Michelle "Shelly" Zimbalist Rosaldo (1944 in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...

– 1981 in

Philippines The Philippines (; fil, Pilipinas, links=no), officially the Republic of the Philippines ( fil, Republika ng Pilipinas, links=no), * bik, Republika kan Filipinas * ceb, Republika sa Pilipinas * cbk, República de Filipinas * hil, Republ ...

) was a social, linguistic, and psychological anthropologist famous for her studies of the

Ilongot people The Bugkalot (also Ilongot or Ibilao) are a tribe inhabiting the southern Sierra Madre and Caraballo Mountains, on the east side of Luzon in the Philippines, primarily in the provinces of Nueva Vizcaya and Nueva Ecija and along the mountain bor ...

in the Philippines and for her pioneering role in women's studies and the anthropology of gender.

Life

Born in New York in 1944, Michelle Zimbalist attended

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a women's liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and functioned as the female coordinate institution for the all-male Harvard College. Considered founded in 1879, it was one of the Seven Sisters colleges and he ...

(

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate college of Harvard University, an Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636, Harvard College is the original school of Harvard University, the oldest institution of higher lea ...

's sister school, formally merged with Harvard in 1999), where she concentrated in English literature. She spent a summer among the

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 ...

in southern

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

as part of a field trip arranged by

Evon Z. Vogt Evon Zartman Vogt, Jr. (August 18, 1918 – May 13, 2004) was an American cultural anthropologist best known for his work among the Tzotzil Mayas of Chiapas, Mexico. Vogt was the author of numerous articles and 19 books. He was a fellow of the A ...

. After receiving her AB, she began graduate study at Harvard in

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

. Michelle Rosaldo and her husband, anthropologist

Renato Rosaldo Renato Rosaldo (born 1941) is an American cultural anthropologist. He has done field research among the Ilongots of northern Luzon, Philippines, and he is the author of ''Ilongot Headhunting: 1883–1974: A Study in Society and History'' (1980) a ...

, both carried out their dissertation fieldwork with the Ilongot people in northern

Luzon Luzon (; ) is the largest and most populous island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the Philippines archipelago, it is the economic and political center of the nation, being home to the country's capital city, Manila, as ...

, the Philippines, during 1967-1969. Rosaldo's research focused on Ilongot concepts of emotion (an exercise in ethnopsychology, the study of local or folk concepts of mind), while her husband collected material on the history of Ilongot

headhunting Headhunting is the practice of hunting a human and collecting the severed head after killing the victim, although sometimes more portable body parts (such as ear, nose or scalp) are taken instead as trophies. Headhunting was practiced in hi ...

practices, which were dying out at the time of their research. Rosaldo received her PhD in social anthropology from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

in 1972. After completing their PhDs, Michelle and Renato Rosaldo were both hired at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...

. The couple returned again to the Ilongot in 1974 for further research, published as ''Knowledge and Passion'' (1980). Michelle Rosaldo wrote or edited several important works in the anthropology of women and gender relations and co-founded the Program in Feminist Studies at Stanford University. In 1979 she received Stanford's Dinkelspiel Award for outstanding service to undergraduate education. Michelle Rosaldo died from an accidental fall while conducting fieldwork in the Philippines in 1981. She was survived by her husband and their two sons. The Michelle Z. Rosaldo Summer Field Research Grant was later established in her memory at the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University to provide funding for undergraduate students to conduct fieldwork.

Selected publications

*Rosaldo, Michelle Z. (1971) Context and metaphor in Ilongot oral tradition. PhD thesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Archives. *Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist. (1980) ''Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life''. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Rosaldo, Michelle Z. (1984) “Toward an anthropology of self and feeling.” In ''Culture Theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion''. R. A. Shweder and R. A. LeVine, editors. pp. 137–157. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Keohane, Nannerl O., Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Barbara C. Gelpi, editors. (1982) ''Feminist theory: a critique of ideology''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. * Lamphere, Louise and Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, editors. (1974) ''

Women, Culture, and Society '' Woman, Culture, and Society'', first published in 1974 (Stanford University Press), is a book consisting of 16 papers contributed by female authors and an introduction by the editors Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo and Louise Lamphere. On the heels ...

''. Stanford University Press. Stanford, California. *Lugo, Alejandro and Bill Maurer, editors. (2000) ''Gender Matters: Rereading Michelle Z. Rosaldo''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

References

External links

Memorial Resolution: Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosaldo, Michelle Stanford University Department of Anthropology faculty Psychological anthropologists American women anthropologists Radcliffe College alumni 1944 births 1981 deaths Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in the Philippines 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American anthropologists