Dr. Timothy J. Smith

Contact Dr. Smith

PhD. Anthropology

University at Albany, SUNY, 2004

About Dr. Smith:

Timothy Smith did his undergraduate work at Tulane University, where he received a BA in Latin American Studies and a BS in Anthropology. He did his graduate work at the University at Albany, SUNY, where he completed his MA and PhD in Anthropology under the direction of Gary Gossen and Robert Carmack. Given his training in both Latin American Studies and a four-field approach to anthropology, his research is interdisciplinary and spans across the fields of cultural anthropology, history, linguistics, art history, cultural studies, comparative literature, political science, and critical theory. His research and writings have been supported by awards and fellowships from Harvard University, Columbia University, Fulbright, National Science Foundation, Hewlett Foundation, U.S. Department of Education, the Institute for Mesoamerican Studies (SUNY), Center for Advanced Study (Illinois), and the Stone Center for Latin American Studies (Tulane). His teaching deals with the cultural production and art history of pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, politics of representation and indigenous movements, contemporary Latin America, and identity formation. Currently, he is completing a book on the cultural legacy, history, and leadership of the Kaqchikel Maya of Sololá, Guatemala from 1490-2003, which focuses on intra-communal struggles over representation and identity formation under colonial rule and in the post-colonial/post-war era.

Selected Publications:

• Views from the “South”: Intellectual Hegemony and Postmodernism in Latin America. Reviews in Anthropology 35, 1 (2006):61-78.

• Skipping Years and Scribal Errors: Kaqchikel Maya Timekeeping in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries. Ancient Mesoamerica 13, 1 (2002):65-76.

• “Form and Function in Kaqchikel Word Order” (with George Aaron Broadwell). Proceedings of the 37th meeting of the Chicago Linguistic Society, Mary Andronis, Christopher Ball, Heidi Elston, and Sylvain Neuval. Volume 2 (2002) pp. 1-16.

• The Guatemala Reader (edited with Greg Grandin, Deborah Levenson, Elizabeth Oglesby, and Luis Solano). Duke University Press (under contract).

• Mayas in Post-War Guatemala: Harvest of Violence Revisited (edited with Walter Little). Louisiana State University Press (under contract).

• Autoridad y Gobierno Kaqchikel de Sololá/Runuk’ulem ri Kaqchikel Q’atbäl Tzij richin Tz’olöj Ya’ (Sololá Kaqchikel Authority and Government) (with the Indigenous Municipal Government of Sololá, Guatemala). Bilingual: In Kaqchikel Mayan and Spanish. Yax Te’ Books (under contract).

• “Journey of a Canadian Journalist: Celebrity Engagement and Representation in Highland Guatemala.” Anthropology and the Politics of Representation, eds. Gabriela Vargas Cetina and Stacy Lathrop, eds. University of California Press (under review).

Recent Conference Presentations

2006

• "Challenging Citizenship and Exploration Contracts: The Case of the Anti-Mining Movement in Guatemala and Emerging Forms of (Indigenous) Activism.” Paper read at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (San Jose).

• “Dancers and Bats: Social Hierarchies and Linguistic Underpinnings in a Colonial Mayan Manuscript.” Paper read at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Society for Ethnohistory (Williamsburg).

• "Teaching our Culture, Teaching our Law: The Uneasy Politics of Mayan Language Revival and Foreign Aid Donors in Post-War Guatemala.” Paper read at the 2006 Annual Meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association (Princeton University).

2004

• “Put the Camera Down and Step Away from the Recorder”: Ethical Struggles of a Canadian Journalist.” Paper read at the 2004 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (San Francisco).

• A Brief History of Indigenous Governments and Declarations of Political Emergency in Guatemala.” Paper read at the 2004 American Ethnological Society Meetings (Atlanta).

2003

• “Democracy is Dissent: Political Mobilization in a Rural Guatemalan Town.” Paper read at the 2003 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (Chicago).

• “White Brother, Black King: The Anthropologist as Paparazzi/Celebrity in Rural Guatemala.” Paper read at the 2003 American Ethnological Society Meetings (Providence).

• “Hidden Works, Suppressed Potentials: Prosthetic Gender in the Resurgence of Kaqchikel Maya Government.” Paper read at the XXIV International Congress of the Latin American Studies Association (Dallas).

• “The Virgin, the Rosary, Osama bin Laden, and Other Mysteries of War: Demonic Naming and Indigenous Conflict in post-9/11 Guatemala.” Paper read at the Columbia

• University Graduate Student Conference on Twentieth-Century Latin America.