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Jonathan Church is a cultural anthropologist who has conducted research in locales as diverse as the Shetland Islands and within on-line gaming worlds. An expert on the politics of language dialect preservation and identity, neo-liberalism in higher education, and on-line pedagogy, Professor Church is the director of the anthropology program and teaches courses on anthropological methods and theory; myth, magic and religion; culture and power; and aesthetics, among others. He earned his PhD in cultural anthropology from Temple University and is a winner of the Lindback Award for outstanding teaching at Arcadia University.
Temple University
Ph.D. Cultural Anthropology
PUBLICATIONS
Church, J.T.& Klein, M. (2013). Assassin’s Creed III and the Aesthetics of Disappointment. Proceedings of the DiGRA 2013 Conference: Defragging Game Studies.
Church, J.T. (2009) Quality Matters: Making Commodities and Manufacturing Knowledge in the Virtual University. ELiSS: Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences. 1:3. Paper and podcast version available http://www.eliss.org.uk/PreviousEditions/Volume1Issue3/Papers/tabid/242/Default.aspx . Last accessed 29 September 2009.
Church, J. T. (2009). Editorial Response. ELiSS: Enhancing Learning in the Social Sciences. 1:3. http://www.eliss.org.uk/PreviousEditions/Volume1Issue3/Editorial/tabid/241/Default.aspx. Last accessed 29 September 2009.
Church, J. T. (2008). Managing Knowledge: Intellectual Property, Instructional Design and the Manufacturing of Higher Education. In Joyce Canaan and Wesley Shumar (eds.) Structure and Agency in the Neoliberal University. New York: Routledge.
Church, J. T. (2005). Review of Brian Smith’s Toons and Tenants: Settlement and Society in Shetland 1299-1899 in Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe.
Church, J.T. & Shumar, W. (2003). Above and Below: Mapping Social Positions Within the Academy. In Cogs in the Factory Classroom, Deborah Herman and Julie Schmid (eds). Greenwood Press
Madison-Thompson, N. & Church, J.T. (2003). Are You a Real Female?: Gender and Authenticity in Asheron’s Call. In Race/Gender/Media: Considering Diversity Across Audiences, Content, and Producers, Rebecca Ann Lind (ed). Allyn & Bacon.
Church, J.T. (2002). “Remarks: Should all Disciplines be Subject to the Common Rule?” Academe. May-June, 63-64.
Church, J.T. & Peters N.D., (2001). The Sociology of Aids and HIV in The Sociology of AIDS: Lectures and Materials, American Sociological Association. Second Edition.
Church, J.T. (2000). Reimaging Professional Identities: A Reflection on Collaboration and Techno-Pedagogy. http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/talking/ReimagProID.pdf .
Church, J.T. (1999). Laboring in the Dream Factory: Part II. The International Journal of Qualitative Research in Education. 12:3:251-262.
Church, J.T., (1998) “An Adjunct Becomes Real.” The Chronicle of Higher Education. July 17: A68. (1999) Reprinted in Academic Tenure - Are Reforms Needed: Presentation to the Blue Ribbon Commission on Higher Education Commonwealth of Virginia by Sidney O. Dewberry.
Church, J.T. (1990). Confabulations of Community: The Hamefarins and Political Discourse on Shetland. Anthropological Quarterly. 63:1:31-42.
PAPERS, PRESENTATIONS, ORGANIZED SESSIONS
Assasin’s Creed III and the Aesthetics of Disappointment. DiGRA 2013 Annual Meeting. August 2013.
New Media and Orthographic Identity Performance of the Shetland Islands. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at a session reviewed by the Society for the Anthropology of Europe. November 2011.
Whither the University? Neoliberalims and Beyond. Session Organizer and Chair. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at a session reviewed by the Council on Anthropology and Education. Discussant: Douglas Foley. December 2009.
Neoliberalism Online: Professional Identity and Procedural Morality in Higher Education. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at a session reviewed by the Council on Anthropology and Education entitled “Whither the Univeristy? Neoliberalism and Beyond.” December 2009.
Cutting Costs, Creating Comodities: Wither the University. Wesley Shumar, co-presenter. Rethinking Marxism 7th International Gala Conference at a session entitled “Reconsidering Education.” November 2009.
Quality Matters, Making Commodities, and the Manufacturing of Knowledge in the Virtual University. C‑SAP conference (The Higher Education Academy: Sociology, Anthropology Politics C-SAP) “The Virtual University? Social Science Critiques of Learning and Teaching in the Age of Digital Reproduction.” London, January 2009.
Managing Risk,Auditing Others, and Insuring the Ethical Self. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at a session sponsored by the Council on Anthropology and Education entitled “Managing Knowledge:Universities, Knowledge Production, and the Global Economy.” December 2007.
Avoiding the Bio-Medical Bias: The “Common Rule” for the Social Sciences. By invitation of the South Eastern Pennsylvania Consortium for Higher Education (SEPCHE) Research: Teaching, Technology, and Integrity Faculty Development Conference on a panel entitled “Institutional Review Boards: Best Practices.” January 2007
Wir Midder Tongue: Loss, Language and Identity on Shetland. Jerry Belcher Faculty Forum, Arcadia University. March 2005.
