University Research
Resume:
Department of Anthropology
& Asian Languages and Cultures
University of Michigan
CURRICULUM VITAE
Ann Arbor, MI 48104
ANYA BERNSTEIN
********@*****.***
RESEARCH AND TEACHING INTERESTS
North Asia, Russia, Eurasia, transnational Tibetan Buddhism, Siberian and Mongolian
shamanism, secularism, sovereignty, gender and sexuality, visual ethnography.
EDUCATION
2010 Ph.D., Anthropology, New York University
2005 M.A., Anthropology, New York University
2001 M.A., Visual Anthropology, University of Manchester
1999 B.S., Linguistics, Georgetown University, summa cum laude1995-1997 Moscow State University, Faculty of Philology, two years of coursework
PhD Thesis (2010): Religious Bodies Politic: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism
MA Thesis (2005): The Empire and the Mind: Buryat Shamanism From the 1900s to the Present
MA Thesis (2001): Tibetan Diaspora and Buddhist Revival in Buryatia
ACADEMIC APPOINTMENTS
2010 - Assistant Professor of Anthropology and Asian Languages and Cultures,
University of Michigan
2010 - Postdoctoral Fellow, Michigan Society of Fellows
2010 - Faculty Associate, Center for Russian, East European, and Eurasian Studies,
University of Michigan
HONORS, AWARDS, AND FELLOWSHIPS
2010 Michigan Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Fellowship
2010 Mellon/ACLS Recent Doctoral Recipients Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined)
2010 Max Planck Institute of Social Anthropology Postdoctoral Fellowship (declined)
2009 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowship
2009 Charlotte W. Newcombe Doctoral Dissertation Fellowship (honorary)
2009 NYU Humanities Initiative Fellowship (declined)
2007 Fulbright IIE Fellowship for Field Research (India)
2007 Wenner-Gren Dissertation Fieldwork Grant (Russia/India)
2007 Audience Award and the Second Prize of the Institute of Ethnology and
Cultural Anthropology, Eyes and Lenses IV, Poland
2006 SSRC Eurasia Dissertation Development Workshop Fellowship
2006 Summer FLAS Title VI Fellowship for Tibetan Language Study
2005 NYU Anthropology Summer Research and Travel Grant for research in India
2004 SSRC Eurasia Pre-Dissertation Fellowship for research in Siberia
2003-2008 Henry Mitchell McCracken Fellowship, New York University. PhD Fellowship.
2002 Award for Outstanding Ethnographic Documentation, XVI PArnu International
Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival
1999 Francis P. Dinneen Award for Distinction in Linguistics, Georgetown University
1999 Phi Beta Kappa
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PUBLICATIONS
2011 The Post-Soviet Treasure Hunt: Time, Space, and Necropolitics in Siberian
Buddhism. Upcoming in Comparative Studies in Society and History 53(3).
2011 Review of Douglas Rogers The Old Faith and the Russian Land: A Historical
Ethnography of Ethics in the Urals. Canadian American Slavic Studies.
Upcoming Vol 45.
2009 Pilgrims, Fieldworkers, and Secret Agents: Buryat Buddhologists and the
History of a Eurasian Imaginary. Inner Asia 11 (1): 23-45.
2008a Remapping Sacred Landscapes: Shamanic Tourism and Cultural Production on
Olkhon Island. Sibirica: Journal of Siberian Studies 7 (2): 23 46.
2008b Po tu storonu realizma: k probleme raskrytiia religioznogo opyta v
etnograficheskom kino [ Beyond Realism: Representation of Religious
Experience in Ethnographic Film ] in Audiovizual naia antropologiia: istoriii s
prodolzheniem [Audiovisual Anthropology: The Story Continues], edited by E. D.
Andreeva, Iu. B. Vinichenko, and I. V. Kondakov, 153-161. Moscow: Institut
naslediia (in Russian).
2002 Buddhist Revival in Buryatia: Recent Perspectives. Mongolian Studies 25: 1-11.
INVITED LECTURES
2010 More Alive Than All the Living: Sovereign Bodies and Cultural Politics in
Buddhist Siberia, Michigan Society of Fellows.
2010 Religious Bodies Politic: Rituals of Sovereignty in Buryat Buddhism. Center
for Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies, University of Michigan.
2009 The Post-Soviet Treasure Hunt: New Sacred Geographies and Historiographies
in Buryatia. The Rubin Foundation Scholars Seminar, New York.
2008a Buddhism and Shamanism in Buryatia, Department of Oriental Studies, St.
