Nancy J. Parezo, Professor Emerita of American Indian Studies, University of Arizona
Monday, May 6, 2024,
2:30pm – 3:30pm,
ASA Koffler Great Room and Zoom
Long term projects are common in anthropology but some are longer than others. For over forty years, cultural anthropologist and ethnohistorian Nancy J. Parezo has worked on “Daughters of the Desert,” documenting the contributions of female archaeologists to our knowledge of Southwestern indigenous peoples. In this presentation she will review the ongoing results of the project and its offshoots, illustrating how women succeeded in anthropology.
When Dr. Parezo entered the profession, more than 1,200 women had gathered anthropological data about Native American peoples in the Southwest and published their results. Except for Ruth Benedict and Elsie Clews Parsons, these women were ignored in disciplinary histories. Focusing on anthropology and scholarship as career choices, Dr. Parezo will convey what she has learned about anthropology as the so-called “welcoming science” during the period 1880 to 1945. In the process she will tell the story of the University of Arizona’s remarkable anthropology class of 1928 and how Florence Hawley Ellis, Emil Haury, and Clara Lee Tanner carved out success in Southwestern archaeology.
After receiving her Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology from the University of Arizona in 1981, Dr. Parezo spent over forty years teaching American Indian Studies, anthropology and museology at the University of Arizona and the Arizona State Museum. From 2009 to 2015, she served as a Research Associate and Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Her areas of expertise include the American Southwest, Native American ethnohistory, material culture, and women in science. She is the recipient of several disciplinary and university awards, including a Distinguished Lifetime Scholarship and Service Award from the Council for Museum Anthropology of the American Anthropological Association. Her most recent book is “A Marriage Out West: Theresa and Frank Russell’s Arizona Adventure, 1901-1903”, which appeared in 2020.
Compiled and edited by Marilyn B. Skinner, Academy Village Volunteer
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