Nicola Tannenbaum

Lehigh University Sociology and Anthropology - Nicola Tannenbaum
Professor Emerita of Anthropology
31 Williams Drive, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania 18015
610 758-3829
Ph.D., University of Iowa, 1982
Interests: 
Cultural anthropology; economic anthropology; religion; ethnography; Southeast Asia with an emphasis on Thailand.

Research Interests

  • Cognitive anthropology with a focus on theories of description and their relationship to ethnography.
  • Construction of ethnographic others with a focus on the colonial and post-colonial construction of ethnicity and religiosity in Southeast Asia.
  • Anthropology of religion especially everyday Buddhism and its relationship to other religious systems.

Courses taught

  • Methods in Observation
  • Comparative Cultures
  • Anthropology of Gender
  • Peoples of Island Southeast Asia
  • Dying and Death
  • Economic Anthropology
  • Peoples of Southeast Asia
  • Food for Thought
  • Introduction to Anthropology
  • Case Studies in Ethnography
  • Southeast Asians in Southeast Asia and America
  • 30 Years of Women at Lehigh University
  • Globalization, the View from Outer Space

Recent Publications

  • Review: The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia, James C. Scott, Journal of Regional Sciences 15(4): 836-838, 2011.
  • Thai Yai, Shan, and Tai Long: Political Identity across State Boundaries.  Asian Review  (2009) 22: 3-23.
  • Founders' Cults in Southeast Asia: Ancestors, Polity, and Identity, edited with Cornelia Kammerer. Yale Univestiy Southeast Asia Program Monograph Series, no. 5, 2003.