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Anthropology
Prof Heads to Ethiopia on Fulbright
Elliot
Fratkin, professor of anthropology, and his wife, Dr. Martha
Nathan, a physician at Baystate Brightwood Health Center
in Springfield, have been awarded U.S. Fulbright Scholarships
to teach at Hawassa University in Ethiopia between October
2011 and June 2012. Professor Fratkin previously taught as
a U.S. Fulbright Scholar at the University of Asmara, Eritrea
in 2003.
Elliot Fratkin, on left, with laibon (medicine man)
Kanikis Leaduma, in Kenya. |
Recipients of Fulbright awards
are selected on the basis of academic or professional achievement,
as well as demonstrated leadership potential in their fields.
The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship
international educational exchange program, is sponsored
by the United States Department of State, Bureau of Educational
and Cultural Affairs. Since its establishment in 1946 under
legislation introduced by the late Senator J. William Fulbright
of Arkansas, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately
294,000 people–108,160 Americans who have studied, taught
or researched abroad and 178,340 students, scholars and teachers
from other countries who have engaged in similar activities
in the United States—with the opportunity to observe each
others' political, economic, educational and cultural institutions,
to exchange ideas and to embark on joint ventures of importance
to the general welfare of the world's inhabitants. The Program
operates in more than 155 countries worldwide.
“I will be teaching in a new department of anthropology in a young university
in southwest Ethiopia,” said Fratkin of his Fulbright assignment. “I feel that
my teaching in an African university is a partial payback for all the help I
received as an anthropologist studying nomadic pastoralists in Kenya.”
Fratkin, who has been a member
of the Smith faculty since 1995, is the author of the forthcoming
memoir of fieldwork Laibon: An Anthropologists Journey with
Samburu Diviners of Kenya.
Fulbright recipients are among
more than 40,000 individuals participating in U.S. Department
of State exchange programs each year. For more than 60 years,
the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs has supported
programs that seek to promote mutual understanding and respect
between the people of the United States and the people of
other countries. The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program is administered
by the Council for International Exchange of Scholars. |
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