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Myrdene Anderson

Associate Professor of Anthropology and Linguistics Office: STON 356
Office Phone: (765) 494-4687
Email: myanders@purdue.edu

Specialization: Ethnological theory, linguistics, semiotics, cognitive science, ecological anthropology, ethnobiology, systems theory, critical theory, nonequilibrium dynamics, and philosophy of science.  Lapland, Fennoscandia, circumpolar cultures, regions of pastoralism and nomadism, areas of high latitudes and high altitudes, including Mongolia.

Courses: Taught (Last two years)

ANTH 205—Human Cultural Diversity
ANTH 414/LING 498—Introduction to Language and Culture
ANTH 514/LING 598—Anthropological Linguistics
ANTH 519/LING 598/AUS 570/COM 507/ENGL 570/FLL 570—Introduction to Semiotics
ANTH 605/LING 689—Seminar in Ethnographic Analysis (qualitative methodology).


Dr. Anderson has engaged in ethnographic research in a variety of settings, ranging from community garden associations in the U.S.A. to the international and interdisciplinary movement of artificial life in biology, but she is best known for her fieldwork among Saami reindeer-breeders in Norwegian Lapland, which research commenced in 1971 and continues to date.  She has published over 150 articles and chapters in a variety of venues on a plethora of topics, and has edited a number of volumes on human-alloanimal ethology, on ethnicity and identity, on semiotic modeling, on the cultural construction of trash, on mathematics education, and on violence. Since 1983, more than 50 international and transdisciplinary symposia have been organized by Anderson.  She has also been active on editorial boards of publications and on executive boards of professional societies.  She served as president of the Central States Anthropological Society in 1993, and as president of the Semiotic Society of America in 1996.  In 2003, Anderson was on a Fulbright in Estonia, where she both engaged in research and instructed in semiotics; as a courtesy, she also offered a semiotics course at the University of Helsinki.  She has taught anthropology, linguistics, and semiotics and is responsible for one undergraduate core course (ANTH 414/LING 498—Language and Culture) and two graduate core courses (ANTH 514/LING 598—Anthropological Linguistics, and ANTH 605/LING 689—Ethnographic Analysis).

Positions at Purdue University

2005                     Interim Chair, Linguistics
1986- present        Associate Professor of Anthropology
1984-1986             Tenured Assistant Professor of Anthropology
1978-1984             Assistant Professor of Anthropology

Service to the Profession

Editorial Board, Semiotica, 2002 - present

Editorial Board, The American Journal of Semiotics, 1996 – present

President, Semiotic Society of America, 1996

President, Central States Anthropological Society, 1993

Honors and Awards

Fulbright Visiting Professor, Semiotics, University of Tartu, Estonia, 2003

Fellow, American Anthropological Association, 1991

Fellow, The Center for Philosophy of Science, University of Pittsburgh, 1988

Fellow, The American Scandinavian Foundation, 1979- 

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