Emeritus Faculty

Professor of Anthropology; Curator of Native American Art - Hallie Ford Museum of Art

Research and Interests

Rebecca Dobkins is a professor of anthropology and the curator of Native American art at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art at Willamette University.  Dobkins has curated over two dozen exhibitions at the museum since its opening in 1998 and is responsible for caring for the collection of Native American art and for working with contemporary Indigenous artists and communities, particularly those in Oregon and the Northwest.  Dobkins teaches courses in cultural anthropology, Indigenous Studies, and museum studies, including Imagining Indigenous Futures and Indigenous Peoples, Human Rights, and the Environment. 

Selected Publications

• 2023 (Forthcoming) Epilogue: Printmaking at IAIA, 1980-Present.  In Experimental exPRESSion: Printmaking @IAIA, 1963-1980, Ryan Flahive, editor.  Santa Fe: Institute of American Indian Arts.
• 2022 The Art of Ceremony: Voices of Renewal from Indigenous Oregon.  Seattle: University of Washington Press.
• 2022 TRANSFORMATIONS:  The George and Colleen Hoyt Collection of Northwest Coast Art.  Salem, OR: Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University.
• 2019 Beautiful Triumphs.  In Blurring the Line: Eiteljorg Contemporary Art Fellowship 2019, edited by Jennifer Complo McNutt and Dorene Red Cloud.  Indianapolis: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, pp. 23-24. 
• 2017  Critical Impressions:  The Intersectional Space of Printmaking in Native Art.  In:  Native Art Now! Developments in Native American Art 1992-2012, edited by Veronica Passalaqua and Kate Morris.  Indianapolis: Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art, Ch. 3.
• 2017 Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts at 25.  Salem, OR: Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University. Distributed by University of Washington Press.  With essay co-authored with heather ahtone and essay by Prudence F. Roberts.
• 2017  Tribes of the Oregon Country: Cultural Plant Harvests and Indigenous Relationships with Ancestral Lands in the Twenty-First Century.  Rebecca Dobkins, Susan Stevens Hummel, Ceara Lewis, Grace Pochis, and Emily Dickey. Oregon Historical Quarterly 118(4): 488-517.
• 2016  Dobkins, R., Lewis, C., Hummel, S. and E. Dickey. Cultural plant harvests on federal lands: perspectives from members of the Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association.  Res. Pap. PNW-RP-608.  Portland OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station.
• 2012  Marie Watt:  Lodge.  Salem, OR: Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University. Distributed by University of Washington Press. 
• 2008 Joe Feddersen:  Vital Signs.  Seattle:  University of Washington Press, in association with Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University.  A volume in the Jacob Lawrence Series on American Artists. With essays by Barbara Earl Thomas and Gail Tremblay.
• 2002 Rick Bartow:  My Eye.  Salem, OR:  Hallie Ford Museum of Art, Willamette University.  Distributed by University of Washington Press. 
• 1997  Memory and Imagination:  The Legacy of Maidu Indian Artist Frank Day.  Oakland:  Oakland Museum.  Distributed by University of Washington Press.  With essays by Carey Caldwell and Frank LaPena.  Named a Choice Outstanding Academic Book for 1997. 

Selected Residencies, Fellowships, and Honors

• Sitka Center for Art and Ecology Residency, 2021
• Institute of American Indian Arts, invited research on Native American printmaking, 2020
• Santa Fe Art Institute, Truth and Reconciliation Residency, 2019
• Digital Humanities Summer Institute, University of Victoria, B.C., 2019
• Earle A. Chiles Award, for promoting Native American cultures and art to generate greater public understanding of High Desert native communities, 2012
• Northern Quebec Faculty Development Institute, Association for Canadian Studies in the US, 2009
• Millicent C. McIntosh Fellowship of the Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Foundation, 2007-2009
• National Society of Collegiate Scholars Faculty of the Year Top Ten Finalist, 2006
• Graves Award in the Humanities, 2002
• Oregon Council for the Humanities Research Grant, 2000

