Barbara Helen Tedlock (born September 9, 1942) is an American

cultural anthropologist Cultural anthropology is a branch of anthropology focused on the study of cultural variation among humans. It is in contrast to social anthropology, which perceives cultural variation as a subset of a posited anthropological constant. The portman ...

and Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York, Buffalo. Her work explores cross-cultural understanding and communication of

dream A dream is a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that usually occur involuntarily in the mind during certain stages of sleep. Humans spend about two hours dreaming per night, and each dream lasts around 5 to 20 minutes, althou ...

ethnomedicine Ethnomedicine is a study or comparison of the traditional medicine based on bioactive compounds in plants and animals and practiced by various ethnic groups, especially those with little access to western medicines, e.g., indigenous peoples. The ...

, and

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

and focuses on the

indigenous Indigenous may refer to: *Indigenous peoples *Indigenous (ecology), presence in a region as the result of only natural processes, with no human intervention *Indigenous (band), an American blues-rock band *Indigenous (horse), a Hong Kong racehorse ...

Zuni of the Southwestern United States and the Kʼicheʼ

Maya Maya may refer to: Civilizations * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Maya language, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (Ethiopia), a populat ...

Mesoamerica Mesoamerica is a historical region and cultural area in southern North America and most of Central America. It extends from approximately central Mexico through Belize, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, and northern Costa Rica. W ...

. Through her study and practice of the healing traditions of the Kʼicheʼ

Guatemala Guatemala ( ; ), officially the Republic of Guatemala ( es, República de Guatemala, links=no), is a country in Central America. It is bordered to the north and west by Mexico; to the northeast by Belize and the Caribbean; to the east by H ...

, Tedlock became initiated into

shamanism Shamanism is a religious practice that involves a practitioner (shaman) interacting with what they believe to be a Spirit world (Spiritualism), spirit world through Altered state of consciousness, altered states of consciousness, such as tranc ...

. She is the collaborator and wife of the late anthropologist and poet

Dennis Tedlock Dennis Ernest Tedlock (June 19, 1939 – June 3, 2016) was the McNulty Professor of English and Research Professor of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He received his Ph.D. in 1968 from Tulane University. In 1986, he ...

Early life and education

Barbara Helen Tedlock was born in Battle Creek, Michigan, to Byron Taylor and Mona Gerteresse (O'Connor) McGrath. Tedlock earned a Bachelor's degree in Rhetoric from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

in 1967. In 1973, she earned a Master's in Anthropology and Ethnomusicology from

Wesleyan University Wesleyan University ( ) is a Private university, private liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut. Founded in 1831 as a Men's colleges in the United States, men's college under the auspices of the Methodist Epis ...

. Tedlock completed her PhD in Anthropology at

SUNY Albany The State University of New York at Albany, commonly referred to as the University at Albany, UAlbany or SUNY Albany, is a Public university, public research university with campuses in Albany, New York, Albany, Rensselaer, New York, Rensselae ...

in 1978.

Career

After earning her PhD, Tedlock taught at

Tufts University Tufts University is a private research university on the border of Medford and Somerville, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1852 as Tufts College by Christian universalists who sought to provide a nonsectarian institution of higher learning. ...

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial Colleges, fourth-oldest ins ...

, 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 ...

, and the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a public university, public research university with campuses near Vancouver and in Kelowna, British Columbia. Established in 1908, it is British Columbia's oldest university. The university ranks a ...

. In 1987, Tedlock joined the State University of New York, Buffalo anthropology faculty. That same year, she edited ''Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations'', an anthology significant for presenting cross-cultural perspectives on dreaming. The collection featured cultural perspectives that challenge the typical Western conception of dreaming as a phenomenon existing completely separate from

objective reality In philosophy, objectivity is the concept of truth independent from individual subjectivity (bias caused by one's perception, emotions, or imagination). A proposition is considered to have objective truth when its truth conditions are met witho ...

. Tedlock examined how linguistic conventions mediate the performance and interpretation of dream experience. She explored how communications about dreams reveal patterns and variations around how different cultures perceive the role and significance of dreaming. For example, the Kʼicheʼ

people use the first-person pronoun "I" to narrate dreams with the understanding that this "I" does not necessarily relate to the conscious self of the dream teller. Likewise, the use of third person pronouns, particularly in relating negative dreams, communicates distance between the dream teller and the experience of the dream self. Tedlock rejected the existence of any hard boundary between anthropologist and the peoples with whom they interact in the field. She advocated for narrative

ethnography Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject o ...

as a methodological innovation that honored and more accurately represented the intertwining, interdependent relationship between anthropologist and the subjects of their research. From 1993 to 1997, Tedlock, with collaborator and husband

, edited ''American Anthropologis''t, the American Anthropological Association's flagship journal. In 1998, she became the chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Buffalo. Tedlock serves on the Anthropology and Humanism advisory board.

