Professor Errol Valentine Daniel is a

Sri Lankan Tamil Sri Lankan Tamils ( or ), also known as Ceylon Tamils or Eelam Tamils, are Tamils native to the South Asian island state of Sri Lanka. Today, they constitute a majority in the Northern Province, live in significant numbers in the Eastern P ...

academic, anthropologist and author. He is currently Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Southern Asian Institute at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

Early life

Daniel was educated at

Jaffna College __NOTOC__ Jaffna College is a private school in Vaddukoddai, Sri Lanka. It was founded in 1871 as a successor to the Batticotta Seminary which had been established by American missionaries. History In 1816 American missionaries founded the ...

. After school he joined

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educati ...

from where he received a B.A. degree. He then received

M.A. A Master of Arts ( la, Magister Artium or ''Artium Magister''; abbreviated MA, M.A., AM, or A.M.) is the holder of a master's degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is usually contrasted with that of Master of Science. Tho ...

and Ph.D. degrees from the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chicago is consistently ranked among the b ...

Career

Daniel taught at the

University of Washington The University of Washington (UW, simply Washington, or informally U-Dub) is a public research university in Seattle, Washington. Founded in 1861, Washington is one of the oldest universities on the West Coast; it was established in Seatt ...

(1978–90). He then taught at the

University of Michigan , mottoeng = "Arts, Knowledge, Truth" , former_names = Catholepistemiad, or University of Michigania (1817–1821) , budget = $10.3 billion (2021) , endowment = $17 billion (2021)As o ...

(1990–97), serving as Director of the Program in Comparative Studies in Social Transformation from 1995 to 1997. He then joined

. Daniel has also been a

visiting professor In academia, a visiting scholar, visiting researcher, visiting fellow, visiting lecturer, or visiting professor is a scholar from an institution who visits a host university to teach, lecture, or perform research on a topic for which the visitor ...

at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, nl, Universiteit van Amsterdam) is a public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The UvA is one of two large, publicly funded research universities in the city, the other being ...

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 ...

, Centre d’étude de l’Inde et de l’Asie Sud and

United Nations University The (UNU) is the think tank and academic arm of the United Nations. Headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, with diplomatic status as a UN institution, its mission is to help resolve global issues related to human development and welfare thr ...

. Daniel was one of the recipients of the 1995

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation to those "who have demonstrated exceptional capacity for productive scholarship or exceptional creative ability in the art ...

. He is proficient in

Tamil Tamil may refer to: * Tamils, an ethnic group native to India and some other parts of Asia ** Sri Lankan Tamils, Tamil people native to Sri Lanka also called ilankai tamils **Tamil Malaysians, Tamil people native to Malaysia * Tamil language, na ...

, Sinhala,

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

and

Malayalam Malayalam (; , ) is a Dravidian language spoken in the Indian state of Kerala and the union territories of Lakshadweep and Puducherry ( Mahé district) by the Malayali people. It is one of 22 scheduled languages of India. Malayalam wa ...

Works

Valentine has written several books: * ''Karma: An Anthropological Inquiry'' (1983,

University of California Press The University of California Press, otherwise known as UC Press, is a publishing house associated with the University of California that engages in academic publishing. It was founded in 1893 to publish scholarly and scientific works by facul ...

. co-editor Charles F. Keyes) * ''Fluid Signs: Being a Person the Tamil Way'' (1984, University of California Press) * ''The Semeiosis of Suicide in Sri Lanka'' (1989, in ''Semiotics, Self, and Society'' by Benjamin Lee and Greg Urban,

Mouton de Gruyter Walter de Gruyter GmbH, known as De Gruyter (), is a German scholarly publishing house specializing in academic literature. History The roots of the company go back to 1749 when Frederick the Great granted the Königliche Realschule in Be ...

) * ''Plantations, Proletarians, and Peasants in Colonial Asia'' (1992,

Frank Cass & Co Taylor & Francis Group is an international company originating in England that publishes books and academic journals. Its parts include Taylor & Francis, Routledge, F1000 Research or Dovepress. It is a division of Informa plc, a United Ki ...

, co-editors Henry Bernstein and Tom Brass) * ''Culture/Contexture: Essays in Anthropology and Literary Study'' (1996, University of California Press, co-editor Jeffrey M. Peck) * ''Mistrusting Refugees'' (1996, University of California Press, co-editor John Knudsen) * ''Charred Lullabies: Chapters in an Anthropography of Violence'' (1997,

Princeton University Press Princeton University Press is an independent publisher with close connections to Princeton University. Its mission is to disseminate scholarship within academia and society at large. The press was founded by Whitney Darrow, with the financial ...

) * ''Suffering Nation and Alienation'' (1997, in ''Social Suffering'' by Kleinman, Das and Lock, University of California Press) * ''The Limits of Culture'' (1998, in ''In Near Ruins: Cultural Theory at the End of the Century'' by Nicholas B. Dirks,

University of Minnesota Press The University of Minnesota Press is a university press that is part of the University of Minnesota. It had annual revenues of just over $8 million in fiscal year 2018. Founded in 1925, the University of Minnesota Press is best known for its boo ...

) * ''The Refugee: A Discourse on Displacement'' (2002, in ''Exotic No More: Anthropology on the Front Lines'' by Jeremy MacClancy,

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including '' The Chicago Manual of Style' ...

)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Daniel, Valentine Alumni of Jaffna College American people of Sri Lankan Tamil descent Amherst College alumni Columbia University faculty Living people Sri Lankan Tamil academics Sri Lankan Tamil anthropologists Sri Lankan Tamil writers University of Chicago alumni University of Michigan faculty University of Washington faculty Year of birth missing (living people)