Grants for Research and Exhibition Projects

• Ford Family Foundation (for the exhibition and book project Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts at 25 at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art), 2017
• Oregon Cultural Trust, Cultural Development Grant for the book project The Art of Ceremony, 2015-16
• United States Department of Agriculture, United States Forest Service.  Cooperative Agreement (researching barriers to tribal member use of federal lands for harvesting of traditional plant resources), 2013-15; renewed 2016-17; renewed 2017-18
• National Endowment for the Arts Art Works (for commission of new work), 2011-13
• National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence (for reinstallation of permanent Native American Gallery at the Hallie Ford Museum of Art), 2010
• National Endowment for the Arts Challenge America Grant (for The Art of Ceremony project), 2008-09
• National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution, Native American Visual Arts Award, (for the publication of Joe Feddersen: Vital Signs), 2008
• National Endowment for the Arts American Masterpieces Program (for The Art of Ceremony project, Hallie Ford Museum of Art), 2007

Degrees Held

• Ph.D., Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley
• M.A., English, University of California, Berkeley
• B.A., Women's Studies, Summa cum laude, University of Massachusetts at Amherst

Associate Professor of Anthropology, African Studies and Public Health

History and Interests

Professor Joyce Millen has been teaching Medical/Health Anthropology and African Studies at Willamette University since 2005. Prior to joining the Willamette faculty she was Director of the Institute for Health and Social Justice of Partners In Health in Boston, MA where she also taught in the Department of Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School. In addition to a doctorate in medical anthropology, she also holds degrees in public health and international relations. Millen has conducted extensive ethnomedical and epidemiological research in West Africa, particularly in Senegal where she lived for eight years. Millen’s current research explores refugee health and wellbeing and “diasporas for development” within the specific context of Africa's crisis in human resources for health.

Education

• 2003 PhD in Anthropology (Medical), University of Connecticut
• 1994 MPH (Master of Public Health), University of Connecticut Medical Center
• 1984 BA in International Relations, Tulane University

Academic Appointments

• 2005- Willamette University
• 2004-2005 Honorary Visiting Research Associate, Massey University, New Zealand
• 1995-2004 Research Fellow in Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Courses

• ANTH 150: Controversies and Issues in Cultural Anthropology
• Global Health through Film
• ANTH 232: Peoples and Cultures of Africa
• People on the Move: Introduction to Transnational Migration
• ANTH 344: Medical Anthropology
• ANTH 371W: Survey of Anthropological Theory
• ANTH 499W: Senior Research Methods Seminar

Advising and Mentoring

• Professor Millen mentors students interested in conducting collaborative or independent summer research.
• She advises students interested in pursuing careers in international migration, public health, and global health.
• She also guides students interested in working in Africa or volunteering for the United States Peace Corps.

Publications

Books Authored

Irwin, Alexander, Joyce Millen, and Dorothy Fallows. Global AIDS: Myths and Facts, Tools for Fighting the AIDS Pandemic. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2003. (also published in Spanish and Japanese)

Books Edited

Kim, Jim Yong, Joyce V. Millen, Alec Irwin and John Gershman, eds. Dying for Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor. Monroe, ME: Common Courage Press, 2000.

*For a list of book chapters, journal articles, and other publications please see CV.

Awards and Honors

• 2017 American Anthropological Association/Oxford University Press Award for
  Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology
• 2017 Willamette University Mortar Board Professor of the Year
• 2008 The Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves Award in the Humanities
• 2006 Willamette University Mortar Board Honorable Mention for Professor of the Year

