Thomas Buckley, Ph.D.
2010

EDUCATION

1982  Ph.D., Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago.  Dissertation: "Yurok realities in the 19th and 20th Centuries."  Committee: Raymond D. Fogelson (Chair), Paul Friedrich, Michael Silverstein, Anne S. Straus.  Funding:  Fellowship, Danforth Foundation; grants-in-aid, Whatcom Museum Foundation.

1977  A.M., Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago.  Thesis: Structure and meaning in Yurok world view.

1975  A.B., Harvard University.  Major: Fine Arts, specialization in Asian art history.

Academic and Administrative Positions Held

2003-pres.  Principle Consultant, Pole Star Cultural Services

2003  Adjunct Lecturer in Religion, Bowdoin College

2001  Early retirement, University of Massachusetts Boston (UMB)

1997  Graduate Director, American Studies Program. UMB

1995-2001  Associate Professor, Anthropology and American Studies, UMB

1993  Visiting instructor, Boston University Medical School (psychiatry)

1992-95  Chair, Department of Anthropology, UMB

1991  Visiting instructor, Native American Studies, Humboldt State University

1988-2001  Associate Professor with tenure, Department of Anthropology, UMB

1986-88  Director, Linguistics Program, UMB

1985  Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Religious Studies and the Residential College, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

1982-88  Assistant Professor, Department of Anthropology, UMB

1980-82  Instructor, Department of Anthropology, UMB

1979-80 Lecturer in Technical Writing, Department of English, The Pennsylvania State University

1978  Teaching Assistant, Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago

SCHOLARSHIP

Field Research

1976  Archaeological reconnaisance, Anasazi sites, Utah.  Participant observation, Native American Church, New Mexico

1976-2003  Long term intermittent ethnographic and linguistic field work, Yurok Indians, northwestern California: 1976, language, narrative, politics, men's esoteric training; 1978, above, plus women's personal ritual practices, curative practices; 1981-84, death and dying, inheritance; 1988-89, narrative, world renewal; 1990-91, plus curing; 1991, politics, world renewal; 1994, conflict and resolution; 2000, effects of federal acknowledgement and casino development; 2003, Christian churches in native NW Calif.

1993-pres.  Participant observation, North Atlantic Basin: maritime masculinities. 

Major Library and Archival Research

1985  Anthropology of menstruation

1986-9  History of Boasian anthropology

2002-pres.  History and ethnography of seafaring in the North Atlantic Basin

2005-pres.  Early colonial history of Mid-coast Maine.

Grants and Awards

1976-77  Departmental scholarship, Department of Anthropology, The University of Chicago

1976,78, 88  Research grants, Jacobs Research Funds, Whatcom Museum Foundation

1977-81  Graduate Fellowship, The Danforth Foundation

1980-99  Travel grants, College of Arts and Sciences, UMB

1981  NIH biomedical research block grant participant

1982, '84  Faculty Development research support grants, UMB

1988  Healey Endowment Grant, UMB; Research grant, Phillips Fund, American Philosophical Society

1997  Public Service Endowment Grant, UMB

PUBLICATIONS

Books

1988  Buckley, Thomas, and Gottlieb, Alma, eds.  Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation.  Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.  (Choice Outstanding Book in Anthropology 1989; Council on Anthropology and Reproduction Most Enduring Edited Collection Prize 2002.)

2002  Standing Ground: Yurok Indian Spirituality, 1850-1990.  Berkeley, Calif.: University of California Press.  (Honorable mention, Victor Turner Prize, Society for Humanism and Anthropology, 2003.)

Scholarly Articles and Book Chapters

1980  Monsters and the quest for balance in native northwestern California.  In, Halpin, Marjorie, and Ames, Michael, eds., Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early Records and Modern Evidence.  Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.  Pp. 152-71.

1982  Menstruation and the power of Yurok women:  Methods in cultural reconstruction.  American Ethnologist 9(1):  47-60.

1984  Yurok speech registers and ontology.  Language in Society 13(4):  467-88.

1986  Lexical transcription and archaeological interpretation: "A rock feature complex from northwestern California."  American Antiquity 51(3):  617-18.

1987  North American Religions:  California and the inter-mountain region.  In, Eliade, Mircea, ed., The Encyclopedia of Religion, Vol. 10.  New York:  Macmillan.  Pp. 505-13.