Petersburg State University, Russia.
2008b Theory and Methods in Visual Anthropology, Visual Methods in Social Science
Workshop, Department of Sociology, St. Petersburg State University, Russia.
2008c Mediating Shamanism, at the Anthropology and Film: Evolution of the Visual
st
Text 41 Seminar, Center for Social Anthropology, Russian State University for
the Humanities, Moscow, Russia.
2008d From Ethnographic Film to the Ethnography of Media, Center for Historical
Anthropology, Russian State University for the Humanities, Moscow, Russia.
VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHIES / DOCUMENTARY FILMS
2006 In Pursuit of the Siberian Shaman (75 min). A feature-length ethnographic
documentary on contemporary Buryat shamanism based on field research on
Olkhon Island. [Distributed by Documentary Educational Resources,
www.der.org].
The Shaman Show (2008, 40 min) - short classroom version.
2002 Join Me in Shambhala (30 min). A film on Tibetan diaspora s role in the
Buddhist revival in Buryatia based on MA field research [Distributed by
Documentary Educational Resources, www.der.org].
2001 Dharma Kid (20 min). An ethnographic study of Tibetan identity in India.
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CONFERENCES
2010a Panel Organizer (with Robert Y. Chang), Buddhisms in Motion, American
Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans.
Presenter, Buddhism After Socialism: Money and Morality in the World of
Samsara.
2010b Discussant, The Modern Shaman, Roundtable, American Museum of Natural
History, New York.
2010c Mobile Bodies: Death, Reincarnation, and Border Crossing in Buddhist
Eurasia. Panel: Migration and Transnationalism, Central Eurasian Studies
Society Annual Conference, Michigan State University.
2010d The Body as Gift: Gender, the Dead, and Exchange in the ChOd Ritual
th
Economy, Panel: The State of Tibetan Anthropology, 12 Seminar of the
International Association of Tibetan Studies, Vancouver, BC.
2010e Sovereign Bodies: Religion and Cultural Politics in Buryatia, Panel: Rossiiski
but not russkii: Russian Indigenous Minorities, Russian Futures: Contexts,
Challenges, Trends, Duke University.
2009 Bodies in Flux: Reincarnation and Apprenticeship as Transnational Ties in
Buryat Buddhism, at the "Global Socialisms and Postsocialisms" Annual Soyuz
Symposium, Yale University.
2008a The Revival of ChOd (gcod) in the Gelug school as a Cultural Link Between
Mongolian and Tibetan Worlds. Buddhism and the Third Millennium
Conference, Ulan-Ude, Russia.
2008b North Asia Meets South Asia: Buryat Buddhists in India" at the Annual
Fulbright Conference, Jaipur, India.
2007 Pilgrims, Fieldworkers, and Secret Agents: Buryat Buddhologists and Eurasian
Imaginary. Annual Soyuz Symposium: "Locating "Eurasia" in Post-Socialist
Studies: The Geopolitics of Naming, Princeton University.
2006a From Wild Men to Businessmen: Shamanic Transformations in Buryatia.
Workshop Reassessing Religion in Siberia and Neighboring Regions, Max
Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, Halle, Germany.
2006b Remapping Sacred Landscapes: Tourism and National Identity in Olkhon
Island, Panel: Sacred Landscapes and Shamans in North Asia, Annual
Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Jose.
2006c Food for the Gods: The Matter of Sacrifice among the Shamans and Buddhists
of Buryatia, Panel: Powerful Objects: Materiality and Metonymy in Four Asian
Religious Communities, American Academy of Religion Annual Meeting,
Washington DC.
2006d Is Siberian Buddhism Really Tibetan? Presented at the SSRC Eurasia
Program/Princeton University Institute for International and Regional Studies
Dissertation Development Workshop, "Russia and Eurasia in World Context: A
Dialogue with East Asian Studies."
2004 Navajo Religion, Conference Cultural Links Between Ancient America and
Siberia, Buryatia, Russia.
2002a Beyond Realism: Representation of Religious Experience in Ethnographic
Film, at the Audiovisual Recordings of Traditional Culture panel,
International Methodological Seminar, Russia.
2002b Buddhist Revival in Buryatia at the Contemporary Mongol Groups panel,
Mongolia Society/Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, Washington DC.
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TEACHING EXPERIENCE
Courses Taught:
2011 (Spring) Shamans, Nomads, and Commissars: Introduction to North Asia.
2011 (Fall) Anthropology of Death and the Afterlife
2012 (Spring) Anthropology of Buddhism
Teaching Assistantships:
2004- 2007New York University, Department of Anthropology.
