Catherine J. Allen

Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs
Chair, Department of Anthropology
E-mail kitallen@gwu.edu
Office: Hortense Amsterdam House 101 / (202) 994-7545

Dr. Allen is a sociocultural anthropologist interested in expressive culture and performance. She specializes in ethnography and ethnohistory of Andean societies, and also experiments with modes of ethnographic writing and other modes of ethnographic representation.

Research

Dr. Allen is currently working on cross-media analysis of expressive strategies in Andean art. Her book manuscript in progress, The Enveloping Word: Intimacy and Aesthetics in the Andes, explores compositional strategies in Quechua narrative performance.

Selected Publications

To see Dr. Allen's complete CV, click here.

Books

2004	Steele, Paul R., and Catherine J. Allen. Handbook of Inca Mythology. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, Inc.
2002	Allen, C.J. The Hold Life Has: Coca and Cultural Identity in an Andean Community. Second edition, revised and expanded. First edition 1988. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press. [Translated into Spanish as La Coca Sabe: coca e identidad cultural en una comunidad andina. Cusco: CBC Press, 2008.]
1996	Allen, C.J., and N. Garner. Condor Qatay: Anthropology in Performance. An ethnographic drama with introduction, ethnographic notes and comments, photographs and Quechua glossary. Prospect Heights, IL: Waveland Press.

Articles and Book Chapters

[2009]	Allen, C.J. "Let's drink together, my dear: Persistent ceremonies in a changing community." In J. Jennings and B. Bowser, eds., Drink, Power and Society in the Andes. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida. (In press)
[2008]	Allen, C.J. "The sadness of jars: Separation and rectification in Andean understandings of death." In James Fitzimmons and Izumi Shimada, eds. Living with the Dead in the Andes. Tucson: University of Arizona Press. (In press)
2002	Allen, C.J. "The Incas have gone inside: Pattern and persistence in Andean iconography," RES: Anthropology and Aesthetics 42:180-203.

Courses Taught

Anth 155: Religion, Myth, and Magic
Anth 158: Art and Culture
Anth 159: Symbolic Anthropology
Anth 172: Cultures of the Andes and Amazon
Anth 191: Anthropology in Performance
Anth 196: Andean Religion and Mythology
Anth 198: Foundations of Anthropological Thought
Anth 202: Proseminar in Sociocultural Anthropology
Anth 258: Anthropology of Art, Aesthetics and Symbolism
Anth 272: Anthropology of Latin America

Education

Ph.D. 1978, University of Illinois
M.A. 1972, University of Illinois
B.A. 1969, St. John's College (Maryland)