Ellen Oxfeld's passion for the study of China began in her northern New Jersey high school, where she took a class on Chinese and Indian history. She followed this interest during her undergraduate education at Williams College, and graduated with the intention of becoming a Chinese historian. While on a subsequent Watson Fellowship in Taiwan, Oxfeld was exposed to various anthropologists who introduced her to a new discipline which soon became the focus of her career. After spending one year in the Far East, she returned to the United States to obtain her Ph.D. in Social Anthropology from Harvard University. Professor Oxfeld was offered a position at Middlebury College in 1985, immediately following her graduation from Harvard. She considers herself fortunate to have been given the opportunity to continue her studies of China while sharing her knowledge with students as a professor. She has taught a wide variety of classes, the majority of which relate to her specific interests in anthropology. These include the introductory anthropology class, as well as Race and Ethnicity, Chinese Society, Asian American Literature, the Ethnography of India, Post-Communist Societies, South and Asian Fiction in English.
Throughout her teaching career, Professor Oxfeld has continued to pursue her research interests in China. In the past, she has researched communities of Chinese immigrants in countries such as India and Canada. In 1995-96, she lived in a small village in Guangdong province, where she researched changes in the Chinese systems of morality, status and honor over the past thirty years. She is in the process of turning this research into a book, which will focus on the way people resolve moral dilemmas in different areas of action, such as family, economics, politics, and religion.
Ellen Oxfeld deems that anthropology is "absolutely essential in today's world," for it is the only discipline that studies differences in cultural systems while forcing people to recognize how the rest of the world functions. She feels that anthropology is particularly advantageous in liberal arts setting, because it is truly cross-cultural at its core.
Outside of her teaching, Professor Oxfeld is involved in local politics and the Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity. In addition, she takes advantage of her environment while cross country skiing, hiking, and walking her dog. She loves her job here at Middlebury as both a teacher and a researcher, and hopes to continue to combine these two for as long as possible.
Curriculum Vitae
Personal
Born--November 6, 1953 in Newark, New Jersey
Education/strong>
B.A. Williams College: Major in History 1975
A.M. Harvard University: Regional Studies/East Asia 1977
Ph.D. Harvard University: Social Anthropology 1985
Academic Honors
Phi Beta Kappa, Williams College
Magna Cum Laude, Williams College
Highest Honors in History, Williams College
Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship, 1978-1979 and 1979-1980
American Institute of Indian Studies, Junior Fellowship, 1981-1982
National Research Fellowship, 1981-1982
Winner of the 1996 Thomas and Zaniecki Award from the
American Sociological Association Section on International Migration (for 1993 book Blood, Sweat and Mahjong: Family and Enterprise in an Overseas Chinese Community)
Other Honors
Thomas J. Watson Travel Fellowship, 1975-1976
(Travel, study and research in Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Thailand and India)
Research
July to August 1993, September '95 to June'96, July to August 1997 -- Fieldwork in Mei Xian, Guangdong, China, on the use of concepts of morality and status in the daily lives of rural Chinese
July, 1989, Calcutta, India -- research on Calcutta Chinese community
July, 1986 , Toronto, Canada -- research on Indian Chinese who immigrated to Canada
June 1985 to August 1985, Calcutta, India -- research on Calcutta Chinese community
July 1980 to September 1982, Calcutta, India -- doctoral dissertation research amongst Chinese community in Calcutta, India
June 1979 to August 1979, Calcutta, India -- feasibility study for doctoral research on overseas Chinese community in tanning industry of Calcutta, India.
Spring. 1979 -- research on Indochinese refugees for Professor Judith Strauch, Harvard University Anthropology Department
Languages
Mandarin Chinese and French -- competent in reading and writing
Bengali -- elementary speaking
Hakka Chinese -- intermediate speaking
Doctoral Thesis
"The Limits of Entrepreneurship: Family Process and Ethnic Role Amongst Chinese Tanners of Calcutta."
Publications
Blood, Sweat and Mahjong: Family and Enterprise in an Overseas Chinese Community, (Cornell University Press, 1993). Winner of the 1996 Thomas and Zaniecki Award from the American Sociological Association Section on International Migration
Coming Home? Immigrants, Refugees and Those Who Stayed Behind (Ellen Oxfeld and Lynellyn Long, eds.) (University of Pennsylvanis Press, 2004).
"The Sexual Division of Labor and The Organization of Family and Firm in an Overseas Chinese Community," American Ethnologist, November 1991, Volume 18, #4: 700-718
"Profit, Loss and Fate: Gambling and the Entrepreneurial Ethic in an Overseas Chinese Community," Modern China, April 1991, Vol. 17, #2:227-259
"Individualism, Holism and the Market Mentality: Notes on the Recollections of a Chinese Entrepreneur," Cultural Anthropology, August 1992, Volume 7, #2:267-300
"Still Guest People: The Reproduction of Hakka Identity in Calcutta, India." In Guest People: Hakka Identity in China and Abroad (Nicole Constable, ed.). University of Washington Press, 1996
"India" in The Encyclopaedia of the Chinese Overseas, Archipelago Press, Landmark Books. Lynn Pan, Editor, 1998.
"Imaginary Homecomings: Chinese Villagers, Their Overseas Chinese Relations, and Social Capital." The Journal of Socio-Economics, March 2001, Vol.30, #2 (181-186).
