Eric Kline Silverman 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 ...

, formerly a tenured Full Professor and Research Professor of Anthropology at

Wheelock College Wheelock College (Wheelock) was a private college in Boston, Massachusetts. Founded in 1888 by Lucy Wheelock as Miss Wheelock's Kindergarten Training School, it offered undergraduate and graduate programs that focused on the Arts & Sciences, ...

in Boston, which was dissolved as an independent institution in summer 2018. He is also a long-standing Scholar at th
Women's Studies Research Center
at Brandeis University.
Women's Studies Research Center. Additionally, Eric is also a Research Scholar and Writer wit
The Rhodes Project
a research initiative to study the lives and careers of female Rhodes Scholars, based in the UK a
McAlister Olivarius
Silverman employs a binocular approach to teaching, research, and writing that tacks between American society and other cultures worldwide. He is especially interested in ethnic identity, aesthetics, gender, religion, masculinity, fatherhood, and globalization. He has a longstanding interest in the

Iatmul people The Iatmul are a large ethnic group of about 10,000 people inhabiting some two-dozen politically autonomous villages along the middle Sepik River in Papua New Guinea. The communities are roughly grouped according to dialect of the Iatmül langu ...

of the

Sepik River The Sepik () is the longest river on the island of New Guinea, and the second largest in Oceania by discharge volume after the Fly River. The majority of the river flows through the Papua New Guinea (PNG) provinces of Sandaun (formerly West Sepi ...

Papua New Guinea Papua New Guinea (abbreviated PNG; , ; tpi, Papua Niugini; ho, Papua Niu Gini), officially the Independent State of Papua New Guinea ( tpi, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini; ho, Independen Stet bilong Papua Niu Gini), is a country i ...

, whom he has studied through anthropological fieldwork since the late 1980s - as recently as summer 2014. He also studies American Jews and Judaism. Additional areas of interest are consumerism, childhood, clothing and identity, food, tourism, death and funerary rites, myth and folklore, pop culture, and the material culture of everyday life. Eric is a prolific scholarly and popular writer. He has published many articles and essays, and delivered scores of conference presentations. He is the author of
Masculinity, Motherhood and Mockery
' (2001),
From Abraham to America: A History of Jewish Circumcision
' (2006),
A Cultural History of Jewish Dress
' (2013), and, as editor with David Lipset,
Mortuary Dialogues: Death Ritual and the Reproduction of Moral Community in Pacific Modernities
' (2016). Currently, Eric is writing his fifth book, ''From Totems to Tourists: Sepik River Art in a Postmodern World''. He is also studying contemporary American Jewish fathering, the use of Facebook in Papua New Guinea, and the Grateful Dead. Locally, Eric has served as an elected member of the

Framingham Framingham () is a city in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. Incorporated in 1700, it is located in Middlesex County and the MetroWest subregion of the Greater Boston metropolitan area. The city proper covers with a popul ...

School Board, and he often writes editorial columns for Boston-area online and print news media. His webpage i
www.eksilverman.com
he can also be followed on Twitter @EKSilverman

Education

Silverman obtained his BA in anthropology in 1984 from

Brandeis University , mottoeng = "Truth even unto its innermost parts" , established = , type = Private research university , accreditation = NECHE , president = Ronald D. Liebowitz , pro ...

, his MA in Anthropology in 1987 from the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in the Minneapolis–Saint Paul, Tw ...

, and his PhD in Anthropology in 1993, also from the University of Minnesota.

Education

Notes

Further reading