Charles L. Briggs
Encyclopedia
Charles Leslie Briggs is an anthropologist who currently works at the University of California, Berkeley
. Before working at Berkeley he held a position as Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at University of California, San Diego
.
on April 8, 1953. He got a BA in Anthropology
, Psychology
and Philosophy
from Colorado College
. He received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago
in 1981.
Distinguished Professor in Folklore at Berkeley
. He focuses on linguistic and medical anthropology, social theory
, modernity
, citizenship and the state, race, and violence. He has studied the tension between modernity and traditionality as socio-political processes in performance, focusing on jokes, proverbs, legends, myths, anecdotes, gossip, curing songs, and ritual wailing, along with how constructions of language and tradition have shaped the politics of modernity. He has conducted research with Latino/a populations in the Southwestern US and in Latin America
. Current projects focus on revolutionary health care in Venezuela
; how the state is “communicated” through the press particularly through health issues in Cuba
, Venezuela
, and the United States
; and how violence is projected in legal, media, and medical institutions (Venezuela).
1980. The Wood Carvers of Córdova, New Mexico: Social Dimensions of an Artistic "Revival."
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
1986. Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social
Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1988. Competence in Performance: The Creativity of Tradition in Mexicano Verbal Art.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1990. The Lost Gold Mine of Juan Mondragón: A Legend of New Mexico Performed by
Melaquías Romero. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. (By Charles L. Briggs and Julián Josué
Vigil).
1990. Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life. Annual
Review of Anthropology 19:59-88 (Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs).
1992. Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2(2):131-72.
(by Charles L. Briggs and Richard Bauman).
1992. 'Since I Am a Woman, I Will Chastise My Relatives': Gender, Reported Speech, and the
(Re)production of Social Relations in Warao Ritual Wailing. American Ethnologist 19:337-61.
1993. Personal Sentiments and Polyphonic Voices in Warao Women's Ritual Wailing: Music
and Poetics in a Critical and Collective Discourse. American Anthropologist 95:929-57.
1993. Theorizing Folklore: New Perspectives on the Politics of Culture. Western Folklore
52(2,3,4). (Special issue edited by Charles L. Briggs and Amy Shuman.)
1996. Disorderly Discourse: Narrative, Conflict, and Social Inequality. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (Edited by Charles L. Briggs)
1996. The Politics of Discursive Authority in Research on the "Invention of Tradition." Cultural
Anthropology 11(4):435-69.
1998. "You're a Liar—You're Just Like a Woman!" Constructing Dominant Ideologies of
Language in Warao Men's Gossip. In Bambi Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V.
Kroskrity, eds., Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, 229-55. New York: Oxford
University Press.
2000. “Bad Mothers” and the Threat to Civil Society: Race, Cultural Reasoning, and the
Institutionalization of Social Inequality in a Venezuelan Infanticide Trial. Law and Social Inquiry
25(2):299-354. (by Charles L. Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs).
2002. Linguistic Magic Bullets in the Making of a Modernist Anthropology. American
Anthropologist 104(2): 481-98.
2003. Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial Profiling during a Medical Nightmare. Berkeley:
University of California Press. (by Charles L. Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs; Spanish,
expanded edition, Nueva Sociedad, 2004).
2003. Voices of modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. (by Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs)
2003. Why Nation-States Can’ t Teach People to be Healthy: Power and Pragmatic Miscalculation
in Public Discourses on Health. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 17(3):287-321.
2004. Malthus' Anti-rhetorical Rhetoric, or, on the Magical Conversion of the Imaginary into the
Real. In Categories and Contexts: Critical Studies in Qualitative Demography, ed. Simon Szreter,
Hania Sholkamy, and A. Dharmaligam, pp. 57–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2004. Theorizing Modernity Conspiratorially: Science, Scale, and the Political Economy of Public
Discourse in Explanations of a Cholera Epidemic. American Ethnologist 31(2):163-186.
2005. Genealogies of Race and Culture and the Failure of Vernacular Cosmopolitanisms:
Rereading Franz Boas and W.E.B. Du Bois. Public Culture 17(1):75-100.
(in press). Communicability, Racial Discourse, and Disease. Annual Review of Anthropology 34.
and the Rudolph Virchow Award
in Medical Anthropology in 2006 as well as the Edward Sapir Prize, in collaboration with Richard Bauman
, from the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, November 2006.
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. Before working at Berkeley he held a position as Chair of the Ethnic Studies Department at University of California, San Diego
University of California, San Diego
The University of California, San Diego, commonly known as UCSD or UC San Diego, is a public research university located in the La Jolla neighborhood of San Diego, California, United States...
.
Biographical Information
He was born in Albuquerque, New MexicoAlbuquerque, New Mexico
Albuquerque is the largest city in the state of New Mexico, United States. It is the county seat of Bernalillo County and is situated in the central part of the state, straddling the Rio Grande. The city population was 545,852 as of the 2010 Census and ranks as the 32nd-largest city in the U.S. As...
on April 8, 1953. He got a BA in Anthropology
Anthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
, Psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
and Philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
from Colorado College
Colorado College
The Colorado College is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado, United States, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. It was founded in 1874 by Thomas Nelson Haskell...
. He received his PhD in Anthropology from the University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
in 1981.
Research interests
Charles L. Briggs is the Alan DundesAlan Dundes
Alan Dundes, was a folklorist at the University of California, Berkeley. His work was said to have been central to establishing the study of folklore as an academic discipline. He wrote 12 books, both academic and popular, and edited or co-wrote two dozen more...
Distinguished Professor in Folklore at Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
. He focuses on linguistic and medical anthropology, social theory
Social theory
Social theories are theoretical frameworks which are used to study and interpret social phenomena within a particular school of thought. An essential tool used by social scientists, theories relate to historical debates over the most valid and reliable methodologies , as well as the primacy of...