Research Projects

• 2017- Ethnographic research of refugee resettlement in Northwest, United
  States.
• 2015-2017 Environmental health challenges and lack of corporate over-site
  in West Africa.
• 2009-2016 Multi-sited ethnographic research on "diasporas for development"
  with focus on diasporic engagement in homeland health.
  Research conducted in Senegal, Ghana, France, and US/funded by the
  National Science Foundation.
• 2006-2009 Multi-sited ethnographic research examining the exodus of medical
  personnel out of Africa. Conducted in US, Uganda, Ghana, Switzerland
  and France. Funded by the Arnold L. and Lois S. Graves Award in the
  Humanities, Willamette University Lilly Project and Atkinson Faculty
  Development Award.
• 1995-2003 Multiple and varied research projects of the Institute for Health and
  Social Justice, Partners In Health. Research studies included: the health
  effects of World Bank policies in 14 resource-poor countries; the impact of
  specific World Trade Organization treatise on access to life-saving
  medicines in countries with high HIV seroprevalence; the human health
  effects of transnational corporate labor practices, promotional activities
  and political influence.
• 1993-1994 Doctoral Dissertation Field Research among the Jola in Southwestern,
  Senegal, West Africa. Ethnographic, ethnomedical and epidemiological
  study of changing morbidity and mortality patterns over four generations.
  Research funded by Fulbright Scholarship.
• 1992 Master of Public Health Field Research among the Bassari in Eastern
  Senegal, West Africa. Multi-sited ethnomedical study examining health and
  social change and local health effects of Ministry of Health reform policies.
  Funded through University of Connecticut Office of International Studies.
• 1991 Research Consultant, Health Department, Manchester, Connecticut.
  Designed and implemented citywide study on access to addiction
  rehabilitation, health care and health-supporting services.

Sample of Conference Papers and Invited Lectures

• 2019: Organized Panel for Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings
  March 19-23. Panel title: Oregon Immigrants and Refugees Organize for
  Change.
• 2017: Guest Lecture: Beyond the Clinic and the Lab: Social Scientific Insights
  into the Study of Cancer-Institute for Continued Learning, February.
• 2017: Diasporic Medical Philanthropy and the Politics of Care. The Cascadia Seminar
  in Medical Anthropology, April.
• 2016: Resisting Global Health Inequality: Unsung Heroes of the African Diaspora.
  Global Studies Association, Austin, Texas. June.
• 2016: Continuities of Care: West African Diaspora Engagement in Homeland Health.
  American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting, Minneapolis,
  Minnesota. November.
• 2015: Revising the Narrative: Africa Saves Africa. The African Studies Association
  Annual Meeting. San Diego, California. November.
• 2015: Invited Lecture: Cascade RPCV: Introduction to Medical Philanthropy. June.
• 2014: Invited Lecture: Oregon State University Lifelong Learning Program.
• 2013: Invited Panelist for Health Research Panel and Invited Discussant. African
  Studies Association Annual Meetings in Baltimore, Maryland.
• 2013: Presidential Lecture “Bringing Resources Home: Health Philanthropy among
  the Ghanaian Diaspora" presented with Professor Amadou Fofana and
  research collaborator Hannah Harper at the Ghana Physicians and Surgeons
  Foundation Annual Conference in Atlanta, Georgia in April 2013.
• 2013: Invited lecture and panel chair at Oregon State University 2013 International
  Health Conference in April 2013. "From Foreign Aid and Development to
  Solidarity and Self-Determination.
• 2013: Invited lecture at Bastyr Medical University in Seattle, Washington in May
• 2013: “Global Health: Diasporas for Health Development”
• 2012: “European-led Co-Development: A Critical Gaze (Senegal / France)” Paper
  delivered at the African Studies Association Meeting in Philadelphia,
  November. Organized panel of four papers: "Done Waiting: When African
  States Fail to Deliver, Afripolitans are Stepping In" Presented at the African
  Studies Association Meeting in Philadelphia, November.
• 2012: “Cheetahs on the Run: An Exploration of Brain-Gain Potential for Africa"
  Guest lecture at the Institute for Continued Learning, Willamette University.
• 2011:“Philoblidarity: New Paradigms for a More Authentic African Independence”
  Invited Lecture, University of Oregon, African Studies Lecture Series,
  November 10, 2011.
• 2010: “A Multi-Sited Interdisciplinary Study of West African Diaspora Engagement in
  Homeland Health" Presented at the Fifth International Conference on
  Interdisciplinary Social Sciences at the University of Cambridge, Cambridge,
  United Kingdom 2-5 August.
• 2009: Invited speaker for Global AIDS Conference. University of Oregon, Eugene.
  April 2009.
• 2009: “Cooperation or Cooptation? A Critical Analysis of African Diasporic
  Engagement” Invited Keynote Lecture for the Institute for African
  Development of Cornell University. February 26.

