Rhode Island College

Faculty Member, Anthropology

Other Affiliations: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee, Center on Age and Community

Thesis Title: Departure and Return: Abandonment, Memorial and Aging in Japan

About

I am a socio-cultural/psychological/medical anthropologist interested in religious phenomenology and psycho-social development over the life course.  I approach these topics critically, with attention to the ways in which they are co-constructed within institutions and discourses of health, morality and the self. My area focus is contemporary urban Japan, where I have spent over four years studying Japanese language and culture (2.5 in Tokyo, 2 in Kyoto).  My research on the use of religious ritual to manage grief experiences by older adults in Kyoto, Japan has been funded by an IIE Fulbright Grant, UC Pacific Rim Grant, the Melford E. Spiro Dissertation Award and a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Center on Age & Community, UW Milwaukee. I'm interested in the topics of grief, mourning and mortuary ritual; the phenomenology of trauma in late life; pilgrimage and narrative; and religion, spirituality and health.
I am currently Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Rhode Island College. My current research involves looking at ways to collaborate with social gerontologists and researchers in mental health, in the US, Japan and East Asia to look at cultural conceptions of loss and recovery.

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