Andrew Buckser

Anthropology of religion, medical anthropology, psychological anthropology, anthropology of modernity, anthropology of Europe, Scandinavia

Taught (Last two years)

ANTH 100, Introduction to Anthropology
ANTH 205, Human Cultural Diversity.
ANTH 341/Sociology 341, Culture and Personality
ANTH 506, Development of Modern Anthropology
ANTH 673, Seminar in the Anthropology of Religion

Andrew Buckser is a cultural anthropologist who studies the effects of social change on religious systems and on understandings of illness. He has conducted much of his research in Denmark, where he has done fieldwork with a variety of religious groups. His first study, in the early 1990s, explored the development of several Protestant sects in rural Jutland. Subsequently he worked with members of the Jewish community in Copenhagen, investigating changes in the Jewish experience there over the course of the twentieth century. His recent work has turned to Indiana, where he conducts fieldwork and interviews among people with the neurological disorder known as Tourette Syndrome. In each of these settings, he has asked how changing cultural systems shape notions of self, and conversely, how individual struggles for self-identity influence the development of larger cultural models. This work has been published in a variety of journals in anthropology, sociology, religious studies, and ethnic studies. Dr. Buckser has also published three books on his research: Communities of Faith: Sectarianism, Identity, and Social Change on a Danish Island (Berghahn 1996); After the Rescue: Jewish Identity and Community in Contemporary Denmark (Palgrave Macmillan 2003); and The Anthropology of Religious Conversion (Rowman and Littlefield 2003), edited with Stephen Glazier.

Dr. Buckser received his B.A. in anthropology from Harvard in 1986, and his Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1993. He helped found the Society for the Anthropology of Religion in 1997; he currently serves on its board, and is chair of the Clifford Geertz Book Prize in the Anthropology of Religion. He served as Chair of Anthropology from 2005 to 2008, and is currently Director of Undergraduate Studies.

Positions at Purdue University

2009 - present Professor of Anthropology
2001 – 2009 Associate Professor of Anthropology
1995 – 2001 Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Service to the Profession

Chair, Clifford Geertz Prize in the Anthropology of Religion, 2007-2009.

Executive Board, Society for the Anthropology of Religion, 2005-2009

Treasurer, Society for the Anthropology of Religion, 1997-2004.

Five Most Important Publications

Andrew Buckser, “Institutions, Agency, and Illness in the Making of Tourette Syndrome.” Human Organization 68:3:293-306, 2009.
 
Andrew Buckser, “Before Your Very Eyes: Illness, Agency, and the Management of Tourette Syndrome.” Medical Anthropology Quarterly 22:2:167-192, 2008.

Andrew Buckser, 2003. After the Rescue: Jewish Identity and Community in Contemporary Denmark. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Andrew Buckser and Stephen D. Glazier, Eds., 2003. The Anthropology of Religious Conversion. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield.

Andrew Buckser, 1996. Communities of Faith: Sectarianism, Identity, and Social Change on a Danish Island. Providence: Berghahn.

Two Most Recent Journal Articles

Andrew Buckser, ³Secularization, Religiosity, and the Anthropology of
Jewry.² Journal of Modern Jewish Studies 10:2:205-222, 2011.

Andrew Buckser, ³Field Assignments in the Anthropology of Religion: A
Practical Guide.² Religion and Society: Advances in Research
1(1):177-184, 2010.

Field Experience

2010-present, Denmark: Research on the cultural construction of Tourette Syndrome.

2005-present, Indiana: Ethnographic fieldwork and interviewing with individuals with Tourette’s Syndrome

1996-2002, Denmark: Ethnographic fieldwork with Jewish Community in Copenhagen, carried out in multiple visits.

1990-1992, Denmark: Ethnographic fieldwork with members of Protestant religious groups on Mors and Fur Islands.