gendered Constructions of Magar Ethnicity in a Speech by Gore Bahadur Khapangi." Himalayan Research Bulletin 21(1):7-10.
"A Traditional Massacre, or a Massacre of Tradition?" Anthropology News 42(8), November 2001.
"Language and Agency." Annual Review of Anthropology , Volume 30, 109-137, 2001. [Link to article may not work for all viewers.]
"Agency." In Duranti, Alessandro (ed.), Key Terms in Language and Culture. London: Blackwell, 2001, 7-10. [Reprint of Journal of Linguistic Anthropology piece.]
"Agency." In special issue, entitled, "Language Matters: Lexicon for the New Millennium," Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 9(2), 1999, 9-12.
"True Traces: Love Letters and Social Transformation in Nepal." In Barton, David and Nigel Hall (eds.), Letter Writing as a Social Practice. Amsterdam: John Benjamins Press, 1999, 199-207.
"'A Twisted Rope Binds My Waist': Locating Constraints on Meaning in a Tij Songfest." Journal of Linguistic Anthropology, Volume 8(1), 1998, 60-86.
"Reading, Writing, and Romance: Literacy, Love Letters, and Agency in a Nepali Village." Texas Linguistic Forum, Volume 39, 1998, 248-258.
Courses Offered
Fall 2003
Anth 108 Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology
Note: This class is the preferred course for fulfilling the linguistic anthropology requirement for undergraduate majors. Beginning in the Fall 2003 semester, it will be taught in a new format involving mandatory recitation sections. No prerequisites are necessary. View the Anth 108 Spring 2003 syllabus, which is subject to change in the fall. Students who enroll in this class will be able gain access to further course materials once the fall semester begins by logging on to WebCT.
Anth 514 Language as Social Action
View a syllabus (subject to change, of course) from an earlier incarnation of this graduate seminar.
Spring 2003
Anth 108 Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology
Anth 317 Method and Analysis in Cultural Anthropology
This class involved students in hands-on research in the community of Highland Park, New Jersey. View the schedule of students' oral presentations of their research findings at our April 2003 Mini-Conference. This course will probably be offered again in Spring 2004. Enrollment will be capped at ten students. View the Spring 2003 course syllabus.
Spring 2002
Anth 291 Language and Gender
Anth 292The Anthropology of Love Letter Writing
Fall 2001
Anth 312 Language and Social Diversity
Anth 514 Language in Culture and Society
Upcoming Travel for Conferences and Research, 2002-2003
The following is my travel schedule for fieldwork and conferences. I would be happy to meet with students and colleagues at these places. Please e-mail me at Ahearn@rci.rutgers.edu if you are interested in setting up a time to get together.
Fieldwork in Junigau, Nepal, 7 January 2002 - 4 March 2002. I will be conducting fieldwork in the village of Junigau during these months on the topic of the meanings and values surrounding changing childbirth practices. I will also be studying the use of ergative markers in the dialect of Nepali spoken in Junigau.
8th Conference on Language, Interaction, and Culture, at UCLA on May 23-25, 2002. While at UCLA I will be attending this conference and consulting with faculty about their linguistic anthropology curriculum.
31st Annual Conference on South Asia, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, on October 10-13, 2002. While in Madison, I will be attending the meeting of the Executive Council of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies and the special pre-conference on October 10th, entitled, "War on Terrorism, War as Terrorism."
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, in New Orleans on November 20-24, 2002. I will be chairing a session entitled, "Envisioning Language, Ideology, and Human Agency: Approaches, Critiques and Possibilities" at 8:00 a.m. on Sunday, November 24th.
13th World Congress on Applied Linguistics, "Applied Linguistics in the 21st Century: Opportunities for Innovation and Creativity." I will be participating with Mike Baynham, Marilda Cavalcanti, Mastin Prinsloo, and Allan Luke in a panel discussion on local and global issues in literacy research.
Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, March 27-30, 2003. I will be the discussant on a panel scheduled for Sunday, March 30, 2003, from 8:30 - 10:30 a.m., entitled, "Cultures, Texts, and Speech Genres in Asia."
Semiotics Workshop, University of Pennsylvania Department of Anthropology, April 9, 2003, University Museum, Rm. 345, 4:30-6:00 p.m. I will be giving a talk, entitled, "Language and Agency in Nepali Love Letters."
32nd Annual Conference on South Asia, at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, on October 24-26, 2003. While in Madison, I will be attending the meeting of the Executive Council of the Association for Nepal and Himalayan Studies.
American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, in Chicago on November 19-23, 2003. As part of the session, "The Language of Materiality and the Materiality of Language," I will be presenting a paper entitled, "The Gendered Materiality of Nepali Love Letters." Also, I will be one of the discussants for the session, "Histories of Emotion/Discourses/Regimes."
Miscellaneous Links
Agency Reading Group at the University of South Carolina
Peace Corps Writers, an organization devoted to the fiction and nonfiction writing of returned Peace Corps Volunteers
Media Coverage
Goode, Erica. "Arranged Marriage Gives Way to Courtship by Missive." New York Times, Science Times section, 9 February 1999.
Runas, Rochelle. "Love and Literacy in Nepal." Rutgers Focus, 15 February 2002.
RU-TV interview for "By the Book" program.
Dept. of Anthropology
Ruth Adams Building
131 George Street
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
New Brunswick, NJ 08901-1414
Phone: (732) 932-9886
Fax: (732) 932-1564
anthro@rci.rutgers.edu
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