1987  Dialogue and shared authority:  Informants as critics.  Central Issues in Anthropology 7(1):  13-23.

1988  In Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation (above): A critical appraisal of theories of menstrual symbolism (with Alma Gottlieb, pp. 1-50); Menstrual images, meanings, and values; The sociology of menstrual meanings; Exploratory directions: Menses, culture, and time (section introductions, with Alma Gottlieb, pp. 51-53, 113-15, 183-85); Menstruation and the power of Yurok women (rewrite of 1982 article, pp. 187-209).

1989  The articulation of gender symmetry in Yuchi Indian culture. Semiotica 74(3-4): 289-311.

1989  California and the intermountain region.  In, Sullivan, Lawrence E., ed., Native American Religions:  North America. New York: Macmillan.  Pp. 75-88.  (Reprint of 1987 encyclopedia article.)

1989  Kroeber's theory of culture areas and the ethnology of northwest California. Anthropological Quarterly 61(2):  15-26.

1989  Suffering in the cultural construction of others:  Robert Spott and A. L. Kroeber. American Indian Quarterly 13(4):  437-45.

1991  Kroeber, Alfred L.  In, Winters, Christopher, gen. ed., International Dictionary of Anthropologists, compiled by Library-Anthropology Resource Group.  New York: Garland Publishing.  Pp. 364-67.

1992  Yurok doctors and the concept of "shamanism."  In, Bean, Lowell J., ed., California Indian Shamanism.  Menlo Park, CA:  Ballena Press.

1994  Yurok.  In, Davis, Mary B., ed, Native America in the Twentieth Century: An Encyclopedia.  New York: Garland.  Pp. 719-21.  With the Yurok Transition Team. 

1995  Hamatsa, Indian Shaker Church, Prophet dance, totem, totem pole.  Harper's Dictionary of Religions.  San Francisco:  Harper & Row.

1995  Buckley, Thomas, and Jorunn Jacobsen Buckley.  Response to E. Thomas Lawson and Robert N. McCauley, "Crisis of conscience, riddle of identity: Making space for a cognitive approach to religious phenomena."  Journal of the American Academy of Religion LXI(201-23), 1993: 343-52. 

1996  "The pitiful history of little events": The epistemological and moral contexts of Kroeber's Californian ethnology, 1900-1915.  In, Stocking, George W., Jr., ed., History of Anthropology, Vol. 8: Volkengeist as Method and Ethics:  Essays on Boasian Ethnography and the German Anthropological Tradition.  Madison:  University of Wisconsin Press.  Pp. 257-297.

1997  The Shaker Church in Native northwestern California.  Native American Culture and Research Journal 21(1):  1-14.

1999  "Comment."  Current Anthropology Forum on Anthropology in Public.  Current Anthropology 40 (2):  201-203. 

2000  Renewal as Discourse and Discourse as Renewal in Native Northwestern California.  In, Sullivan, Lawrence, ed.  Native Religions and Cultures of North America.  New York: Compendium Books.  Pp. 33-52. 

2000  Il rinnovamento come discorso e il discorso come rinnovamento tra i nativi della California nordoccidentale.  In, Sullivan, Lawrence E., ed., Culture e Religioni degli Indiani d'America.  Tratto di Anthropologia del Sacro 7.  Milano:  Editoriale Jaca Book SpA.  Pp. 163-180.  [Italian translation of 2000 book chapter, above.]

2000  The Shaker Church and the Indian Way in Native Northwestern California.  In Irwin, Lee, ed. American Indian Spirituality:  A Critical Reader.  University of Nebraska Press. Pp. 256-269.  [Reprint of 1997 journal article.]

2001  Adopting outsiders on the lower Klamath River.  In Sergei Kan, ed., Strangers and Kin:  Adoptions and Namings of Anthropologists by Native Americans , University of Nebraska Press.  Pp. 159-74.

2006  Native authorship in northwestern California.  In, Kan, Sergei A., and Strong, Pauline T., eds.  New Perspectives on Native North America: Culture, History, and Representations.  Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 

2007  "Introduction," in DuBois, Cora, The 1870 Ghost Dance.  Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press.  Pp. ix-xix. 

