Barbara Ann Babcock (August 7, 1943 – February 6, 2016) was an American folklore scholar, professor of Comparative Cultural and Literary Studies, Women's Studies, and American Indian Studies at the

University of Arizona The University of Arizona (Arizona, U of A, UArizona, or UA) is a public land-grant research university in Tucson, Arizona. Founded in 1885 by the 13th Arizona Territorial Legislature, it was the first university in the Arizona Territory. T ...

Early life

Babcock was from Danville, Pennsylvania, the daughter of John Reed Babcock. Her father was a medical doctor affiliated with Geisinger Medical Center. She earned a bachelor's degree in comparative literature from

Northwestern University Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world. Charte ...

in 1965. She completed doctoral studies at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

in 1975, with a dissertation titled "Mirrors, Masks, and Metafiction: Studies in Narrative Reflexivity". In 1977–1978, she held the Weatherhead Fellowship at the School for Advanced Research in

Santa Fe, New Mexico Santa Fe ( ; , Spanish for 'Holy Faith'; tew, Oghá P'o'oge, Tewa for 'white shell water place'; tiw, Hulp'ó'ona, label=Tiwa language, Northern Tiwa; nv, Yootó, Navajo for 'bead + water place') is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. ...

, to work on a post-doctoral project, "Pueblo Ritual Clowning."

Career

Babcock taught at the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,075 ...

, before she joined the faculty at the

in 1980. Her research involved Pueblo culture, women's work, and storytelling. Books written or edited by Babcock included ''The Pueblo Storyteller: Development of a Figurative Ceramic Tradition'' (1986, with Guy Monthan and Doris Born Monthan), ''The Reversible World: Essays on Symbolic Inversion'', ''Daughters of the Desert: Women Anthropologists and the Native American Southwest, 1880–1980'' (1988, with Nancy J. Parezo), an illustrated catalog published to accompany a museum exhibit and conference of the same title, ''Pueblo Mothers and Children: Essays by

Elsie Clews Parsons Elsie Worthington Clews Parsons (November 27, 1875 – December 19, 1941) was an American anthropologist, sociologist, folklorist, and feminist who studied Native American tribes—such as the Tewa and Hopi—in Arizona, New Mexico, and Mexi ...

, 1915–1924'' (1991), and ''The Great Southwest of the Fred Harvey Company and the Santa Fe Railway'' (1996, with

Marta Weigle Marta Weigle (July 3, 1944 – June 14, 2018) was an American anthropologist and folklorist. Weigle earned her doctorate from the University of Pennsylvania in 1971, and began teaching English and anthropology at the University of New Mexico the n ...

). She edited special issues of journals including "Signs About Signs: The Semiotics of Self-Reference" (a special issue of ''

Semiotica ''Semiotica'' is an academic journal covering semiotics. It is the official journal of the International Association for Semiotic Studies. Publication Since 2000, the journal publishes five issues per year. It is published in English and French. ...

''), "Inventing the Southwest: Region as Commodity" (1990, a special issue of the '' Journal of the Southwest''), and "Bodylore" (1994, a special issue of the Journal of American Folklore). Babcock served as president of the

Society for Humanistic Anthropology The American Anthropological Association (AAA) is an organization of scholars and practitioners in the field of anthropology. With 10,000 members, the association, based in Arlington, Virginia, includes archaeologists, cultural anthropologists, ...

and director of the

Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women The Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women was established in 1981 at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, as an interdisciplinary research center focused on gender and women. In addition to research, the center is home to arch ...

Brown University Brown University is a private research university in Providence, Rhode Island. Brown is the seventh-oldest institution of higher education in the United States, founded in 1764 as the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providenc ...

Personal life

Babcock married Thaddeus John Koza in 1965. She died in 2016, at her home in Tucson, aged 72 years.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Babcock, Barbara A. 1943 births 2016 deaths People from Danville, Pennsylvania University of Chicago alumni American folklorists American women folklorists American anthropologists American women anthropologists University of Arizona alumni University of Texas at Austin faculty Northwestern University alumni