Susan Seymour, Professor Emerita of Anthropology

Susan Seymour

Professor Emerita of Anthropology

With Pitzer Since: 1974
Field Group:
Anthropology
Email: [email protected]

Educational Background

PhD, Harvard University
BA, Stanford University

Research Interests

Biography of Cora Du Bois:  anthropologist, World War II intelligence officer, and Harvard Professor.
Changing childcare practices, family and gender systems in India.
Multiple childcare and critiques of attachment theory.

Select Publications

Cora Du Bois: Anthropologist, Diplomat, Agent. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press, 2015.

“‘It takes a village to raise a child’: Attachment theory & multiple childcare in Alor, Indonesia and in North India,” in Naomi Quinn and Jeannette Mageo, eds., Attachment Reconsidered: Cultural Perspectives on a Western Theory.  New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013.

“The Harvard-Bhubaneswar, India Project,” The Asian Man, vol. 7, no 1 & 2 (December 2013).

“Environmental Change, Family Adaptations, and Child Development: Longitudinal Research in India,” Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology Vol.41, No. 4 (2010).

“Commentary: Who, How What, and Why?” in special issue, “Mothering as Everyday Practice,” Ethos Vol. 39, No.4 (2010 ).

“Resistance,” in special issue, “The Missing Psychology in Cultural Anthropology,” Anthropological Theory Vol. 6, No. 3 (2006).

“Multiple Caretaking of Infants and Young Children:  An Area in Critical Need of a Feminist Psychological Anthropology,” Ethos Vol.32, No. 4 (2004).

“Introduction,” to the special issue, “Contributions to a Feminist Psychological Anthropology,” Ethos No. 32, No.4 (2004).

Women, Family, and Child Care in India:  A World in Transition.  New York: Cambridge University Press (1999).

Recent Conferences and Invited Talks

Growing Up Female in North India.  Paper prepared for “The Psychology of Patriarchy Seminar” at the School for Advanced Research, Santa Fe, NM.  April19-24, 2015.

The Psychology of Patriarchy and the 2016 Presidential Election.  Executive Panel: “The 2016 Presidential Election: Gender Matters.”  Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C.  November 29, 2017.

“Going Out to School”: The Impact of Girls’ Education on Family and Gender Systems in Bhubaneswar.  South Asian Studies Association Conference. Claremont McKenna College, March 24, 2018.

Selected Grants, Awards, and Honors

The 2005 Stirling Prize, awarded by the Society for Psychological Anthropology for the best published work in psychological anthropology in 2003-04, for the paper, “Multiple Caretaking of Infants and Young Children:  An Area in Critical Need of a Feminist Psychological Anthropology.”

Additional Information

CURRICULUM VITAE

Page last updated on December 4, 2023