Journalism and Literature

1979  Doing your thinking: Aspects of traditional Yurok education.  Parabola 4(4): 28-37. 

1979  Myth and prophecy.  Parabola 6(1): 87-90.

1979  Religion and realpolitik:  American Indian sacred lands.  Anthropology Resource Center Newsletter 5(4): 1.

1982  Primitive art.  The Mass Media 23: 21

1983  Stopping the GO-Road.  The Global Reporter 1(3): 16.

1984  Living in the distance.  Parabola 9(3): 64-79.

1985  Anger.  Parabola 10(4): 5-6.

1985  Nothing special.  Parabola 10(1): 96.

1987  Yurok houses.  News from Native California 1(3): 10-11.

1988  World renewal.  Parabola 13(2): 82-91.

1988  Doing your thinking.  In, Dooling, D. M., and Jordan-Smith,Paul, eds., I Become Part of It: Sacred Dimensions in Native Amerlcan Life.  New York: Parabola Books.  Pp. 36-56.  (Reprint of 1979 essay.)

1989  World renewal.  Onaway 46: 36-39, 42.  (Reprint of 1988 essay.)

1991  The one who flies all around the world.  Parabola 16(1): 4-9. 

1991  Fixing the world.  In, Holder, Jon, ed., Gary Snyder: Dimensions of a Life. San Francisco:  Sierra Club Books.  Pp. 411-15.

1993  "Poem on my 55th Birthday" and "South Miami" (two poems).  Mangrove 5(1): 128-30. 

2001  "Why did you" (poem), in Mary Zoll, ed., Ricky.  W. Newton, Mass:  privately printed.

2003  "Come Back to the Five and Dime, Norman Mailer" (poem).  The 365 Project.

2003  Dancing with Davey, A Sailor's Tale.  Newport News, Virginia: MariahBooks.com. (poetry chapbook).

2009  "Doing your thinking" (1979) and "World renewal" (1988)  Two essays reprinted in Hogan, Linda, ed., The Inner Journey: Views from Native Traditions."  Sandpoint, ID: Morning Light Press.

Book Reviews

1981  The Ohlone Way and The Way We Lived: California Indian Reminiscences, Stories and Songs, by Malcolm Margolin.  (Two books.).  Parabola 7(3): 120-24.

1981  The paradox of conquest: The influence of Native Americans (review essay.) Parabola 7(3): 90-96.

1983  Chilula: People from the Ancient Redwoods, by Robert G. Lake, Jr.  Humboldt Journal of Social Relations 10(1): 400-403.

1984  Belief and Worship in Native North America, by Åke Hultkranz.  Ethnohistory 31(2): 139-41.

1984  Our Home Forever: A Hupa Tribal History, by Byron Nelson, Jr.  American Indian Quarterly 8(2): 129-130.

1984  The Sacred Path: Spells, Prayers & Power Songs of the American Indians, John Bierhorst, ed.  Parabola 9(2): 123-24. 

1985  The Unborn: The Life and Teaching of Zen Master Bankei, Norman Waddell, ed., and The Mind of Clover, by Robert Aitken.  Parabola 10(2): 90-94.

1986  Being straight with the medicine.  (Review essay.)  Parabola 11(1): 92-99.

1986  Hultkranz and Vecsey's replies: A rejoinder.  Ethnohistory 33(1): 87-88.

1988 Material Culture of the Chumash Interaction Sphere, Vol. IV:  Ceremonial Paraphernalia, Games, and Amusements, by Travis Hudson and Thomas C. Blackburn.  Ethnohistory 35(1): 85-87.

1989  From the Land of the Totem Poles:  The Northwest Coast Indian Art Collection at the American Museum of Natural History, by Aldona Jonaitis.  Parabola 13(4): 112-16. 

1989  Native American Religious Action: A Performance Approach to Religion, and Mother Earth:  An American Story, by Sam D. Gill. (Two books.)  History of Religions 28(4): 355-59.

1989  The Book of Balance and Harmony, translated and with an introduction by Thomas Cleary.  Parabola 14(4): 102-08.

1992  Anikadel:  An Achumawi History of the Universe.  C. Hart Merriam, trans. and ed.  Native American Culture and Research Journal 16(3):186-190.

1993  To The American Indian, by Lucy Thompson.  Ethnohistory 40(3):

1994  History of Anthropology, Vol. 7: Colonial Situations:  Essays on the Contextualization of Ethnographic Knowledge.  George W. Stocking, Jr., ed.  Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 30: 53-56.

1998  The Heiltsuks, by Michael Harkin.  American Ethnologist 25 (3): 252-53.

2003  Religion and Sexuality in Cross-Cultural Perspective, ed. by Stephen Ellingson and  M.Christian Green.  Journal of Anthropological Research 59: 413-15.

