Mailing address
 

952 Westbrooke Way, #5
Hopkins, Minnesota, 55343
Tel:  (952) 988-0071
E-mail: dwilliams@visi.com

Drid Williams

Drid Williams returned to the United States after several years’ absence on September 30, 1993 be­cause of currency devaluation and increased political unrest in Kenya, East Africa. Her last Lectureship overseas was with U.S. International University [Africa] where she held a dual appointment: Associate Professor (Social Anthropology) and Senior Librarian.

      •Before teaching at U.S.I.U. in Nairobi, Dr. Williams taught undergradu­ates in Eco­nomic Anthropology, Belief Systems, Language and Culture, and Introduction to So­cial/Cultural Anthropology at Moi University near Eldoret in northwestern Kenya.

      •Prior to teaching at Moi University, she held the post of Lecturer in the Music De­partment at the University of Sydney, where she developed a Master’s program in the Anthropology of the Dance and Human Movement Studies from which five students graduated in 1990-91.

      •In the anthropology of human movement studies she has taught at graduate levels in the United States and Australia, and at undergraduate levels in Kenya both at Moi University and U.S.I.U. While in Australia, she had a grant to study Aboriginal dances and religion in Cape York Peninsula, northern Queensland from the Institute of Aborigi­nal and Torres Strait Island Studies.

      •She was awarded a scholarship by the Department of African Studies at Indiana University to enable her to take an MLS degree at the School of Library and Information Sciences which she completed in December, 1985.

      •She was awarded a Harold White Fellowship at the National Library of Australia to complete a bibliographic project on the dance in 1990.

      •In March 5-9, 1995, she conducted two graduate seminars at Indiana University, Bloomington, on the question What can an anthropology of human movement studies con­tribute to the human sciences generally? sponsored by the Indiana University Society for the Anthropological Study of Dances.

      •She was founder, and is now co-editor with Dr. Brenda Farnell, of the Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement  [JASHM], which is in its twenty-third year of publication.

      •At present, apart from teaching adjunct courses occasionally at the University of Minnesota, she recently edited two books: Anthropology and Hu­man Movement, 1: The Study of Dances and Anthropology of Human Movement, 2: Searching for Origins. A third volume is currently in preparation: Anthropology and Human Movement 3: Signifying Bod­ies, Signifying Acts. New Ways of Looking at Human Movement. A revised version of “Ten Lectures” will be published soon by the University of Illinois Press (Urbana-Cham­paign, entitled Anthropology and the Dance: Ten Lectures).

      •As the title, Anthropology and the Dance: Ten Lectures, indicates, Dr. Williams has spent a lifetime studying the multitude of theories used to explain dancing and other movement-based systems of human expression. She is the architect of “semasiology,” a way of looking at human movement studies as “action signs” rather than “behavior.” She was a professional dancer for thirty years before becoming a social anthropologist.

      •Dr. Williams has taught (and produced successful students in) the idioms of classi­cal ballet and modern concert dancing. She was an exhibition ballroom dancer. She per­formed with her company “The Circle Dancers” from New York City in 1961-62. She studied Ideokinesis with Dr. Lulu Sweigard, which she taught privately and in classes in New York, then in Wisconsin, under the auspices of the Wisconsin’s Extension Division.

1. Education
2. Field Experience
3. University Affiliations
4. Doctoral Thesis title [1975]
5. Publications (a selection):

Education

•1970-76 -- Diploma, B.Litt., and D.Phil. degrees in Social Anthropology, Oxford University, U.K.
•1984-85 -- M.L.S. in Library Science, School of Library and Information Science, Indiana University, Bloomington

Field Experience

•Ghana, West Africa [1967-1970].
•Research for Doctoral degree carried out in England [1972-1975].
•Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia [1987-1988]

University Affiliations

 • June 1996 to present -- self-employed writer; Lecturer for Augsberg College of the Third Age and adjunct Faculty, University of Minnesota. Guest lectures every year at the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign). Invited to Lecture at Arizona State University (October 27-30, 2002).
•March-June 1996 -- University of Minnesota Dance Program, Department of Theater Arts, Minneapolis Campus. The Search for Origins, II.
•December-March 1995-96 -- University of Minnesota Dance Program, Minneapolis. The Search for Origins, I.
•February-September 15, 1993 -- Associate Professor (Anthropology) and Senior Librarian, (Index, Bibliography and Acquisitions) U.S. International University - Africa, Nairobi, Kenya.
•1991-93 -- Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology, Moi University, Eldoret, Kenya.
•1986-90 -- Lecturer, Anthropology of Dance and Human Movement Studies, Department of Music, University of Sydney, Australia.
•1984-85 -- completed MLS degree, at Indiana University, Bloomington.
•1979-84 -- Associate Professor, SEHNAP Division, New York University, Anthropology of Dance and Human Movement Studies (Department of Dance and Dance Education).

