Stanley Brandes, Professor

Anthropology, Sociocultural Anthropology, Medical Anthropology

Ritual and religion; food and drink; the anthropology of alcohol use; visual anthropology; and the cultural anthropology of Mediterranean Europe and Latin America (emphasis on Spain and Mexico).

Profile

For more than thirty years, I have been immersed in the study of European and Latin American ethnography. My work has focused about equally on Spain and Mexico, although I have also written on the United States and Guatemala. During the course of my career, I have turned my attention to a wide variety of topics, including peasant society and culture, demographic anthropology (particularly issues revolving around migration and nuptiality), folklore (particularly jokes, banter, and humor of all kinds), the life course (including, most importantly, middle age), symbolism, ritual and religion, food and drink, and, most recently, visual anthropology. While abroad, I have lived and worked in both rural and urban settings and believe that, whether writing about Spain, Mexico, or the United States, my work is grounded in direct observations of a given people and reflects a sensitivity to regional, ethnic, class, and gender diversity. I believe strongly in the ethnographic field tradition.
     
I am currently engaged in three topics of investigation. First is Mexico's Day of the Dead, which I write about from an historical and ethnographic perspective, and includes material from Latin America, Europe, and the U.S. Second is Alcoholics Anonymous in Mexico City, an intensive study over nearly two years of a single group of recuperating alcoholic men, all from working class, migrant backgrounds. Third is photography and anthropology, particularly the ways in which ethnographic photographs, intentionally or not, have communicated information and impressions about the Other. Most of my research on this last topic has been carried out in the context of Spain.

Representative Publications

2000                 El Dia de Muertos, el Halloween, y la búsqueda de una identidad nacional mexicana.  Alteridades: México,D.F., Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana - Iztapalapa 10:7-20.

 

2000                 The Day of the Dead as Mexican National Symbol.  In: Contemporary Societies and Cultures of Latin America (Dwight Heath, ed.), Third Edition, pp. 303-318. Westview Press.

 

2001                       Prologue to Alimentación y Sociedad en Iberoamérica y  España: Cinco etnografías de la comida y la cocina, by Julián López García, pp. 11-15.  Cáceres (Spain): Universidad de Extremadura.

 

2001                 The Cremated Catholic: The Ends of a Deceased Guatemalan.  Body and     Society 7 (2-3):111-120.

 

2002                 Staying Sober in Mexico City.  Austin: University of Texas  Press.

 

2002                 The Cremated  Catholic: The Ends of a Deceased  Guatemalan . In: Commodifying Bodies (Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Loïc Waquant, eds.), pp. 111-120.  London: Sage. [Reprint of 2001 article]

 

2002                 Bebida, abstinencia e identidad masculina en la Ciudad de México.  Alteridades  (Mexico City) 12 (23):5-18.

 

2002                 Beatniks, Hippies, Yippies: Orígenes del Movimiento Estudiantil en Estados Unidos.  In: Movimientos Juveniles: De la Globalización a la Antigobalización (Carles Feixa, Joan R. Saura, Carmen Costa, eds), pp. 93-109.  Barcelona: Ariel.

 

2003     Drink, Abstinence, and Male Identity in Mexico City. In: Changing Men and

                        Masculinities in Latin America (Matthew C. Gutmann, ed.), pp. 153-178.  Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.

 

2003                 Obituary of Mary LeCron Foster.  American Anthropologist 105 (1):218-221.

 

2003                 Prologue to La Cultura Tradicional en España y América, by George M. Foster, pp. 13-19.  Sevilla (Spain): Signatura Demos.

 

2003                 Is There a Mexican View of Death?  Ethos 31 (1):127-144.

 

2003                 Calaveras: Literary Humor in Mexico’s Day of the  Dead.  In: Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture (Peter Narvaez, ed.)., pp. 221-238.  Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press.

 

2003                       Kol Nidre in Spain.  In: Behind Many Masks: Gerald Berreman and Berkeley Anthropology, 1959-2001 (ed. Katherine C. MacKinnon), pp. 168-175.  Kroeber Anthropological Society Papers, Nos. 89-90.

 

2004                       La cremazione di un cattolico: i destini di un guatemalteco deceduto.  In: Corpi in vendita: Interi e a pezzi (eds., Nancy Scheper-Hughes and Loïc Wacquant), pp.113-123.  Verona: Ambre Corte.  [Italian translation of 2002 article]

 

2004                 Review Essay of Traditional Family Values and Substance Abuse: The   Hispanic Contribution to an Alternative Prevention and Treatment Approach, by Mary Cuadrado and Louis Lieberman, and Drinking: Anthropological Approaches, edited by Igor de Garine and Valerie de Garine.  American Anthropologist 106 (2):397-398.

 

2004              Estar Sobrio en la Ciudad de México.  [Spanish translation of Staying Sober

                        in Mexico City].  México, D.F.: Plaza y Janés.

