Elizabeth A. Povinelli

Elizabeth A. Povinelli (b. 1962, Buffalo) lives and works in New York. She is Franz Boas Professor of Anthropology and Gender Studies at Columbia University where she has also been the Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender and the Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Law and Culture. Povinelli earned her B.A. from St. John’s College in Santa Fe and her Ph.D. from Yale. Before starting her career as an academic anthropologist, Povinelli worked closely with the Beyluen Community in Northern Australia as a Thomas J. Watson Fellow. She is the author of numerous books and essays including The Cunning of Recognition: Indigenous Alterities (2002) and The Empire of Love: Toward a Theory of Intimacy, Genealogy, and Carnality (2006). Her writing has focused on developing a critical theory of late liberalism that would support an anthropology of the otherwise. Povinelli was formerly the editor of Public Culture, an interdisciplinary journal of cultural studies. Co-directed with Liza Johnson and written with the Karrabing Indigenous Corporation, her “Karrabing, Low Tide Turning,” was selected for the 2012 Berlinale International Film Festival, Shorts Competition.