Brenda Farnell is a British-American anthropologist and Professor of American Indian Studies and

Anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of behavi ...

at the

University of Illinois The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I, Illinois, University of Illinois, or UIUC) is a public land-grant research university in Illinois in the twin cities of Champaign and Urbana. It is the flagship institution of the University ...

. Her areas of focus include dance, movement, performance, language, and

Labanotation Labanotation (the grammatically correct form "Labannotation" or "Laban notation" is uncommon) is a system for analyzing and recording human movement. The inventor was Rudolf von Laban (1879-1958), a central figure in European modern dance, who d ...

. Her work is influenced by

Sociocultural Theory Cultural-historical psychology is a branch of psychological theory and practice associated with Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria and their Circle, who initiated it in the mid-1920s–1930s.Yasnitsky, A., van der Veer, R., & Ferrari, M. (Eds.) (2014 ...

Visual Anthropology Visual anthropology is a subfield of social anthropology that is concerned, in part, with the study and production of ethnographic photography, film and, since the mid-1990s, new media. More recently it has been used by historians of science an ...

Ethnopoetics Ethnopoetics is a method of recording text versions of oral poetry or narrative performances (i.e. verbal lore) that uses poetic lines, verses, and stanzas (instead of prose paragraphs) to capture the formal, poetic performance elements which w ...

, and

Semiotic Anthropology The phrase "semiotic anthropology" was first used by Milton Singer (1978). Singer's work brought together the semiotics of Charles Sanders Peirce and Roman Jakobson with theoretical streams that had long been flowing in and around the University o ...

. Farnell's use of

as a research tool has developed dance and performance notation in the field of Anthropology. She focuses on the North American Plains culture areas, including the

Nakota Nakota (or Nakoda or Nakona) is the endonym used by those ''Assiniboine'' Indigenous people in the US, and by the Stoney People, in Canada. The Assiniboine branched off from the Great Sioux Nation (aka the ''Oceti Sakowin'') long ago and moved f ...

Crow A crow is a bird of the genus ''Corvus'', or more broadly a synonym for all of ''Corvus''. Crows are generally black in colour. The word "crow" is used as part of the common name of many species. The related term "raven" is not pinned scientifical ...

, and

Comanche The Comanche or Nʉmʉnʉʉ ( com, Nʉmʉnʉʉ, "the people") are a Native American tribe from the Southern Plains of the present-day United States. Comanche people today belong to the federally recognized Comanche Nation, headquartered in La ...

nations. Her work includes extensive study of Plains Sign Language, storytelling practices, Indigenous epistemologies, expressive culture, and endangered language revitalization. She also examines American contemporary dance, choreography, and theatre. She has collaborated with individuals in her field such as Robert Wood,

Tim Ingold Timothy Ingold (born 1 November 1948INGOLD, Prof. Timothy
''Who's Who 2014'', ...

, Charles R. Varela, Dixie Durr, and Drid Williams.

Early life and education

Born in Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, Farnell received her bachelor's degree in education from the

University of Liverpool , mottoeng = These days of peace foster learning , established = 1881 – University College Liverpool1884 – affiliated to the federal Victoria Universityhttp://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/2004/4 University of Manchester Act 200 ...

in 1969, where she majored in dance studies and physical education and minored in biology. In 1977 she received the Diploma in Dance from the ''Laban Dance Center'', Goldsmiths College, London University (now called ''Laban''). In 1984, she completed her Master of Arts degree in anthropology of human movement from

New York University New York University (NYU) is a private research university in New York City. Chartered in 1831 by the New York State Legislature, NYU was founded by a group of New Yorkers led by then-Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin. In 1832, the ...

. She completed her Ph.D. in social, cultural, and linguistic anthropology in 1990, from

Indiana University Indiana University (IU) is a system of public universities in the U.S. state of Indiana. Campuses Indiana University has two core campuses, five regional campuses, and two regional centers under the administration of IUPUI. *Indiana Universit ...

Career

Farnell is a professor in the Department of Anthropology and American Indian Studies at the

. She is a coeditor for the ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' for the

University of Illinois Press The University of Illinois Press (UIP) is an American university press and is part of the University of Illinois system. Founded in 1918, the press publishes some 120 new books each year, plus 33 scholarly journals, and several electronic project ...

. She is on the Professional Advisory Board for the

Dance Notation Bureau The Dance Notation Bureau (DNB) is a non-profit organization founded to preserve choreographic works through notating dance scores in Labanotation and collaborating with dance companies to stage reconstructions of those works. Based in New York C ...

. In 2011, Farnell became a member of the Indigenous Knowledge, Contemporary Performance research and creation project at the

University of Guelph , mottoeng = "to learn the reasons of realities" , established = May 8, 1964 ()As constituents: OAC: (1874) Macdonald Institute: (1903) OVC: (1922) , type = Public university , chancellor ...

