Department of Anthropology
Professor
222 Waldo Hall
541-737-3852
Email: jgross@oregonstate.edu

• Teaching
• Publications
• Ongoing research
  

Teaching

Regular Courses

• Language in the USA ANTH 251 (Bac Core)
• World Cultures - Latin America ANTH 313/413/513 (Bac Core)
• World Cultures - Europe ANTH 313/413 (Bac Core)
• Language, Culture and Society ANTH 350 (Anthropology Core)
• Folklore & Expressive Culture ANTH 452/552 (Liberal Arts Core)
• The Anthropology of Food Anth 486/586
• Language in Global Context ANTH 487/587 (Bac Core)
• Linguistic Transcription ANTH 494/594
• Oral Traditions ANTH 498/598
• Linguistic Anthropology 551 (Bac Core)

Additional courses

• Topics in Linguistic Anthropology
• La Culture Populaire en Francophonie
• International Mentoring - Fall, 2000 (For students experienced in American culture who want to help international students learn about life at OSU)
• Cultural Diversity Study Abroad and Western Culture Study Abroad (two Baccalaureate Core classes for students who are spending a term or more abroad)

Joan Gross is also co-director of the Language in Culture Undergraduate Certificate Program.

Publications and Presentations

Books

Teaching Oregon Native Languages. (Editor and co-author) Corvallis: Oregon State University Press, 2007.

Speaking in Other Voices: An Ethnography of Walloon Puppet Theaters. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Press, 2001, 337 pp.

Refereed Articles and Book Chapters

• Teaching about Globalization and Food in Ecuador (with David McMurray) Food and Society 10:3, Fall 2007.
• A History of Difference, Power and Discrimination at Oregon State University (with Janet Nishihara) In Teaching for Change: The Difference, Power and Discrimination Model. Jun Xing, Judith Li, Larry Roper and Susan Shaw, eds. Boulder: Lexington Books 2007, pp. 5-16.
• Phat in Don Kulick and Anne Meneley (eds.) Fat: the Anthropology of an Obsession. New York: Penguin/Tarcher 2005.
• Puerto Rican and Algerian Musical Discourses in the Diaspora (co-authored with David McMurray) In Alec Hargreaves (ed.) Minoritiés ethniques anglophones et francophones: études culturelles comparatives. Paris: L'Harmattan, 2003.
• The Massacre of the Innocents: Politics and Art in Belgium, 1886-1910 Comparative Literature and Culture. vol. 5.3, September 2003.
• Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Rai, Rap, and Franco-Maghrebi Identity, Reprinted in Gender in a Transnational World: Introduction to Women's Studies. Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplan, eds. McGraw-Hill, 2002.
• Halloween aux Etats-Unis d'Amérique: une vue personnelle. Halloween Passage, eds. Annick Marchant and Marie-Claude Thurion. Musée de la Vie wallonne, 2001, pp. 29-38.
• Regional accents of global music: The Occitan Rap of Les Fabulous Trobadors. (co-authored with Vera Mark, Penn State U.) French Cultural Studies 12(34) February, 2001, pp. 77-94.
• Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Rai, Rap, and Franco-Maghrebi Identity, Reprinted in The Anthropology of Globalization: A Reader. Jonathan Xavier Inda and Renato Rosaldo, eds. Blackwell, 2001.
• Belgian Language Politics in Performance. Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Symposium about Language and Society, 1999, pp.104-114.
• Rai, Rap and Ramadan Nights: Franco-Maghrebi Cultural Identities. Reprinted in Political Islam, Joel Beinin and Joe Stork, eds. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
• La política del uso del idioma non oficial: el valón en Bélgica, el tamazight en Marruecos. (Translated from The Politics of Unofficial Language Use: Walloon in Belgium, Tamazight in Morocco. ) El Vigía de Tierra 2/3, 1996-97, pp. 181-204.
• Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Rai, Rap and Franco-Maghrebi Identity. (Equally co-authored with David McMurray and Ted Swedenburg) (updated Diaspora article) In Displacement, Diaspora and the Geographies of Identity. Smadar Lavie and Ted Swedenburg, eds. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1996.
• Belgium. In European Anthropologies: A Guide to the Profession, Vol. 1 Ethnography, Ethnology, and Social/Cultural Anthropology. Susan Rogers, Thomas Wilson and Gary McDonogh, eds. American Anthropological Association/Society for the Anthropology of Europe, 1996.
• Popular Culture as Contested Terrain: The Case of Tchantchès. Anthropological Quarterly 67(2) April/July 1994, pp. 62-70.
• Arab Noise and Ramadan Nights: Rai, Rap, and Franco-Maghrebi Identity. (Equally co-authored with David McMurray and Ted Swedenburg) Diaspora: A Journal of Transnational Studies 3(1) 1994, pp. 3-39.
• The Politics of Unofficial Language Use: Walloon in Belgium, Tamazight in Morocco. Critique of Anthropology 13(2) 1993, pp. 177-208.
• Berber Origins and the Politics of Ethnicity in Colonial North African Discourse. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review 16(2) June 1993, pp. 39-57.
• Multilingualism in Morocco. In Contemporary Cultural Anthropology Michael Howard Glenview, IL: HarperCollins 1993.
• Rai, Rap and Ramadan Nights: Franco-Maghrebi Cultural Identities. (Equally co-authored with David McMurray and Ted Swedenburg) Middle East Report September/October, 1992, pp. 11-17
• Walloons. In The Encyclopedia of World Cultures, Volume 4, Europe. Linda A. Bennett, ed. Boston: G.K. Hall and Co. (Macmillan) for the Human Relations Area Files, 1992, pp. 276-278.
• The Form and Function of Humor in the Liège Puppet Theater. In Humor and Comedy in Puppetry. D. Sherzer and J. Sherzer, eds. Bowling Green, Ohio: Popular Press, 1987, pp.106-126.
• Transformations of a Popular Culture Form in Northern France and Belgium. Anthropological Quarterly 60(2) April, 1987, pp. 71-76.
• Creative Use of Language in a Liège Puppet Theater. Semiotica 47(1-4) 1983, pp. 281-315.

