Tom Boellstorff
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Tom Boellstorff is an anthropologist based at the University of California, Irvine. In his career to date, his interests have included the anthropology of sexuality, the anthropology of globalization, the anthropology of virtual worlds, Southeast Asian studies, the anthropology of HIV/AIDS, and linguistic anthropology. He is the winner of the Ruth Benedict Prize given by the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists.
Career
Tom Boellstorff earned his Ph.D. in Anthropology at Stanford University in 2000. He joined the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine in 2002, receiving tenure in 2006. He is Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist, the flagship journal of the American Anthropological Association. He has been Co-chair of the Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists and recipient of a Fellowship from the American Council of Learned Societies.
Biography
Raised in Nebraska, Boellstorff moved to California to obtain bachelor's degrees in linguistics and music from Stanford University. He engaged in HIV/AIDS and LGBT activism in the United States, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Russia, at times with the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission and the Institute for Community Health Outreach, where he worked as Regional Coordinator before entering graduate school in anthropology. His partner, Bill Maurer, is also in the Department of Anthropology at the University of California, Irvine.
Publications
- Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human (Princeton University Press, April 2008)
- A Coincidence of Desires: Anthropology, Queer Studies, Indonesia (Duke University Press, 2007)
- The Gay Archipelago: Sexuality and Nation in Indonesia (Princeton University Press, 2005)
He is also the co-editor of Speaking in Queer Tongues: Globalization and Gay Language (University of Illinois Press, 2004).
His work has been published in American Anthropologist; American Ethnologist; Cultural Anthropology; the Annual Review of Anthropology, the Journal of Linguistic Anthropology; the Journal of Asian Studies; GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies; and Ethnos.
See also
External links
- Tom Boellstorff's webpage
- Wisconsin Public Radio Show – To the Best of Our Knowledge – Science & the Search for Meaning: 5 Questions
Part One: WHAT IS LIFE? Segment 3 ..."And anthropologist Tom Boellstorff takes us on a tour through the virtual world of Second Life."
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