View CV - Wayne State University

CURRICULUM VITA
______________________________________________________
Eric J. Montgomery, Ph.D.
Adjunct Professor
Wayne State University
College for Creative Studies
Detroit, Michigan, 48202
313-600-1421
[email protected]
[email protected]
Education
PhD
2005 Wayne State University: Detroit, MI, USA.
MA
2000 Wayne State University: Detroit, MI, USA.
BA
1997 University of Michigan: MI, USA.
Employment History
Fall 2014-Current
Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Wayne State University,
Instructor
Fall 2006-2014
Wayne State University, Irvin D. Reid Honors College, Senior
Lecturer
Business Anthropology and Globalization / Urban Anthropology
Fall 2007-Current
Wayne State University, Department of Anthropology. Adjunct
Faculty, Business Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Africa
2004-05
Eastern Michigan University, Adjunct Faculty, Anthropology of
Religion
2003-04
Wayne County Community College, Instructor, Geography,
Sociology and Anthropology
2001-04
Wayne State University, GTA, Various Courses in Anthropology:
Archaeology, Physical Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology
Recent Teaching and Research
For a decade I have taught in the Irvin D. Reid Honors College and in the Anthropology
department at Wayne State University in inner-city Detroit. My teaching philosophy
involves relativity, holism, and the power of culture. Recently I have been modifying my
pedagogical approach to involve: ethnography, service learning, cultural passports, flip
videos, and community engagement. My courses range from cultural anthropology and
ethnography at the undergraduate level to anthropology of design and global
anthropology at the graduate level. My research is on Ewes people of Ghana and Togo in
West Africa with a focus on political-economy, ritual, and the anthropology of religion.
Recently we completed two ethnographic films on Ewe culture and have various
publications forthcoming. I also investigate “American Cities” and contemporary trends
in American “city life”.
Teaching and Research Interests
1. Anthropology of Religion
2. Cultural Anthropology / Ethnography
3. Global Foundations
4. Anthropology Methods and Theory
5. Detroit: In Focus
6. City and Citizenship
7. Anthropology of Africa
8. Doing Visual Anthropology
9. Business Anthropology
10. Service Learning and Activist Anthropology
Honors and Awards
2014
February, “Professor of the Semester”, recognized by Wayne State Student
Senate
2012
Honorable Mention, “Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo”,
Ahueafa.org, Film Festival, Paris, France
2010-12
Presidents Distinguished Teaching Award Finalist, Wayne State University
2003–04
Thomas Rumble Award Fellow, received Fall and Winter funding for six
Months of field research Ghana, Togo; West Africa
2002-03
Received three awards to travel abroad to West Africa to study: Aswad
Award, Kaplan Prize and Global Education Scholarship, Wayne State
University
1998
Co-Authored grant from Greenpeace via Clean Water Action to study
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Senate Bill 778 and House Bill 1462, African Growth Act.
1993
Selected as “United States Student Ambassador” by People to People. A
study trip to Russia to study political science and economics before I
entered college (Moscow State University)
Dissertation
“Converting the
Converters: The Transformative Power of Ewe Gorovodu Rituals in
Modernity” [December 2005]
M.A. Thesis
“No Freedom in Bureaucracy: Notes from a Detroit Refugee Center” [May 1999]
Publications and Research
Ethnography of a Shrine: Sensing Sacred Voodoo in Togo, [forthcoming] (book proposal
approved, awaiting manuscript), BRILL Publications: Religion in Africa series 2015
Plants, Spirits, and Proverbs; (submitted to Applied Anthropology); December 2015
Chasing the Spirit (FILM REVIEW of our film) Comparative Studies in Society and
History, Cambridge: Volume 57: 1, (August 2015) [forthcoming]
The Use of Medicinal Plants amongst Vodu Practitioners in Southern Togo; submitted to
Transforming Anthropology, September, 2014 (full review)
Slavery, Spirit Possession and Mimesis in Ewe Voodoo; (re-submitted to AFRICA,
December, 2014) [revise and resubmit]
Testing Syncretism: Voodoo and Orisha in Africa and Latin America; (under review
Anthropology Theory, December, 2014).
