A List
5/14/07

SLU PROFESSOR POMPONIO AWARDED FULBRIGHT

CANTON - St. Lawrence University Professor of Anthropology Alice Pomponio has been named a Fulbright Scholar, and will spend the 2007-2008 academic year in Siena, Italy.

Based at the University of Siena, Pomponio plans to conduct research, teach and lecture. She spent a year of study there as an undergraduate, earning her bachelor's degree from SUNY Geneseo with a double-major in Italian language and literature and anthropology. Pomponio also conducted research in Siena for her master's degree thesis, from Bryn Mawr College.

Her plans include team-teaching with a colleague at the university a graduate course, Ritual, Festivals and Performance: Comparing American and European Approaches; offering several public presentations on topics related to her work; and continuing research on the Palio, a horse race and pageant with medieval roots. In addition, Pomponio plans to teach a new course when she returns to St. Lawrence, on the arts and culture of the Italian Renaissance.

Pomponio earned the Ph.D. from Bryn Mawr and began teaching at St. Lawrence in 1983. Although her primary area of expertise is in the Southwestern Pacific, she has also studied in and taught courses on Africa. Specializing in linguistic anthropology, psychological anthropology, symbolic systems and the anthropology of religion, she has co-directed the University's Kenya semester program. Her publications include the books Seagulls Don't Fly Into the Bush: Cultural Identity and Development in Melanesia and, as senior editor, Children of Kilibob: Creation, Cosmos, and Culture in Northeast New Guinea.

Prior to beginning her year as a Fulbright Scholar, Pomponio will be a Visiting Research Fellow at Australian National University's Research School of Pacific and Asian Studies in Canberra, working on an encyclopedic dictionary of an unwritten New Guinean language.

The flagship international educational program sponsored by the United States government, the Fulbright Program is designed to "increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries." With this goal, the Fulbright Program has provided approximately 279,500 participants - chosen for their academic merit and leadership potential - with the opportunity to observe each others' political, economic, educational and cultural institutions, to exchange ideas and to embark on joint ventures of importance to the general welfare of the world's inhabitants. The Fulbright Program provides grants for graduate students, scholars, professionals, teachers and administrators from the U.S. and other countries.

-30-

Global Studies at St. Lawrence

Social Sciences at St. Lawrence