, modernity
Modernity
Modernity typically refers to a post-traditional, post-medieval historical period, one marked by the move from feudalism toward capitalism, industrialization, secularization, rationalization, the nation-state and its constituent institutions and forms of surveillance...
, citizenship and the state, race, and violence. He has studied the tension between modernity and traditionality as socio-political processes in performance, focusing on jokes, proverbs, legends, myths, anecdotes, gossip, curing songs, and ritual wailing, along with how constructions of language and tradition have shaped the politics of modernity. He has conducted research with Latino/a populations in the Southwestern US and in Latin America
Latin America
Latin America is a region of the Americas where Romance languages – particularly Spanish and Portuguese, and variably French – are primarily spoken. Latin America has an area of approximately 21,069,500 km² , almost 3.9% of the Earth's surface or 14.1% of its land surface area...
. Current projects focus on revolutionary health care in Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
; how the state is “communicated” through the press particularly through health issues in Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
, Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
; and how violence is projected in legal, media, and medical institutions (Venezuela).
Publications
Representative publications include:1980. The Wood Carvers of Córdova, New Mexico: Social Dimensions of an Artistic "Revival."
Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press.
1986. Learning How to Ask: A Sociolinguistic Appraisal of the Role of the Interview in Social
Science Research. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1988. Competence in Performance: The Creativity of Tradition in Mexicano Verbal Art.
Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
1990. The Lost Gold Mine of Juan Mondragón: A Legend of New Mexico Performed by
Melaquías Romero. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. (By Charles L. Briggs and Julián Josué
Vigil).
1990. Poetics and Performance as Critical Perspectives on Language and Social Life. Annual
Review of Anthropology 19:59-88 (Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs).
1992. Genre, Intertextuality, and Social Power. Journal of Linguistic Anthropology 2(2):131-72.
(by Charles L. Briggs and Richard Bauman).
1992. 'Since I Am a Woman, I Will Chastise My Relatives': Gender, Reported Speech, and the
(Re)production of Social Relations in Warao Ritual Wailing. American Ethnologist 19:337-61.
1993. Personal Sentiments and Polyphonic Voices in Warao Women's Ritual Wailing: Music
and Poetics in a Critical and Collective Discourse. American Anthropologist 95:929-57.
1993. Theorizing Folklore: New Perspectives on the Politics of Culture. Western Folklore
52(2,3,4). (Special issue edited by Charles L. Briggs and Amy Shuman.)
1996. Disorderly Discourse: Narrative, Conflict, and Social Inequality. Oxford: Oxford
University Press. (Edited by Charles L. Briggs)
1996. The Politics of Discursive Authority in Research on the "Invention of Tradition." Cultural
Anthropology 11(4):435-69.
1998. "You're a Liar—You're Just Like a Woman!" Constructing Dominant Ideologies of
Language in Warao Men's Gossip. In Bambi Schieffelin, Kathryn A. Woolard, and Paul V.
Kroskrity, eds., Language Ideologies: Practice and Theory, 229-55. New York: Oxford
University Press.
2000. “Bad Mothers” and the Threat to Civil Society: Race, Cultural Reasoning, and the
Institutionalization of Social Inequality in a Venezuelan Infanticide Trial. Law and Social Inquiry
25(2):299-354. (by Charles L. Briggs and Clara Mantini-Briggs).
2002. Linguistic Magic Bullets in the Making of a Modernist Anthropology. American
Anthropologist 104(2): 481-98.
2003. Stories in the Time of Cholera: Racial Profiling during a Medical Nightmare. Berkeley:
University of California Press. (by Charles L. Briggs with Clara Mantini-Briggs; Spanish,
expanded edition, Nueva Sociedad, 2004).
2003. Voices of modernity: Language Ideologies and the Politics of Inequality. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. (by Richard Bauman and Charles L. Briggs)
2003. Why Nation-States Can’ t Teach People to be Healthy: Power and Pragmatic Miscalculation
in Public Discourses on Health. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 17(3):287-321.
2004. Malthus' Anti-rhetorical Rhetoric, or, on the Magical Conversion of the Imaginary into the
Real. In Categories and Contexts: Critical Studies in Qualitative Demography, ed. Simon Szreter,
Hania Sholkamy, and A. Dharmaligam, pp. 57–76. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
2004. Theorizing Modernity Conspiratorially: Science, Scale, and the Political Economy of Public
Discourse in Explanations of a Cholera Epidemic. American Ethnologist 31(2):163-186.
2005. Genealogies of Race and Culture and the Failure of Vernacular Cosmopolitanisms:
Rereading Franz Boas and W.E.B. Du Bois. Public Culture 17(1):75-100.
(in press). Communicability, Racial Discourse, and Disease. Annual Review of Anthropology 34.
Awards
He is the winner of the 2007 J.I. Staley Prize in AnthropologyAnthropology
Anthropology is the study of humanity. It has origins in the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences. The term "anthropology" is from the Greek anthrōpos , "man", understood to mean mankind or humanity, and -logia , "discourse" or "study", and was first used in 1501 by German...
and the Rudolph Virchow Award
Rudolph Virchow Award
- About the Award :The Rudolf Virchow Awards are given by the Critical Anthropology for Global Health Study Group, a special interest group of Society for Medical Anthropology...
in Medical Anthropology in 2006 as well as the Edward Sapir Prize, in collaboration with Richard Bauman
Richard Bauman
Richard Bauman is a folklorist and anthropologist who recently retired from Indiana University Bloomington. He is presently Distinguished Professor emeritus of Folklore, of Anthropology, and of Communication and Culture...
, from the Society for Linguistic Anthropology, November 2006.