Brian Boyd
Senior Lecturer & Director of Museum Anthropology

My Contact Info

956 Schermerhorn Extension, Mail Code: 5523, United States

Additional Titles

Co-Director of the Columbia Center for Palestine Studies
Co-Chair of the?Columbia Seminar on Human-Animal Studies

Office Hours

By appointment.



(212) 854-4564
[email protected]

Brian Boyd

Research Interests

Language, Social Theory, Critical Theory
Human/Animal Relations, Bodies & Medicine
Museums, Archives, Practices of Memory
Art, Objects, Public Makings
Intellectual & Disciplinary Histories

Research Concentrations

Settler Colonialism, Museums, Nationalism, Sound Studies, The Sonic Past, Archives, Gender, Queer Theory, Materiality, Anthropology of Science, Built Environment, Pre-urban Spaces, Human-Animal Relations, Multispecies Approaches, Landscape History, Political Ecology, Mortuary Practices, Ritual

Regions

Southwest Asia, Middle East;?Palestine

Biography

Brian Boyd works on the prehistory and politics of archaeology in southwest Asia, with a focus on Palestine. He is particularly interested in the writing of microhistories as a counter to the grand narratives of social life in the deep past. He also writes on critical human-animal studies, museum anthropology, gender/queer theory and sound studies. His current fieldwork takes place in the Palestinian Territories, where he codirects a Columbia University/Birzeit University archaeology and museum anthropology community project, focusing in and around the village/town of Shuqba, northwest of Ramallah. This project involves collaboration with the local community to produce a deep history of their village and its landscapes, which will be represented in museum exhibits and installations in the local area and beyond. Brian is currently codirector of the Center for Palestine Studies, cochair of the University Seminar on Human-Animal Studies, and program director of the Center for Archaeology.
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Education

University of Cambridge, PhD?in Archaeology, 1996
Glasgow University, MA?in Archaeology and Social Anthropology, 1991

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Bibliography

2018. “An archaeological telling of multispecies co-inhabitation: comments on the origins of agriculture and domestication narrative in Southwest Asia.” In Multispecies Archaeology, edited by S. P. Birch, 251-270. New York: Routledge.
2018b. “Archaeologies of Technology.” In The Encyclopedia of Archaeological Sciences, edited by S. L. Lopez Varela. London: Wiley & Sons.
2018c. “Settled? Recent debates in the archaeology of the Epipalaeolithic and Pre-Pottery Neolithic of Southwest Asia.” Asian Archaeology 1, nos. 1-2: 63-73.
2017. “Ecologies of fiber-work: animal technologies and invisible craft practices in prehistoric Southwest Asia.” Quaternary International 468: 250-261.
2017b. “Human-animal relations and archaeology: thinking through anthropocentrism.” Annual Review of Anthropology 46: 299-316.
2017c. “The political ecology of za’atar.” EnviroSociety (blog). Environment and Society.?
2016. “Abu Hureyra 1 in Northwest Syria: ‘periphery’ no more.” In Fresh Fields and Pastures New: papers presented in honor of Andrew M.T. Moore, edited by K. T. Lillios and M. Chazan, 21-39. Leiden: Sidestone.
2015. “Anthropology and the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions.” Savage Minds: notes and queries in anthropology (blog).
2015. “Toxic Ecologies of Occupation.” EnviroSociety (blog). Environment and Society.
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