2004  Ishi in Three Centuries, Karl Kroeber and Clifton Kroeber, eds.  Ethnohistory 51(3): 653-65.

2005  Rolling in Ditches with Shamans, by Wendy Leeds-Hurwitz.  Ethnohistory 52/4:791-92.

in press  Cultural Contact and Linguistic Relativity Among the Indians of Northwestern California, by Sean O'Neill.  Anthropological Linguistics [journal publication delayed].

TEACHING

Courses Taught

Boston University Medical School:  Psychiatry in Cross-cultural Perspective (graduate)

Bowdoin College: American Indian Spirituality

Humboldt State University:  Native American Philosophy

Pennsylvania State University:  Technical Writing

University of Massachusetts, Boston:  Anthropology of Educational Administration (graduate); Anthropology of Religion; Community, Gender and Self; Culture and Human Behavior; Cultural Theory (graduate); Ethnography and Literature; Introduction to Cultural Anthropology; Language and Culture; Men in America; Myth in Cultural Context; Native Americans: Contemporary Issues; New England Indian Cultures and History; North American Indians

The University of Chicago: World View

University of North Carolina, Greensboro: Introduction to Religious Studies; Non-Western Influences on Western Cultures

Recognition for Teaching

1984  Fellow, Society for Values in Higher Education

1987  Ford Foundation Teaching Fellow

1992  Invited participant, Ford Foundation Seminar on the Improvement of Teaching

1998  Seminar Leader, Center for the Improvement of Teaching, UMB

SERVICE

Selected External Service

1976  Paid consultant, USDA Forest Service (Yurok Indian religion and land use)

1978  Expert Witness, Bureau of Indian Affairs Court (Yurok and Hupa Indian religion and fishing practices); Paid ethnographic consultant, Theodoratus Cultural Research, Inc.  (Yurok Indian religion and land use)

1981  Paid consultant, Bucknell University Committee on General Education

1982-89  Consulting Editor, Parabola

1983  Qualified as Expert Witness, 9th District Federal Court (Yurok Indian sacred sites)

1985  Consultant pro bono, Western North Carolina Alliance (Cherokee Indian religion)

1989-90  Member, Nominations Committee, American Society for Ethnohistory

1990  Consultant pro bono, Yurok Transition Team (reservation history)

1993  Consultant pro bono, Save Mount Shasta (Native northern Californian sacred sites)

1994  Paid consultant, review of baccalaureate program in Anthropology, SUNY Brockport

1994- pres.  Paid consultant, Independent Producers Services (film)

1995  Paid Consultant, Thornton W. Burgess Society (cultural geography of Cape Cod)

2003  Consultant pro bono, The Frank W. Benson Museum (art museum planning, Salem, Mass.)

2004-pres.  Consultant pro bono, The Virginia Project/Maine's first Ship (ethnohistory, Phippsburg, Maine)

Unpublished Consulting Reports

1976  The High Country: A summary of new data relating to the significance of certain properties in the belief systems of northwestern California Indians.  In, Leisz, D., ed., DES: Gasquet-Orleans Road, Chimney Rock Section, Six Rivers National Forest.  San Francisco: USDA Forest Service.  Appendix M.  Duplicated.

1982  Reply to Miller.  FES: Chimney Rock Section, Six Rivers National Forest.  San Francisco: USDA Forest Service. Appendix H.  Duplicated.

1990  American Sign Language at UMass/Boston: Review and recommendations.  CAS Senate Academic Affairs Committee.  Duplicated.

1994  Comment in response to Federal Register Announcement 59(168), 8/31/94: National Park Service, Mt. Shasta Historic District:  Determination of Eligibility for the National Register of Historic Places.  Duplicated.

2003  Frank W. Benson Museum: Planning Document 1.  Duplicated.

PRESENTATIONS

Selected Papers

1978    Sacred sites as commodities: Federal definition of "cultural resources."  Annual Meetings of the American Anthropological Association (AAA), Los Angeles, CA.  (Invited.)

1979    Menstruation and the power of women in northwestern California.  AAA, Cincinnati, OH.

1980    Yurok definitions of the human being.  AAA, Washington, DC.  (Invited.)

1981    Methods in cultural reconstruction: Semantic shifting in Yurok.  Annual Meeting of the Northeastern Anthropological Association, Saratoga Springs, NY.  (Invited.)

1982    Lessons at home: Reflexivity and location of the interpreter.  AAA, Washington, DC.

1983    Temporal metaphor in a Yurok ritual.  Annual Meeting of the Central States Anthropological Society, Cleveland, OH.

