Christian Feest (born July 20, 1945) is an Austrian

ethnologist Ethnology (from the grc-gre, ἔθνος, meaning 'nation') is an academic field that compares and analyzes the characteristics of different peoples and the relationships between them (compare cultural, social, or sociocultural anthropology) ...

and

ethnohistorian Ethnohistory is the study of cultures and indigenous peoples customs by examining historical records as well as other sources of information on their lives and history. It is also the study of the history of various ethnic groups that may or may n ...

Biography

Feest was born on July 20, 1945, in

Broumov Broumov (; german: Braunau) is a town in Náchod District in the Hradec Králové Region of the Czech Republic. It has about 7,100 inhabitants. The town centre is well preserved and is protected by law as an Cultural monument (Czech Republic)#Monu ...

. He specializes in the Native Americans of eastern North America and the

Northeastern United States The Northeastern United States, also referred to as the Northeast, the East Coast, or the American Northeast, is a geographic region of the United States. It is located on the Atlantic coast of North America, with Canada to its north, the Southe ...

and their

material culture Material culture is the aspect of social reality grounded in the objects and architecture that surround people. It includes the usage, consumption, creation, and trade of objects as well as the behaviors, norms, and rituals that the objects creat ...

, ethnological image research and Native American

anthropology of art Anthropology of art is a sub-field in social anthropology dedicated to the study of art in different cultural contexts. The anthropology of art focuses on historical, economic and aesthetic dimensions in non-Western art forms, including what is kn ...

. He is widely acknowledged for his pioneering research and publications on the early European-Native American colonial contact period, and on the history of museum collections. Feest studied ethnology and linguistics at the

University of Vienna The University of Vienna (german: Universität Wien) is a public research university located in Vienna, Austria. It was founded by Duke Rudolph IV in 1365 and is the oldest university in the German-speaking world. With its long and rich histor ...

in the 1960s. He started publishing articles in 1964. His 1969 dissertation was titled, ""Virginia Algonkian 1570-1703: Ethnohistorie und historische Ethnographic" ("Ethnohistory and Historical Ethnography of the Virginia Algonquian 1570-1703"). From 1963 to 1993 he worked at the Museum für Völkerkunde (Museum of Ethnology) in Vienna, mainly as curator of the North and Central American collections and director of the photo archive. From 1975 he taught anthropology at the University of Vienna and was

habilitated Habilitation is the highest university degree, or the procedure by which it is achieved, in many European countries. The candidate fulfills a university's set criteria of excellence in research, teaching and further education, usually including a ...

in 1980 with a thesis on "Indian alcohol use in North America". Feest was professor of the ethnology of indigenous America at the

Frobenius Institute The Frobenius Institute (Frobenius-Institut; originally: Forschungsinstitut fur Kulturmorphologie) is Germany's oldest anthropological research institute. Founded in 1925, it is named after Leo Frobenius. The institution is located at Gruneburgp ...

at the

Johann Wolfgang Goethe University Goethe University (german: link=no, Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) is a university located in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It was founded in 1914 as a citizens' university, which means it was founded and funded by the wealt ...

Frankfurt am Main Frankfurt, officially Frankfurt am Main (; Hessian: , "Frank ford on the Main"), is the most populous city in the German state of Hesse. Its 791,000 inhabitants as of 2022 make it the fifth-most populous city in Germany. Located on its na ...

from 1993 to 2004. From 2004 to 2010 he returned to the Museum of Ethnology, Vienna as director. In 1972–3, he served as a post-doctoral fellow at the

Smithsonian Institution The Smithsonian Institution ( ), or simply the Smithsonian, is a group of museums and education and research centers, the largest such complex in the world, created by the U.S. government "for the increase and diffusion of knowledge". Founded ...

in Washington DC, and in 1987-8 as a

Ford Foundation The Ford Foundation is an American private foundation with the stated goal of advancing human welfare. Created in 1936 by Edsel Ford and his father Henry Ford, it was originally funded by a US$25,000 gift from Edsel Ford. By 1947, after the death ...

Fellow at the

Newberry Library The Newberry Library is an independent research library, specializing in the humanities and located on Washington Square in Chicago, Illinois. It has been free and open to the public since 1887. Its collections encompass a variety of topics rela ...

in Chicago. He has two prominent brothers,

Gerhard Gleich Gerhard Gleich (born 23 October 1941 in Prague) is an artist and professor '' emeritus'' of the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna in Vienna, Austria. He grew up as Gerhard Feest and later adopted the name of his second wife, the Polish-Austrian painter ...

and

Johannes Feest Johannes Feest (born 21 November 1939 in Berlin) is a German penologist and sociologist of law. He studied law in Vienna (Austria) and Munich (Germany) and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley. From 1974 until his retirement in 2005 ...

. Christian Feest was the editor of the ''European Review of Native American Studies''.

Publications (selected)

Some of Feest's publications: * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Editor

* ''European Review of Native American Studies'', since 1987

Festschrift

* ''Ding, Bild, Wissen. Ergebnisse und Perspektiven nordamerikanischer Forschung in Frankfurt am Main,'' Cora Bender et al., eds, Cologne: Rüdige Köppe, 2005 (with a Feest bibliography).

References

1945 births Living people People from Broumov Linguists of Algic languages {{Austria-academic-bio-stub