African Herbsmen: Healing and Religion along the Bight of Benin, (37 minute), Film,
Amazon.com:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NVBmMYV70us&feature=youtube_gdata_player
Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo, (67 minutes) An ethnographic film on
Ewe Gorovodu religion in Togo, West Africa. Amazon.com:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFWiIqlgoIM.
“Activist Anthropology” in Anthropology News, January 2012
“Habitat for Humanity Detroit”, Produced and Directed a short PR film on Habitat for
Humanity Detroit”, in cooperation with Philadelphia Soul Foundation (May 2011)
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“Rock to the Beat,” documentary film about Detroit Electronic Music Festival (2001)
PBS, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Producer
Fieldwork
Current
Overseeing some student visual projects in Detroit, Detroit History and
Architecture College for Creative Studies, Wayne State University
2013
Intensive ethnographic research in southern Togo, home village of
Gbedala [Archival, film, interview, participant-observation, focus group]
2012
Did preliminary fieldwork on Indian Hindu Temples in Greater-Detroit;
and also documenting Detroit architecture and culture
2011
Two months of plant medicine research in Tepa, Tema, Accra, Cape
Coast, Ghana
2009-current Urban anthropological research in Detroit working with 501 3C and other
NGO and governmental organizations, Wayne State, CCS
2003–04
Ethnographic field research in Southern Togo, Ghana and Benin,
conducted doctoral research
2002
Cotonou, Benin, West Africa. I carried out preliminary fieldwork
on Ewe and Fon religion. Also studied French and Ewe languages at
CE.BE.LA.E (Centre Les Langues Etrangeres, Cotonou, Benin)
2000
Eight months of participant-observation at Freedom House, a refugee
center on Detroit’s southwest border with Canada
Recent Lectures and Co-curricular Activity
2015
[Forthcoming] Humanities Brown Bag symposium, “Assessing
Globalization: From the African Village to the Detroit Ghetto”; Wayne
State University, Center for Peace and Conflict, Anthropology Department
2013
Paper on “Ewe Syncretism” at American Anthropological Association
Annual Meetings. Chicago, Ill, (November)
2012
Film Screening of African Herbsmen at Wayne State University
2012
Premiere of film Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo at the
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Detroit,
Michigan, (February)
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2012
International Premiere of Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo,
at Cine 104, Paris, France (March). Info also at togoculture.com and
ahuefa.org
2012
Live interview on WDET (Public Radio) with Craig Fahle Show.
Discussing Chasing the Spirit, (January)
2012
Lecture on African Plant Medicine. American Anthropological
Association Annual Meetings, San Francisco, California, USA
2011
Poster Presentation on Service-Learning in Detroit. American
Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Montreal, Canada
2011
Lecture on “Africa, America, and the Making of the Soul”, Pro-World
Symposium on African Culture, University of Ghana-Cape Coast, Cape
Coast, Ghana
References
Jerry Herron
Dean of Irvin D. Reid Honors College, Wayne State University,
313-577-3030 / [email protected]
Thomas Killion
Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology, Chair, Wayne State
University, Detroit, MI (313) 577-2935/
[email protected]
Christian Vannier
Visiting Professor of Anthropology, Grand Valley State University
Grand Rapids, MI, 248-388-1716
Guerin Montilus
Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Wayne State University,
(313) 577-2935 / [email protected]
Kevin Rashid
Undergraduate Curriculum Coordinator, Honors College, Wayne
State University, (313)577-3030, [email protected]
David Akin
Managing Editor, Comparative Studies in Society and History,
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (734) 477-5793 /
[email protected]
Judy Rosenthal
Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan-Flint,
Flint, MI 810-766-6616 / [email protected]
Eric James Montgomery
5
1933 Haynes Street
Birmingham, MI 48009
313-600-1421
313-577-3506
[email protected]
(Dr. Montgomery in the field at Gbedala village. Southern Togo, West Africa, 2013)
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