gpossehl@sas.upenn.edu
Curator Emeritus, Asia Section and Professor of Anthropology
Specialties/Interests:
Archaic urbanization and the state
Multilinear sociocultural change and heterarchy
The Indus Civilization
Ancient India
Ancient Arabia
Third Millennium Middle Asian Interaction Sphere
Current/Past Research:
Dr. Possehl has spent much of his career studying the Indus Civilization of India and Pakistan. He has conducted major excavations in Gujarat (Rojdi, Babar Kot and Oriyo Timbo) and
Rajasthan (Gilund) aimed at furthering our understanding of the frontiers of this civilization.
In January 2007, he took up an excavation at the UNESCO World Heritage site of Bat in the Sultanate of Oman. Bat is a third millennium town in the interior of Oman, with monumental stone towers and some habitation. In addition to the indigenous material culture, excavations have shown that there is a significant amount of pottery from the Indus civilization. The research at Bat is aimed at furthering our understanding of the town of Bat and its participation in the Third Millennium Middle Asian Interaction Sphere, especially the maritime activity along the northern rim of the Arabian Sea.
Link:
Gregory Possehl's homepage
Gilund
Research
Dr.
Paula L.W. Sabloff
psabloff@sas.upenn.edu
Senior Research Scientist and Acting Curator, Asian Section, Penn Museum;
Adjunct Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology; Graduate Group
member, Doctoral Program in Social Welfare, School of Social Work; Faculty
Associate, Harnwell House, University of Pennsylvania
Specialties/Interests:
Mongolia,
USA;
Political anthropology,
Political economy, and Political philosophy,
Globalization,
Applied and practicing anthropology, Research methods
Current/Past Research: Dr. Sabloff recently undertook research concerning Mongolians’ ideas on democracy and capitalism. She is currently analyzing data from the 1998, 1999, and 2003 field seasons, which were funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, IREX (International Research and Exchanges Board), Annette Merle-Smith, and Robert and Lois Baylis. She received an Ethel-Jane Westfeldt Bunting Fellowship from the School of American Research to begin work on the analysis in the summer of 2004.
This is being disseminated through international and national conferences, scholarly journals, and works for the public. A book comparing the views of different parts of the Mongolian population -- herders, business people, and government workers; young and old; Buddhist and Muslim; etc. – is in the works.
Dr. Sabloff curated the 2001-2003 exhibition, "Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan," which started in the Penn Museum and traveled to the National Museum of Natural History (Smithsonian) and Middlebury College. In Spring 2007, she organized with Dr. Frederik Hiebert and led an International Research Conference, “Mapping Mongolia,” which brought together scholars from multiple disciplines to discuss Mongolia’s place in the world. In addition to her research, Dr. Sabloff teaches courses for the Department of Anthropology: "Anthropology and Philosophy," has Penn undergraduates combine original community research with ethnographic and philosophical readings; "Research Methods in Cultural Anthropology" for graduate and undergraduate students prepares students in several departments and schools for their own research; and "Anthropology and Policy: History, Theory, Practice," teaches students how to apply their anthropological knowledge to the policy world through experience, reading, and discussion.
Links:
Paula
Sabloff's faculty profile
"Modern
Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan" publication
"Modern
Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan" exhibition website
Research
at Penn Center
for East Asian Studies profile
Dr. Nancy
Shatzman Steinhardt
Curator
of Chinese Art; Professor of East Asian, Department of East Asian Languages
and Civilizations
Specialties/Interests:
East Asian architecture and urban planning, particularly 2nd through
14th centuries; problems that result from the interaction between Chinese
art and that of China’s borders, particularly to China’s North,
Northeast, and Northwest.
Current/Past Research:
Dr. Steinhardt has taught at Penn since 1982, previously having taught at
Bryn Mawr College and University of Delaware. She was a visiting professor
in the Kunsthistorische Institut, University of Heidelberg, in 1996. Dr.
Steinhardt received her PhD in Fine Arts at Harvard in 1981 and was a Junior
Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows from 1978-81. She received her
A.B. summa cum laude from Washington University in 1974.
She is author of Chinese Traditional Architecture (China Institute,
1984), Chinese Imperial City Planning (Hawaii, 1990), Liao Architecture
(Hawaii, 1997), and editor and adaptor of A History of Chinese Architecture
(Yale, 2002), more than 40 scholarly articles, and more than 30 book reviews.
She has given more than 120 public lectures or conference talks.
Dr. Steinhardt has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation,
National Endowment for the Humanities, American Council of Learned Societies,
American Philosophical Society, Graham Foundation for Advanced Study in
the Fine Arts, Social Science Research Foundation, and Chiang Ching-kuo
Foundation. She is a member of 12 professional organizations.
Senior Research Scientist, Asian Section;
Director, Ban Chiang Project; Principal Investigator, Middle Mekong Archaeological
Project; Adjunct Faculty, Department of Anthropology
Specialties/Interests:
Archaeology of mainland Southeast Asia, especially Thailand and Laos
Ethnoecology
Palaeoenvironmental reconstruction
Development of prehistoric agriculture
Heterarchy and house societies
Methodology of site analysis
Early metallurgy
Current/Past Research:
Dr. White's current research focuses on two projects: the Ban Chiang Project in Thailand and the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP) in Laos. The Ban Chiang Project's efforts are currently devoted to final analysis and publication of Penn Museum's 1974-75 excavations in a Thai Archaeology Monograph Series, for which Dr. White is series editor. The volume on prehistoric metallurgy of northern northeast Thailand is the next volume in final stages of preparation. Recent funding for the Ban Chiang Project has come from the Henry Luce Foundation and Friends of Ban Chiang.
In 2005 MMAP undertook an exploratory survey in Luang Prabang Province looking for Middle Holocene sites (c. 6000-2000 BC). This survey was funded by the National Geographic Society and the National Science Foundation's High Risk Archaeology Program. In 2006, MMAP undertook a brief field season in Luang Prabang in February/March to finish data compilation from the previous year's survey and assed the results for possible future excavations. In July 2007, White directed an MMAP test excavation at Phou Phaa Khao Rockshelter, one of the sites found during the 2005 survey
Links:
Ban
Chiang Project public website
Middle Mekong Archaeology
Project
Museum's Southeast
Asian scholarly website
Dr.
Gautam Ghosh
Dr. Gregory L. Possehl