 •Prior to graduation from Oxford, 1975, I was a professional dancer, teacher and choreographer in New York City from 1956 to 1963. I taught dancing for the University of Wisconsin Extension Division from 1963-1967.

Doctoral Thesis title [1975]

• The Role of Movement in Selected Symbolic Systems. [3 Vols.]  Oxford University, UK.

Publications (a selection):

• Forthcoming: Anthroplogy and the Dance: Ten Lectures. Champaign, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. [Second edition rewrite of Ten Lectures on Theories of the Dance (1991, Scarecrow Press, Metuchen, New Jersey)].

• __________  In the Shadow of Hollywood Orientalism: Authentic East Indian Dancing. Will appear in Visual Anthropology,  early 2004.

• 2002. Signifying Actions: Towards an Anthropology of Human Movement. Paper for Linguistics Conference at University of Texas, Austin, June 7.

• 2001. Signifying Actions vs. Non-Verbal Behavior. Paper for Korea Society of Dance Conference, Seoul, Korea, November 3. [Report on Conference published in Dance Research Journal (CORD) 33/1: 113-115].

• 2000a. The Cultural Appropriation of Dances and Ceremonies. Visual Anthropology 13: 345-362.

• 2000b. [Editor]Anthropology and Human Movement, 2: Searching for Origins, Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press.

• 1999a. The Roots of Semasiology. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement [JASHM] 10(3)109-158.

• 1999b. Chapter 2: Fieldwork. IN Dance in the Field (Ed. Theresa Buckland), London: Macmillan, 26-40.

• 1999c.  Messages, Meaning and the Moving Body. Visual Anthropology, 12: 87-97.

• 1999d. Beyond Survival. [Autobiography]. Beaverton, Oregon: High Ground Publishing. [N.B. Copies of this are no longer available through HGP. They are available only through the author].

• 1999e.  The Credibility of Movement-Writing. Visual Anthropology  12: 365-390.

• 1997b. [Editor] Anthropology and Human Movement, 1: The Study of Dances. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press (Part of the Rowman-Littlefield Publishing Group).

• 1996a. Traditional Danced Spaces. Concepts of Deixis and the Staging of Non-Western Dances. Tanzkunst, Ritual und Buehne: Begegnun­gen zwischen Kulturen (Eds. S. Schmiderer and M. Nürnberger), Frankfurt am Main: IKO Verlag fuer inter-kulturelle Kommunikation.

• 1996b.  [Guest Editor]. Signs of Human Action. Special Issue of Visual Anthropology on the Dance Vol. 8, No. 2-4.

• 1996a. Introduction. Pages 101-111.

• 1996b. Ceci n’est pas un “Wallaby”. Pages 197-217.

• 1996c. Discussion: “A Little Knowledge . . .”. Pages 345-358.

• 1995.  Space, Intersubjectivity and the Conceptual Imperative: Three Ethnographic Cases. Human Action Signs in Cultural Context:  The Visible and the Invisible in Movement and Dance. (Ed. B. Farnell), Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press, 44-81, and Foreword.

• 1994a. “Tanz” - Aboriginal Australia. Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart. Allgemenine Enzyklopädie der Musik. Kassel, Germany: Bärenreiter Metzler.

• 1994b. Self-Reflexivity: A Critical Overview. Special Issue on Theory and Reflexivity. Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement [JASHM,] 8(1): 1-10.

• 1994c. The Latin High Mass. The Dominican Tridentine Rite. [JASHM Monograph 1], Autumn Term, Vol. 8, No. 2, University of Iowa.

• 1993.  The Sokodae:  A West African Dance. Cultural Research. Papers on Regional Cultures and Culture-Mixing. (Ed. Tahir Shah). [The Institute for Cultural Research], London: Octagon Press.

• 1991. Ten Lectures on Theories of the Dance.  Metuchen, New Jersey: Scarecrow Press.

• 1990. Ceci n’est pas un ‘wallaby’ [This is not a wallaby]. Society of Visual Anthropology. American Anthropological Association, New Orleans, Louisiana, Nov. 16-20.

• 1987. Homo Nullius: The Status of Traditional Dancing in Northern Queensland. [5th Annual Conference on Hunters and Gatherers, Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia, 31 August]. Published in JASHM, 6(3): 87-111, 1991.

• 1986.  (Non) Anthropologists, the Dance and Human Movement. Theatrical Movement:  A Bibliographical Anthology. (Ed. B. Fleshman), Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press, [Chap. 9, pp. 158-219].

• 1982. Semasiology: A Semantic Anthropological View of Human Move­ment and Actions. Semantic Anthropology (ASA 22). (Ed. D. Parkin), London: Academic Press.

• 1980. Taxonomies of the Body. Part I: JASHM, 1(1):1-19 and Part II:  JASHM,  1(2):98-122.

• 1977. The Arms and Hands, With Special Reference to an Anglo-Saxon Sign System. Semiotica. 21(1/2):23-73.

• •List of Reviews in Ethnomusicology, Oceania, JASHM, JASO  and other publications given on request.