Professor of Anthropology

Education

• Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (Anthropology), 1988
• M.A., University of California, Berkeley (Anthropology), 1983
• B.A., University of California, Berkeley (Music), 1981

Employment History

2006  Professor of Anthropology, Willamette University, Salem, OR
1998  Associate Professor of Anthropology, Willamette University, Salem, OR
1996  Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Willamette University, Salem, OR
         (1999-2002, 2005-07, sp 2011, sp 2012 Chair, Department of Anthropology) 

1991-96 Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Illinois Wesleyan University,    Bloomington, IL.  Tenure and promotion to associate status approved in February 1996 

1989-91 Research Associate, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, University of California, Berkeley 

1991 January Intersession lecturer, Social Sciences, California State University, Chico 

1989-90 Lecturer (full-time sabbatical replacement), Department of Anthropology
California State University, Chico 

1988-91 Instructor at community colleges in California:  American River, Chabot, Foothill, Laney, Moorpark, and Sacramento City 

1983-1987 Teaching Associate and Assistant, Department of Anthropology, UC Berkeley

Research and Foreign Experience

• Summer 2017 Research at University of Nevada, Reno and University of California, Berkeley libraries, 19^th century vernacular violin-playing, social life, musical instruments as meaningful objects 
• August 2016 to July 2017 Data coder/research assistant, Natural History of Song project, Harvard University (directed by Samuel Mehr, evolutionary psychology), www.naturalhistoryofsong.org 
• July-November 2011 Research in San Francisco Bay Area, on Thai performing arts as supported by Thai Buddhist temples in California 
• June-July 2009  Faculty Exchange Scholar, Tokyo International University (through exchange program with Willamette University), Kawagoe, Japan 
• Feb-June 2008  Faculty Director of study abroad program for Willamette University students, University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia 
• Aug-Sept. 2007  Fulbright Visiting Scholar, Chiang Mai Rajabhat University, Thailand
• for lecturing, consulting, and research 
• Aug-Dec. 2002  Affiliated Fellow, International Institute for Asian Studies, Leiden University, The Netherlands, for research on music and nationalism in S and SE Asia 
• Summer 1998  Visiting Scholar, Institute for International Studies, UC Berkeley 
• Jan-Apr. 1995  Documentation of Northern Thai processional music, with focus on ritual, festival, gender, in Chiang Mai, Thailand 
• Summer 1992  Documentation of Thai musical instrument making, in Bangkok/Thonburi area and adjacent provinces, Ayuthia, and Chiang Mai area, Thailand 
• 1985-86  Research for doctoral dissertation, on music and musicians in Bangkok, Thailand, supported by Fulbright IIE

Publications

Books

• Author, Violins:  Local Meanings, Globalized Sounds.  Routledge (Taylor and Francis) Series for Creative Teaching and Learning in Anthropology. Under final review by series editors before production.  Expected publication date February 1, 2019. 
• Author/editor, Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion:  a Reader in the Anthropology of Religion 9e, McGraw-Hill Publishers, 491 pp.; published September 2012 (copyright 2013.) 
• Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion:  a Reader in the Anthropology of Religion, co-editor with James Myers, McGraw-Hill Publishers. (8e 2010, 516 pp.;  7e 2008, 556 pp.;  6e 2005, 538 pp.)
  Reviewed by committee of peer consultants.
• Thai Music and Musicians in Contemporary Bangkok, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Monograph No. 34, University of California, Berkeley, 1993. (271 pp.)
  Refereed.