. In 2008, Farnell was elected, for a three-year term, as a member of the Minority Issues in Anthropology Committee for the

American Anthropological Association 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, ...

. In 2002, she received a position as Research Associate as the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Centre for Advanced Study.

Awards and achievements

In 2009, Farnell won the University of Illinois Department of Anthropology Distinguished Service award. She received this award for second time in 2017. In 2005, her work, ''Talking from the Body in Post-modern Dance'', was awarded the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Research Board Award. In 2000, she won the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign Award as a Helen Corley Petit Scholar. In 1997, her work was presented at the Native American Film Festival at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian in New York city. In 1996, Farnell won the Haozous Award in New Technologies at the Native Americas International Film Festival for her interactive, multimedia ethnography ''Wiyuta: Assiniboine Storytelling with Signs''.

Publications

Books

* and Drid Williams, 1990. ''The Laban Script: A Beginning Text on Movement Writing for Non-Dancers.'' Canberra: Australian Institute of Aboriginal Studies. * 1995. ''Do You See What I Mean?: Plains Indian Sign Talk and the Embodiment of Action.'' Austin: University of Texas Press. * 2012. ''Dynamic Embodiment for Social Theory: I Move Therefore I am.'' London: Routledge.

Edited works

* (ed.) 1995. ''Human Action Sign Systems in Cultural Context: The Visible and the Invisible in Movement and Dance.'' Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press.

Encyclopedia entries

* 2016. "Kinesthetic System." ''SAGE Encyclopedia of Theory in Psychology,'' London and New Delhi: Sage Publications. * 2018. "Mindful Body." ''International Encyclopedia of Anthropology,'' Wiley Online Library. * 2018. "Techniques of the Body." ''International Encyclopedia of Anthropology,'' Wiley Online Library.

Journal articles

* 1981. "Dance and Dance Education in England: A British Point of View." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 1:3, p. 166-185. * and Dixie Durr, 1981. "Spatial Orientation and the Notion of Constant Oppositions." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 1:4, p. 226-245. * 1982. "Deep Structures of the Dance: A Reply to Zellinger’s 'Directions for a Semiotics of Dance'" ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 2:2, p. 112-119. * 1984. "Two Sign Languages: A Report on Work in Progress." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 3:1, p. 8-35. * 1985. "The Hands of Time: An Exploration into some Features of Deixis in American Sign Language." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 3:3, p. 100-116. * 1988. "Some Problems with Spoken Language Models in the Analysis of Sign Languages." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 5:1, p. 19-31. * 1995. "Ethnography Goes Interactive." ''Anthropology Today'', p. 7-10. * 1996. "Metaphors We Move By." ''Visual Anthropology'' 8, p. 311-335. * 1999. "Moving Bodies, Acting Selves." ''Annual Review of Anthropology'' 28, p. 341-73. * 2000. "Getting Out of the Habitus: An Alternative Model of Dynamically Embodied Social Action." ''Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute'' 6, p. 397-418. * 2001. "Rethinking Verbal and Non-Verbal in Discursive Performance." ''Textus'' 14, p. 417-436. * 2002. "Dynamic Embodiment in Assiniboine (Nakota) Storytelling." ''Anthropological Linguistics'' 44:1, p. 37-64. * 2003. "Birdwhistell, Hall, Lomax and the Origins of Visual Anthropology." ''Visual Anthropology'' 16, p. 43-55. * 2004. "The Fancy Dance of Racializing Discourse." ''Journal for Sport and Social Issues'' 28:1, p. 30-55. * 2004. "Zero Sum Game: An Update on the Native American Mascot Controversy at the University of Illinois." ''Journal for Sport and Social Issues'' 28:2 p. 212-215. * 2005. "Developments in the Study of Gesture." ''Language Anthropological Linguistics'' 46:1, p. 100-115. * 2007. "Choreographing Colonialism in the American West." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 14:3. * and Robert Wood, 2007. "Choreography as Live Theoretical Practice." ''Proceedings of the Society of Dance History Scholars.'' * 2007. "Dancing With Authorization: From the Reservation to Ramallah." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 14:4. * 2008. "Indigenous Dances on Stage: Embodied Knowledge at Risk?" ''Taiwan Dance Research Journal'' 4, p. 151-180. * 2016. "The Second Somatic Revolution." ''Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement'' 23:2.

Contributions

* in Williams, Drid, 1991. ''Anthropology and Dance: Ten Lectures.'' Illinois: University of Illinois Press. * in Ingold, Tim, 2016. ''Redrawing Anthropology: Materials, Movements, Lines.'' New York: Routledge.

References

External links

University of Illinois Faculty Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Farnell, Brenda Year of birth missing (living people) Living people University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign faculty Alumni of the University of Liverpool New York University alumni British women anthropologists British anthropologists American anthropologists American women anthropologists 21st-century American women