Designed and led two interactive discussion sections a week, graded papers and
exams, advised students on research projects for the following courses:
2007 World Cultures: Russia Between East and West. Professor Eliot Borenstein.
2006 Anthropology of Religion. Professor T.O. Beidelman.
2006 Linguistic Anthropology. Professor Don Kulick.
2005 Human Society and Culture. Professor Lok Siu.
2005 Cultural Symbols. Professor T.O. Beidelman.
2004 Witchcraft: An Anthropological Approach. Professor T.O. Beidelman.
FIELDWORK
2007-2008Dissertation Fieldwork, India (Karnataka and Dharamsala), Russia (Buryatia and
Chita region), Moscow, St. Petersburg, archival research.
Summer 2004 Pre-dissertation field and archival research, Moscow, Buryatia (Bernstein
2008a).
Summer 2001MA Fieldwork. Tibetan Diaspora and Buddhist Revival in Buryatia (Bernstein
2002).
March 2001 Pilot Research for MA. Tibetan Monastic Education, Dharamsala, India
.LANGUAGES
Russian (native), English (near native), French (fluent), Italian (advanced), Spanish
(intermediate), Tibetan (intermediate colloquial), Malayalam (basic),
Latin (reading), Old Church Slavonic and Old Russian (reading).SELECTED FILM SCREENINGS
2009 Centre d'Etudes mongoles et sibEriennes, EPHE, Sorbonne, Paris.
2009 State Ethnographic Museum, Warsaw, Poland.
2009 Linden State Museum of Ethnology, Stuttgart, Germany.
2009 International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, China.
th
2009 11 RAI Ethnographic Film Festival, Leeds, UK.
2008 Delhi International Ethnographic Festival, India.
2008 Nordic Anthropological Film Festival, Iceland.
2008 Dialektus Film Festival, Hungary.
2007 Viscult, Festival of Visual Culture, Finland.
2007 Globians Film Festival, Potsdam, Germany.
2007 The International Society for Shamanistic Research, Budapest, Hungary.
2007 Association for the Study of Nationalities Convention, Columbia University.
2007 Eyes and Lenses IV, Ethnographic Film Festival, Warsaw, Poland.
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2007Ethnographic Film Festival of MontrEal, Canada.
2006Festival de Filme Documentario e Etnografico, Belo Horizonte, Brazil
.
2006XV International Festival of Ethnological Film, Belgrade, Serbia
.
2006SVA Film and Video Festival, AAA Meeting, San Jose, CA.
2006 Moscow Festival of Visual Anthropology, Russia.
2006Sardinia Ethnographic Film Festival, Italy
.
2006GOttingen International Film Festival, Germany.
2006XV Bilan du Film Ethnographique, Paris
.
2006 Tibet House, New York.
2005 Regards ComparEs: Mongolie, MusEe de l Homme, Paris.
2005Buddhist Film Festival, San Francisco.
2004 Asia Film Festival, Finland.
2004Heard Museum Indigenous Film Festival, Phoenix, Arizona.
2004 North American Interfaith Network Film Festival, New York.
2003 Religion Today, 6th International Festival of Cinema and Religion. Trento, Italy.
2003 8th Royal Anthropological Institute Festival of Ethnographic Film, UK.
2003 Association for Asian Studies Annual Meeting, New York.
2003 DC Independent Film Festival, Washington DC.
2002 XVI PArnu International Documentary and Anthropology Film Festival, Estonia.
2002XXI Bilan du Film Ethnographique, MusEe de l Homme, Paris, France.
2002American Anthropological Association Film and Video Festival, New Orleans
.
2002 III Russian Festival of Anthropological Films,
Salekhard, Russia.
TRANSLATION
2002-2006 Anthropology and Archeology of Eurasia, Journal of Translations
Translated anthropological manuscripts, articles, and parts of books, which best
reflect developments in anthropology and archeology in Russia and the former
Soviet Union, from Russian to English.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE AND AFFILIATIONS
Peer-reviewer (journal articles): Cultural Anthropology; Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute;
Comparative Studies in Society and History.
Peer-reviewer (proposals and applications): Michigan Society of Fellows, Center for
Global Change and
Arctic Systems Research, University of Alaska.
Member:
American Anthropological Association; Society for Cultural Anthropology; Society for
Visual
Anthropology; American Academy of Religion; Central Eurasian Studies Society; Soyuz
Network of
Postsocialist Anthropologists; American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies
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