Recent Presentations

• Rejecting Capitalism or Accepting its Waste: Social Food Movements among the Poor. 106th Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Washington, DC, Nov. 28, 2007. 
• Eating Habits of college students in Quito, Ecuador and Corvallis, Oregon: Course Assignments as research data. Agriculture, Food and Human Values and Association for the Study of Food and Society, Victoria, BC, Canada, June 1, 2007.
• Teaching Oregon Native Languages. Poster. American Anthropological Association, Washington, D.C. December 2005.
• Visualizing the Past in Present Day Food Systems: An Ethnographic Inquiry into "Back to the Land" Farmers and Freegans. Agriculture, Food and Human Values and Association for the Study of Food and Society, Portland, OR, June 9-12, 2005.
• The Power of Language. Faculty for Peace and Justice, OSU. February 7, 2005.
• Food Insecurity in Rural Benton County: An Ethnographic Study. Ideas Matter Lecture Series, OSU. January 20, 2005
• Teaching Indigenous Languages in Oregon. Cultural Diversity and Language Education, National Foreign Language Resource Center. Manoa, HI, September 18, 2004.
• Native Americans and Education at Oregon State University. Speaking to the Seventh Generation Conference on Language Revitalization, Corvallis, OR. May 16, 2003.
• Forum: Indigenous Language Teaching in Oregon and the Uses of Collaboration, Society for Applied Anthropology. Portland, OR. March 21, 2003.
• Phat. 101st Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in New Orleans, LA, Nov. 2002.
• The Massacre of the Innocents: Politics and Art in Belgium, 1886-1915, OSU Center for the Humanities, November 19, 2001.
• Minority Languages in the Global Age. Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting. Mérida, Mexico. March 31, 2001.
• Women in Islam. UNIFEM and OSU Women's Center, November 5, 2001.
• Global Critique on American Feminism, panelist. OSU Women's Center. January 22, 2001.
• International Education and the Linguistic Marketplace in France. 99th Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association in San Francisco, CA, Nov. 17, 2000.
• Globalization, International Education and Work Conditions. Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meeting. San Francisco, CA. March 22, 2000.

Ongoing Projects

Joan Gross' research interests range from language to food. While it could be said that the two are linked through the mouth (language coming out and food going in) it is more a concern with local culture in the face of globalization that ties the two areas together. Gross has had a long interest in lesser-known languages and how people pass them along in the home or through verbally artistic forms or through teaching programs. She has worked on Tamazight in Morocco, Walloon in Belgium and Oregon Native languages. All of these languages have suffered in the face of national languages. Many national languages also have had to take a back seat to global languages like English.

Interesting parallels exist within the food system. People who have been able to sustain themselves in particular environments for many generations now find themselves dependent on food that is shipped around the world. Small farmers in developing countries find themselves victims of this imported food and often feel forced to orient their own production for the export market or to leave their land to work in agribusinesses in richer countries. As people become more disconnected with the source of their food, nutritional health problems rise. Small-time food producers are dwindling as are speakers of Walloon and Kiksht. But neither group is content with disappearing. Gross wants her research and that of her students to assist people in figuring out how they fit into the global network and to help them validate local culture and agriculture within that context. She has incorporated students into several of her research projects in Oregon and has developed a rural Oregon ethnographic field school with Nancy Rosenberger.