1984    The objectification of culture and cultural survival in northwestern California.  Spring Meeting of the American Ethnological Society, Pacific Grove, CA.  (Invited.)

1985    "Kroeber was a German": Informants as critics in native North America.  Annual Meeting of the Central States Anthropological Society, Louisville, KY.

1985    On the informant as teacher.  AAA, Washington, DC.

1987    Suffering as a feature in the construction of others.  AAA, Chicago, IL.  (Invited.)

1988    A. L. Kroeber's theory of culture areas.  California Indian Conference, Berkeley, CA.  (Invited.)

1989    World Renewal as discourse.  AAA, Washington, DC.  (Invited.)

1990    Healing in Native northwestern California.  Annual Meeting, Northeastern Anthropological Association (NEAA), Burlington, VT.

1990    Yurok Indian equivalents of Christian theology.  Annual Meeting, American Society for Ethnohistory, Toronto, Ontario, Canada.  (Invited.)

1992    Visual representations of the Yurok Indian Jump Dance.  Plenary session, NEAA, Bridgewater, MA.

1995    Shamanism and suffering.  California Indian Conference, Los Angeles

1995    Inlaws and outlaws: Adoption in Yurok Indian society.  AAA, Washington, DC.  (Invited.)

1996    "Ethno-ethnohistory" revisited: Native American authors in northwestern California.  AAA, San Francisco.  (Invited.)

1997    Love, rage and grief in salvage ethnography.  Annual Meeting, American Society for Ethnohistory (ASE), Mexico City.  (Invited.)

1999    Writing "The Yurok Book."  AAA, Chicago.  (Invited.)

2003    Seamen's Lives in the 18th and 19th Centuries.  ASE, Los Angeles.

2005    Blue wave.  AAA, Washington, DC.  (Invited.)

Selected Invited Lectures

1977    Monsters and the quest for balance in Native northwestern California.  University of British Columbia, Vancouver.

1978    Yurok salmon fishing as a whole-system.  Farallones Institute, Los Altos, CA.

1979    Explanation and understanding in the anthropological study of religion.  The Pennsylvania State University, University Park.

1980    American Indian thought.  Bucknell University, Lewisburg, PA.

1980    Sacred geography and cross-cultural communication.  Bucknell University.

1980    Speech registers in Yurok:  Semantic shifting as metaphysical exegesis.  Reed College, Portland, OR.

1981    Yurok Indian prayer places.  American Museum of Natural History, New York. 

1983    Yurok women and the progress of cultural anthropology.  University of Wisconsin, Madison.

1984    Blood magic:  A critical appraisal of theories of menstrual symbolism.  University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

1984    Religion and the moral context of anthropological understanding.  University of North Carolina, Greensboro.

1984    Yurok speech registers and ontology.  University of Texas, Austin.

1985    "Self" and "person" reconsidered:  The Yurok case.  University of Illinois, Urbana.

1986    Intellectual work as practice.  Callipeplon Society, Muir Beach, CA.

1988    Informants as anthropologists' critics.  International Summer Institute for Structural and Semiotic Studies.  University of British Columbia, Vancouver. 

1989    The anthropology of suffering.  Callipeplon Society.

1989    World renewal as discourse.  Brandeis University, Waltham, MA. 

1990    The Shaker church and the Indian Way in northwestern California.  Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH.

1990    Yurok Indian "high doctors."  California State University at Hayward. 

1991    Shamanism and the problem of suffering.  Major Association, Oslo, Norway. 

1992    Native American self-representation in art.  Clayton State College, Clayton, GA. 

1993    Alfred Kroeber and the representation of California Indians:  Kroeber's ethnology, 1900-1915.  Dartmouth College.

1993    Four lectures on shamanism.  Gaustad Sykehus, Oslo, Norway.

1994    Almost whose ancestors?  Ishi, Alfred Kroeber, Theodora Kroeber and the Representation of California Indians.  The Oakland Museum, Oakland, Calif. 

1997    "The sacred" in NAGPRA protocols.  University of Chicago.

2003    Self and "others" in ethnographic fieldwork.  Humboldt State University, Arcata, CA.

2005    Lives aren't simply given.  Dartmouth College.

2006    Wabanaki culture and history.  Maine Maritime Museum, Bath, ME.

2007    Wabanaki and English histories, 1492-1606.  Maine Maritime Museum.

2008    Mixed crews and seamen's lives in the 18th and 19th centuries.  Maine Maritime Museum.