Articles

• In press – “Religion and the transmission of Thai musical heritage, in Thailand and the U.S.,” chapter accepted for inclusion in book, Critical Perspectives on Music, Education, and Religion, Indiana University Press.  New title as of July 2018:  Music, Education, and Religion:  Intersections and Entanglements. Expanded version of paper presented at conference in Helsinki, August 2015.  Chapter proposal accepted in March 2015. Manuscript submitted in June 2015 and revised May 2016.   (5,488 words)  Final editorial acceptance June 15, 2016.  Going to press August 2018. 
• In press – “Witchcraft, sorcery, and magic,” invited essay for International Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Wiley Press.  Contracted in September 2014, manuscript submitted in July 2015.  (5,515 words)  Final editorial acceptance May 28, 2016. 
• Music as Activist Spectacle:  AIDS, Breast Cancer, and LGBT Choral Singing in Public Performances:  Studies in the Carnivalesque and Ritualesque ed. Jack Santino Boulder:  University Press of Colorado/Utah State University Press, pp. 189-204, 2017. 
• Literature review and annotated bibliography on Thai music, Oxford Bibliographies Online, peer reviewed (April 2014) and copy edited (May 2014).  Commissioned. 
• There She Was:  Love, Courtship, and Marriage in Performances by Gay and Lesbian Choruses in Music, Dance, and the Art of Seduction ed. Frank Kouwenhoven and James Kippen.  Delft, The Netherlands:  Eburon, pp. 185-196, 2013.  Refereed/selected by volume editors in 2007. 
• Literature review and annotated bibliography on the concept of magic in the anthropological literature, Oxford Bibliographies Online, peer reviewed and online as of February 2012.  Commissioned. 
• Thai Buddhism and the Popularity of Amulets in Anthropological Perspective in Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion 8^th edition ed. Pamela Moro and James Myers, McGraw-Hill Publishers, pp. 34-41, 2010.  Lightly refereed by McGraw-Hill consultant in 2009, and peer-reviewed when the volume was revised for a new edition in 2011-12. 
• Defining the classical in studies of South and Southeast Asian music:  a review and evaluation of pertinent scholarship, E-ASPAC, 2005 issue (peer-reviewed electronic publication)
  Refereed. 
• Constructions of nation and the classicization of music:  comparative perspectives from Southeast and South Asia, Journal of Southeast Asia Studies, 35(2):187-211, 2004.
  Refereed. 
• Elite music and nationalism:  how does music become classical?  Newsletter of the International Institute for Asian Studies, Issue 31, p. 18, July 2003. 
• Fourteen commissioned entries for Baker’s Dictionary of World Music, submitted July 2002.  Project suspended for possible transfer to another publisher. 
• Building a one-person minor:  anthropology in cooperation with neighboring disciplines, Federation of Small Anthropology Programs Newsletter 3(2):2-3, 1994. 
• Teachers on tape:  innovation and experimentation in teaching Thai music, Balungan, 5(1):15-20, 1991.
  Refereed. 
• Musical notation in Thailand, Journal of the Siam Society 78:101-108, 1990.
  Refereed. 
• Thai music and attitudes towards the past, Journal of American Folklore 102:190-194, 1989.
  Refereed. 
• Names and civil service titles of Siamese musicians, Asian Music, 19(2):82-92, 1988.
  Refereed. 
• Songs for life:  leftist Thai popular music in the 1970s, Journal of Popular Culture 29(3):93-113, 1986. 
  Refereed.