 

2004                 “Buenas noches, compañeros”: historias de vida de alcohólicos anónimos.

                        Revista de Antropología Social (Madrid) 13:113-136.

 

2004                 Acerca de anfitriones y huéspedes: La oración judía en España.  In: La antropología como pasión y como práctica: ensayos in honorem Jullian Pitt-Rivers (ed. Honorio M. Velasco), pp. 151-160.  Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

 

2005                 Retratos en acción: La España de Cristina García Rodero.  In: Maneras de Mirar: Homenaje a Cristina García Rodero, pp. 229-244 (ed., Cristina Sánchez Carretero).  Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. 

 

2005                 Interpretar sin Palabras: Entrevista con Cristina García Rodero.  In: Maneras de Mirar: Hoemaje a Cristina García Rodero, pp. 245-255 (ed., Cristina Sánchez Carretero). Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas.

 

2006                 Skulls to the Living, Bread for the Dead: Celebrations of Death in Mexico and Beyond.  Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.  (In press)

 

2006                 Obituary of Alan Dundes (with Laura Nader).  American Anthropologist 108 (1):268-271.

 

2006                 Review of Death and the Idea of Mexico, by Claudio Lomnitz.  American Ethnologist 33(3).  On line at www.aaanet.org/aes:                                  

 

2006                 Obituary of George M. Foster, Jr.  Anthropology News 47 (6):49.

 

2006                 Review of Forms of Tradition in Contemporary Spain.  Museum Anthropology 29   (2):154-156.

 

2006                 Entrevista a Stanley Brandes (with Sergio López Martínez).  Verde Doncella 6:16-20.  [Slightly altered reprint of 2005 Interview]

 

2007                 La violencia sobre el alma en un mundo transnacional.  In: Lugares Indígenas de la Violencia en Iberoamérica (Julián López García y Pedro Pitarch, eds.), pp. 125-135.  Madrid: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional.  In press.

 

2006                 Review of Fire in the Plaça, by Dorothy Noyes.  Journal of American Folklore 119 (472):239-240.

 

2006                 Skulls to the Living, Bread for the Dead: Celebrations of Death in Mexico and Beyond.  Oxford and Malden, MA: Blackwell.

 

2006                 El Cuerpo Alcoholizado.  In: Cuerpo y Medicina: Textos y Contextos Culturales (Beatríz Muñoz González and Julián López García, eds.), pp. 183-202.  Cáceres (Spain): Cicon Ediciones.

 

2006                 La violencia sobre el alma en un mundo transnacional.  In: Lugares Indígenas de la Violencia en Iberoamérica (Julián López García y Pedro Pitarch, eds.), pp. 125-135.  Madrid: Agencia Española de Cooperación Internacional.

 

 

2007                 Review of Alcohol, Gender and Drinking Problems: Perspectives from Low and Middle Income Countries (eds. Isidore S. Obot and Robin Room). Global Public Health 2 (3):319-323.

 

2007                 Obituary of George M. Foster, Jr. (with Robert Van Kemper).  American                         Anthropologist 109 (2):425-428.

 

2007                 Church or State?  Inside Mexico (Mexico City).  October.

 

2007                 Milagros from the Girard Collection.  In: Faith and Transformation; Amulets and Ex-Votos from the Alexander Girard Collection (Doris Frances, ed.), pp.16-17.  Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press.

 

2007                 Visiones mexicanas de la muerte.  In: Etnografías de la muerte y las culturas en América Latina (eds., Juan Antonio Flores Martos and Luisa Abad González), pp. 31-53.  Cuenca: Universidad de Castilla-LaMancha.

 

2008                 The  Things  We  Carry.   Men  and  Masculinities 11 (2):145-154.  (special  issue  on Men  Doing  Fieldwork  among  Women,  edited  by  Douglas  Falen and  David  Berliner).

 

2008                 Mi llegada a Becedas: Episodio primero.  Verde Doncella (Béjar, Spain) 8:14-16.

 

2008                 Graciela Iturbide as Anthropological Photographer.  Visual Anthropology Review 24 (2):95-102.

 

2009                 Torophiles and Torophobes: the Politics of Bulls and Bullfights in Contemporary Spain.  Anthropological Quarterly 82 (3):779-794.

 

2009                 The Meaning of American Pet Gravestones. Ethnology 48(2):99-118.

 

2010                 The Cremated Catholic: The Ends of a Deceased Guatemalan.  In: Magic, Witchcraft, and Religion: A Reader in the Anthropology of Religion (Pamela Moro and James E, Myers, eds.), pp. 349-355.  [Reprint from two earlier editions of this reader]

 

2011                 Obituary of José Antonio Fernández de Rota.  Anthropology News 52(2):31.  (with James Fernández)

 

In Press            Ratatouille: An Animated Account of Cooking, Taste, and Human Evolution.  Ethnos (London).