Benjamin Eastman
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Anthropology
Benjamin Eastman, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, received his B.A. (1994, with honors) in Anthropology from the University of California, Santa Cruz, his M.A. (2001) in Socio-cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago, and will receive his Ph.D. in Socio-cultural Anthropology from the University of Chicago in June 2009.
Eastman's research focuses on contemporary Cuba and Latin America and his interests include socialism/post-socialism, sports, and the relationships between nationalist rituals, moral authority, and political legitimacy. Specifically, his work is situated analytically and methodologically at the intersection of official interests with popular concerns in Cuban baseball during the post-Soviet "special period" in Cuban society. He examines how under the severe circumstances of the "special period" baseball may be a site where contradictions in socialist authority are made visible and in the process how the game can be infused with new meanings capable of redefining the legitimacy of the Cuban state.
Recent publications based on this research include his co-edited volume, America's Game(s): A Critical Anthropology of Sports (Routledge 2007) featuring his articles on Cuban baseball fans and their efforts to make sense of Cuban baseball player defections to play professionally in the United States as well as on how contemporary practices of American power can be read through American sporting practices. Eastman will teach courses on political anthropology, the anthropology of sports, the anthropology of colonialism, the anthropology of Latin America, as well as anthropological theory.
Last modified September 10 2009 05:04 PM