Book and Recording Reviews

• Realizing the Witch: Science, Cinema, and the Mastery of the Invisible, by Richard Baxstrom and Todd Meyers.  NY:  Fordham University Press, 2016.  Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (Great Britain and Ireland), submitted June 2017.  750 words. 
• The Anthropology of Eastern Religions: Ideas, Organizations, and Constituencies, by Murray J. Leaf.  Lanham, MD:  Rowman & Littlefield, 2014.  Journal of Religious & Theological Information, Volume 13, Issues 3-4, 2015, pp. 93-94. 
• Laos. Molams and Mokhenes. Singing and Mouth Organ - Single CD with 12pp. of notes by Véronique de Lavenere, Inedit/Maison des Cultures du Monde: W260137, France, 2009 and  Laos. Music of the Ancient Royal Court of Luang Prabang.  Tiao Phün Muang Single - CD with 28pp. of notes by Jean-Marie Knapp, AIMP LXXXI Archives Internationales de Musique Populaire AIMP & VDE-GALLO: VDE CD-1213, France, 2008.  Ethnomusicology Forum 22(2):263-6.  1000 words. 
• Jâtaka Stories in Theravâda Buddhism: Narrating the Bodhisatta
• Path, by Naomi Appleton. Farnham: Ashgate Publishing, 2010.  Journal of Folklore Research, December 2011, 869 words. 
• We Have a Religion: The 1920s Pueblo Indian Dance Controversy and American Religious Freedom, by Tisa Wenger.  Chapel Hill:  University of North Carolina Press, 2009.  Journal of Folklore Research, September 2009, 966 words, http://www.indiana.edu/~jofr/review.php?id=817 
• Challenging Gender Norms: Five Genders Among the Bugis of Indonesia, by Sharyn Graham Davies.  Belmont, CA:  Thomson Wadsworth, 2007.  Anthropological Forum 19(1):111-113, 2009.   
• The Ethnographic Eye: a Methodological Novel About Ethnography, by Carolyn Ellis.  Walnut Creek, CA:  AltaMira Press, 2004.  Symbolic Interaction, 29(2):265-269, 2006. 
• Thai Classical Singing: Its History, Musical Characteristics, and Transmission, by Dusadee Swangviboonpong.  Hampshire, England:  Ashgate Publishing, 2003.  NOTES:  the Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association, Vol. 62:152-3, 2005. 
• Dance of Life: Popular Music and Politics in Southeast Asia, by Craig A. Lockard.  Honolulu:  University of Hawaii Press, 1998.  Indonesia 70:165-6, 2000. 
• Sites of Desire, Economies of Pleasure: Sexualities in Asia and the Pacific, ed. Lenore Manderson and Margaret Jolly.  Chicago: Univ. of Chicago press, 1997.  Crossroads:  an Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 13:126-8, 1998. 
• Thailand’s Turn: Profile of a New Dragon, by Elliott Kulick and Dick Wilson.  NY:  St. Martinís Press, 1992.  Journal of Third World Studies 12:314-8, 1995. 
• Performance in Java and Bali: Studies of Narrative, Theatre, Music, and Dance, ed. Bernard Arps.  SOAS, University of London, 1993.  Crossroads:  an Interdisciplinary Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 8:253-5, 1994. 
• Dance, Drama, and Theatre in Thailand: the Process of Development and Modernization, by Mattani Mojdara Rutnin. Tokyo: Center for East Asian Cultural Studies for UNESCO, 1993.  Journal of Asian Studies 53:1327-9, 1994. 
• Selected Reports in Ethnomusicology: Text, Context, and Performance in Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam, ed. Amy Catlin.  UCLA, 1992. Journal of American Folklore 107:453-5, 1994. 
• African Stars: Studies in Black South African Performance, by Veit Erlmann.  Chicago:  University of Chicago Press, 1991. Journal of American Folklore 106:242-4, 1993. 
• Hindu Gods at Sukodhaya, by M.C. Subhadradis Diskul. Bangkok: White Lotus Co., 1990.  Journal of Southeast Asian Studies (Singapore) 22(2):461-3, 1991.