Managing Knowledge: Intellectual Property, Instructional Design and the Manufacturing of Property. Annual Meeting of the Eastern Sociological Society. Roundtable. March 2003.
Comments Presented to National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee, January 29, 2002. Department of Health and Human Services Meeting of the National Human Research Protections Advisory Committee (NHRPAC) by invitation of NHRPAC of a panel entitled “Should all Disciplines be Subject to the Common Rule?”
Making it “Real”: Negotiating the Narratives of Masculinity for Female Players of Asheron’s Call. Nora Madison-Thompson (co-author). Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at a session sponsored by The Society for Psychological Anthropology entitled, “Cultural Institutions, Popular Practice and the Self. December 2001.
Creative Control as Compulsory Commodification: Distance Learning and the Discourse of Property. Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at an invited session sponsored by the General Anthropology Division entitled, “Internet Dreaming: Information Technology and the Restructuring of Post-Secondary Education.” November 2000.
Speculations on Surplus Value: Information Technology and Intellectual Property. Rethinking Marxism 4th International Gala Conference at a session entitled “The New Political Economy of Higher Education: Discourse, Semiotics and Marketization.” September 2000.
Narratives of Changing Times: Buddies for Life? Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at an invited session sponsored by the American Ethnological Association and the Society for Medical Anthropologyy entitled, “AIDS/HIV in the Timescapes of a New Millenium.” November 1999.
Forgetting Shetland. Bryn Mawr & Haverford Bi-College Cultural Anthropology Speakers Series. April 1999.
Volunteer Caregiving for PLWAS: The Role of the Buddy. Annual Meeting of the American Sociological Association. Authored by Church, J.T., Peters, N.D., and Ager, C. August 1998.
Two Tales of Disclosure. Jerry Belcher Faculty Forum, Beaver College. March 1998.
Laboring in the Dream Factory: Part II. Presented at the 96th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association at an invited session of the Society for the Anthropology of North America entitled, “Late Capitalist Economies and Higher Education: Challenges to Anthropology.” December 1997.
Speculations on the Future of Higher Education: Community, Commodity and Faculty. Jerry Belcher Faculty Forum, Beaver College. October 1997.
Self and Community: The Identity of Immunity in Accounting for the Risk of HIV Infection. Presented by Norah Peters at the 1997 Annual Meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems. Authored by Peters, N.D.; Church, J.T., and Ager, C. July 1997.
The New University as an Ethnographic Site. Co-presented with Wesley Shumar at the Department of Anthropology Colloquium, State University of New York, Albany. December 1996.
Above and Below: Mapping Social Positions Within the Academy. Co-presented with Wesley Shumar at the Politics and Languages of Contemporary Marxism Conference, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Presented at a session entitled, “Academic Struggles.” December 1996.
Accounting for AIDS and HIV: Differing Cultural Calculations and Their Role in Prevention and Education. Co-presented with Christina Ager and Norah Peters, Jerry Belcher Faculty Forum, Beaver College. September 1996.
Marginalization and Institutional Restructuring: Struggles of a Flexible Professoriate in the New University. Co-presented with Wesley Shumar at the National Coalition of Independent Scholars Third National Conference, Princeton. Presented at a session entitled, “Independent Scholars on the Fringe of Academia.” April 1996.
Accounting for AIDS and HIV: Differing Cultural Calculations and Their Role in Prevention and Education. Co-presented with Christina Ager and Norah Peters, Ethnography in Education Forum. Philadelphia. March 1996.
Buses, Peats, and 35 mm Film: Traveling “Hame” through Shetland. Popular Culture Association Silver Anniversary Meeting & American Culture Association 17th Anniversary Meeting, Philadelphia. Presented at a session entitled, “Philosophy: Cultural Landscapes.” 1995.
Travels from Shetland, Writings at "Hame," Confabulations of Self. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago. Presented at an invited session entitled "The Selling of Self: Constructing Identities and Touristic Practice." 1991.
Up-Helly-Aa: Living in the Contradictions of the Inventions of Traditions. American Ethnological Society Spring Meeting, Charleston SC. Presented at a session entitled "Intellectuals and Demonstrators: Speaking and Fighting for Submerged Nationalities." 1991.
Cartographic Appropriations: Puncturing the Shetland Landscape. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans. Presented at a session entitled "Other Appropriations: When Symbolic Violence Becomes Symbolic Capital." 1990.
Voices of Longing: Soothmoothers, Shetlanders, and the Simulacra of Identities. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Phoenix. Presented at a session entitled, "Ideology in Transit: Transformations, Expectations and Contradiction as Minority Meets Majority." 1988.
Shetland Othering: Images of Faroe and The Development of Culture. Northeast Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Albany. Presented as a session entitled, "Politics and Ideology." 1988.
Confabulations of Community: The Hamefarins and Political Discourse on Shetland. American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Chicago. Presented at a session entitled, "Tendentious Revisions of the Past: Concealing and Revealing Difference in the Construction of Communities." 1987.
Identity on Shetland, A Stratagem for Power: The Politics of Imagination and Confabulation. Northeast Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Amherst. Presented as a session entitled, "Fragmentary Discourse Structure and Resistance." 1987.