Publications

Books

''Time and the Highland Maya''
(1992)
The Beautiful and the Dangerous: Encounters with the Zuni Indians
' (2001)
The Woman in the Shaman's Body: Reclaiming the Feminine in Religion and Medicine
'. (2005).

Co-authored or edited books

''Teachings from the American Earth: Indian Religion and Philosophy'' (1975) ''Dreaming: Anthropological and psychological interpretations''. (1987)

Selected articles and book chapters

Tedlock, B. (1981). Quiché Maya dream interpretation. ''Ethos'', ''9''(4), 313-330. doi.org/10.1525/eth.1981.9.4.02a00050 Tedlock, B. (1982). Sound texture and metaphor in Quiche Maya ritual language. ''Current Anthropology'', ''23''(3), 269-272. doi.org/10.1086/202830 Tedlock, B. (1983). Zuni sacred theater. ''American Indian Quarterly'', 93-110
doi:10.2307/1184258
Tedlock, B. (1984). The Beautiful and the Dangerous Zuni Ritual and Cosmology as an Aesthetic System. ''Conjunctions,'' (6), 246-265
jstor.org/stable/24515110
Tedlock, B. (1985). Hawks, meteorology and astronomy in Quiché-Maya agriculture. ''Archaeoastronomy'', ''8'', 80. Tedlock, B. (1986). Keeping the breath nearby. ''Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly'', ''11''(4), 92-94. doi.org/10.1525/ahu.1986.11.4.92 Tedlock, B. (1987). An interpretive solution to the problem of humoral medicine in Latin America. ''Social science & medicine'', ''24''(12), 1069-1083. doi.org/10.1016/0277-9536(87)90022-0 Tedlock, B. (1991). From participant observation to the observation of participation: The emergence of narrative ethnography. ''Journal of Anthropological Research'', ''47''(1), 69-94. doi.org/10.1086/jar.47.1.3630581 Tedlock, B. (1992). The role of dreams and visionary narratives in Mayan cultural survival. ''Ethos'', ''20''(4), 453-476
jstor.org/stable/640279
Tedlock, B. (1999). Maya Astronomy: what we know and how we know it. ''Archaeoastronomy'', ''14''(1), 39. Tedlock, B. (1999). Sharing and interpreting dreams in Amerindian nations. In D. Schulman & G.G. Stroumsa (Eds.), ''Dream cultures: Explorations in the comparative history of dreaming'', (pp. 87–103.) Oxford University Press. Tedlock, B. (2001). Divination as a way of knowing: Embodiment, visualisation, narrative, and interpretation. ''Folklore'', ''112''(2), 189-197. doi.org/10.1080/00155870120082236 Tedlock, B. (2004). Narrative ethnography as social science discourse. ''Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 27'', 23-32. doi.org/10.1016/S0163-2396(04)27004-1 Tedlock, B. (2004). The poetics and spirituality of dreaming: A Native American enactive theory. ''Dreaming, 14''(2-3), 183–189. doi.org/10.1037/1053-0797.14.2-3.183 Tedlock, B. (2006). Toward a theory of divinatory practice. ''Anthropology of Consciousness'', ''17''(2), 62-77. doi.org/10.1525/ac.2006.17.2.62 Tedlock, B. (2007). Bicultural dreaming as an intersubjective communicative process. ''Dreaming, 17''(2), 57–72. doi.org/10.1037/1053-0797.17.2.57 Tedlock, B. (2009). Writing a storied life: Nomadism and double consciousness in transcultural ethnography. ''Etnofoor'', ''21''(1), 21-38
jstor.org/stable/25758148
Tedlock, B. (2013). Braiding evocative with analytic autoethnography. In S.L. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams, & C. Ellis (Eds.), ''Handbook of autoethnography'', 358-362.

Co-authored articles

Tedlock, B., & Tedlock, D. (1985). Text and textile: Language and technology in the arts of the Quiché Maya. ''Journal of Anthropological Research'', ''41''(2), 121-146. doi.org/10.1086/jar.41.2.3630412 Tedlock, D., & Tedlock, B. (2002). The Sun, Moon, and Venus Among the Stars: Methods for Mapping Mayan Sidereal Space. ''Archaeoastronomy'', 17.

Awards

Society of Humanistic Anthropology Prize for Ethnographic Fiction (1986) (for " Keeping the Breath Nearby"). American Anthropological Association President's Award (1997) (with Dennis Tedlock)

References

External links

*
Breaking the Maya Code, Transcript of Filmed 2005 Interview with Barbara and Dennis Tedlock, Night Fire Films
{{DEFAULTSORT:Tedlock, Barbara 1942 births University of California, Berkeley alumni 20th-century American anthropologists American women anthropologists University at Buffalo faculty Shamans Dream Living people American women academics American Anthropologist editors 21st-century American women