Naomi Leite

Ph.D. Anthropology, University of California-Berkeley, 2011

Assistant Director, Harris Center for Judaic Studies

Assistant Professor of Anthropology (affiliate appointment)

Email: nleite2@unl.edu
Phone: (402) 472-7848
Fax: 402-472-9642

Subfield

Cultural Anthropology

Major Research Interests

Cultural globalization and global interconnection; social identities; anthropology of tourism; heritage; kinship and relatedness; language and thought; material culture studies; museums; ethnographic methods

Peer-Reviewed Articles and Book Chapters

Forthcoming. "Locating Imaginaries in the Anthropology of Tourism," in Tourism Imaginaries Through an Anthropological Lens, ed. Noel Salazar and Nelson Graburn. Oxford: Berghahn.

2010  “L'anthropologie pour étudier le tourisme.” Mondes du Tourisme 1(1): 17-29. (first author, with Nelson Graburn)

2009  “Anthropological Interventions in Tourism Studies,” in The Sage Handbook of Tourism Studies, ed. Mike Robinson and Tazim Jamal. London: Sage, pp. 35-64. (first author, with Nelson Graburn)

2007  “Materializing Absence: Tourists, Surrogates, and the Making of Jewish Portugal,” in Things That Move: Material Worlds of Tourism and Travel, ed. Mike Robinson. Leeds, UK: Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change.

2005  “Travels to an Ancestral Past: On Diasporic Tourism, Embodied Memory, and Identity.” Antropológicas 9:273-302.

Book Reviews, Comments, and Working Papers

2012  Invited review of Julie Scott and Tom Selwyn, eds., Thinking Through Tourism. In Anthropos 107(2): 669-670.

2006  Review of Erik Cohen, Contemporary Tourism: Diversity and Change, with Nelson Graburn. In Annals of Tourism Research 33(1): 269-71. .

2006  Translation into Spanish of review of Erik Cohen, Contemporary Tourism: Diversity and Change, with Nelson Graburn. In Annals of Tourism Research en Español, 8(1): 195-97.

2004  Comment on James Clifford, “Looking Several Ways: Anthropology and Native Heritage in Alaska,” with Nelson Graburn. Current Anthropology 45(1): 24-25.

1994 "Master Metonymy List (Mappings of Conceptual Metonymy in the English Language).” Working Paper, Conceptual Metaphor Project. Berkeley: Linguistics / Institute for Cognitive Science, University of California.

Conference Presentations and Invited Lectures

2012   "Essentially Jewish: Family History, Ancestral Souls, and Portuguese Logics of Genealogical Causality." Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA. November.

2012. “Conversion or ‘Return'? Discourses of Being and Becoming Among Portugal's Urban Marranos.” “Jews at the Margins: Identity, Boundaries, Belonging,” an international symposium at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln

2012  "Ancestral Souls and Jewish Genes: Alternative Models of Jewishness from Portugal’s Urban Marranos." 25th Annual Klutznick-Harris Symposium, Creighton University

2011   "Our Heritage, Our Kin: Portugal’s Urban Marranos, Their Jewish Visitors, and the Creative Alchemy of Ethnic Kinship." Invited lecture, Program in Judaic Studies and Department of Anthropology, University of Oklahoma

2011  "Speaking of Heritage, Thinking Through Kinship: Preservation, Ownership, and Questions of Commensurability." Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Montreal, Quebec

2011   “Marrano Identity and the Logic of Genealogical Causality.” Guest lecture, Department of Anthropology, University of California, Berkeley

2011   Chair, “Personal and Institutional Articulations of Tourism Imaginaries.” “Tourism Imaginaries/Imaginaires Touristiques,” international conference organized by the Tourism Studies Working Group, University of California, Berkeley and Institut de Recherche et d'Études Supérieures du Tourisme, Paris I – Sorbonne

2010   “Heritage, Embodied: Portugal's Marranos, Their Jewish Visitors, and the Pervasive Past.” Cultural Heritage Working Group, University of Toronto

2008   “From Portuguese Ancestral Identity to Global Ethnic Identification: Marranos and/as Jews.” Symposium on “Anthropologies of Identity in the Portuguese-Speaking World,” organized by the Portuguese Studies Program, University of California, Berkeley

2008   “Local Identity, Global Identification: Portugal’s New Marranos and Their Ashkenazi Jewish ‘Kin’ Abroad.” Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA

2008   “Blurring the Researcher/Research Subject Distinction: ‘The Field’ as a State of Mind” (Theoretical introduction to co-organized session: Embodied Engagements: Shifting Subjectivities in Ethnographic Practice") Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, San Francisco, CA

2007   “Materializing Absence: Tourists, Surrogates, and the Making of ‘Jewish Portugal.’” Conference on “Things That Move: The Material Worlds of Tourism and Travel,” Leeds Metropolitan University, U.K.

2007   “Bodies, Spaces, Memories: Historical Tourism, Imagination, and the Materialization of Absence.” Landscape Architecture and Environmental Planning Colloquium Series, College of Environmental Design, University of California, Berkeley

2006   “Heritage Tourism as Social Practice: History, Ancestry, Emotion.” Guest lecture, Department of Anthropology, UC Santa Cruz

2005   “Rethinking Heritage Tourism: Reflections on “Heritage”, Experience, and Identity.” At “New Theoretical Paradigms in Tourism Research,” Biennial Seminar of the International Sociological Association’s Research Committee on Tourism (RC-50), Wageningen, Holland

2004   “Anusim (Crypto-Jews) in Porto, Portugal: A Report from the Field.” Annual Meeting of the Society for Crypto-Judaic Studies, Portland, Oregon

2003   “Heritage Tourism and Portuguese-Jewish Ethnic Revival.” Paper presented in the Tourism Studies Working Group Colloquium Series, University of California, Berkeley

2003   “‘The Most Jewish Country in the World’: Hidden Heritage, Tourism, and the Re-Creation of Portuguese Jewishness.” Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Chicago

Research Networks, Advisory Committees, & Editorial Boards

2012-   Editorial Board, Journal of Tourism and Cultural Change

2012-   Steering Committee, proposed Anthropology of Tourism Interest Group, American Anthropological Association

2010-   Cultural Mobilities International Research Network

2009-   Academic Advisory Board, Tourism-Contact-Culture International Research Network

2009-10 Cultural Heritage Interest Group (based at University of Toronto, Canada)

2003-   Co-founder and five-term Co-Chair, Tourism Studies Working Group (based at University of California, Berkeley)

Professional Memberships

American Anthropological Association
Portuguese Anthropological Association
Association for Jewish Studies
Council for the Anthropology of Jews and Judaism
Council for Museum Anthropology
Society for the Anthropology of Europe
Society for Urban, National, and Transnational/Global Anthropology

Courses Taught

Globalization, Religion, and Identity  (Advanced Current Topics in Anthropology – Anthropology 498/898)
Cultural Dynamics of Globalization  (University Honors 395H)
People and Things: Material Culture in Global Perspective (Freshman Honors - Anthropology 189H)
The Anthropology of Jews and Jewishness  (Judaic Studies 398/Anthropology 498)
Independent reading course: Anthropology of Museums (Advanced Readings - Anthropology 396)