"Toward an Ethnography of Return." (Co-authored with Lynellyn Long). In Coming Home? Immigrants, Refugees and Those Who Stayed Behind. (Ellen Oxfeld and Lynellyn Long, eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004)
"Chinese Villagers and the Moral Dilemmas of Return Visits." In Coming Home? Immigrants, Refugees and Those Who Stayed Behind. (Ellen Oxfeld and Lynellyn Long, eds., University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004)
"The Chinese of India." In Encyclopedia of Diasporas, published by Human Relations Area Files, Inc., Carol Ember (Ed.). Forthcoming.
Review of Migration and Ethnicity in Chinese History: Hakkas, Pengmin and Their Neighbors. Tim Wright, ed. In American Anthropologist, Vol.101,#2, June 1999.
Review of The Temple of Memories: History, Power, and Morality in a Chinese Village, by Jun Jing. In Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology (2001).
UNDER CONTRACT and FORTHCOMING
"'When You Drink the Water, Remember the Source:' Conscience, Status and Reinvention in Rural Chinese Death Ritual." (Forthcoming in Journal of Asian Studies).
"The Man Who Sold the Collective's Land: Understanding New Economic Regimes in Guangdong." (Forthcoming in Taiwan Journal of Ethnology,Institute of Ethnology, Academia Sinica. Special issue on "Learning and Economic Agency in China and Taiwan).
"Cross-Border Hypergamy? A Look at Marriage Exchanges in a Transnational Hakka Community." (Forthcoming in Cross-Border Marriages,edited by Nicole Constable, University of Pennsylvania Press).
Work in Progress
The Woman without a Daughter-in-Law: Morality, Conscience and Everyday Life in a Contemporary Chinese Village (Ethnography of conflicts and contradictions within moral and status systems viewed through the lens of everyday practice and discourse in contemporary rural China. Based on fieldwork in Mei County, Guangdong, China).
Papers Presented
"The Man Who Sold the Collective's Land: Understanding New Economic Regimes in Guangdong." Presented at Workshop on Leaning and the Chinese Economy, London School of Economics, May 18, 2002.
"The Woman Without a Daughter-in-Law:Gender, Power and Eocnomic Transformation in a Chinese Village." Presented at Research Seminar on Anthropological Theory, May 24, 2002. London School of Economics.
"Cross-Border Hypergamy? A Look at Marriage Exchanges in a Transnational Hakka Community." Presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association. November 2001, Washington, DC.
"The Woman Without a Daughter-In-Law: A New Balance of Power Within Rural Chinese Families?" Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 1999, Boston.
"The Daughter Who Didn't Cry at Her Father's Funeral: Status, Conscience and Heterodoxy in Rural Chinese Death Ritual." Paper presented at Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 1998, Washington, D.C.
"Imaginary Homecomings: The Moral Discourse of Chinese Villagers Toward Their Overseas Chinese Relations." Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 1997, Washington, D.C.
"In a Different Voice? Chinese Women and Sociocentrism." Paper presented at the New England Conference of the Association for Asian Studies, October 10, 1992, Boston University
"Still 'Guest People': The Reproduction of the Hakka Identity in Calcutta, India," April 1991, Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies.
"Is 'East' to 'West' as Holism is to Individualism? Notes on the Recollections of a Chinese Entrepreneur," November 1989, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association
"Profit, Loss and Fate: Gambling and the Entrepreneurial Ethic in an Overseas Chinese Community," March 1989 -Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies
"Intimacy, Festivity and Connections: Married Daughters and their Parents in an Overseas Chinese Community," March 1988, Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies
"Family Strategy and Middleman Minority Theory: A Missing Link" December 1985, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association
"Women, Family Structure and the Division of Labor in Chinese Operated Tanneries of Calcutta, India" March 1984, Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies
"Family Structure and the Productive Process in Chinese Operated Tanneries of Calcutta, India" November 16, 1983, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago, Illinois
Other Professional Activities
Chair and organizer of panel entitled, "Coming Home? Immigrants, Refugees and Those Who Stayed Behind," Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, November 1997.
Chair and organizer of panel entitled, "Women and Flexible Accumulation in China: Economic Restructuring of Familial Power Dynamics," Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies, March 1999.
Co-Organizer and chair of panel entitled, "Persona, Practice and Political Economy," November 1989, Invited Session of General Anthropology Division and Society for Psychological Anthropology at Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association
Chair and organizer of panel entitled, "So you really want at Daughter? Parents, Daughters and the Shadow Structure of Chinese Kinship", March, 1988, Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies
Chair and Organizer of panel entitled, "Marriage Payments and Society in Contemporary China and India: Towards a Reefaluation," April 1987, Annual Meeting of the Association for Asian Studies.
Manuscript Reviews for Cornell University Press, Cambridge University Press, American Ethnologist, and Cultural Anthropology.Book reviewer for American Anthropologist.
Teaching Experience
Professor of Anthropology, Middlebury College, 1997 - present.
Associate Professor of Anthropology, Middlebury College Sociology/Anthropology Department, Fall 1992- 1997.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Middlebury College Sociology/Anthropology Department, Fall 1985-August 1992
Teaching Fellow, Havard University Anthropology Department: Spring and Fall Semesters 1979; Spring Semester 1980
Courses Taught
Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology
Chinese Society
Race and Ethnicity
Women, Culture and Society
Post-Communist Societies? Russia and China Compared
Foods and Feasting in Chinese and Indian Societies
Ethnography of India
Versions of the Foreign
The Cultural Revolution: Memoir, History and Fiction
Honor and Shame Across Cultures
References
Rubie Watson, Department of Anthropology and Peabody Museum, Harvard University
Hill Gates, Department of Anthropological Sciences, Stanford University
Burke Rochford, Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Middlebury College
Nicole Constable, Department of Anthropology, University of Pittsburgh