Mark Liechty, PhD
Professor
Anthropology, Sociocultural
Contact
Building & Room:
BSB 3110D
Address:
1007 W. Harrison Street
Office Phone:
Email:
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About
Mark Liechty is a cultural anthropologist with a joint appointment in Anthropology and History at UIC. He is a South Asianist whose research focuses on Nepali history and society.
His research and teaching interests include class theory and social organization, mass media, consumer culture, cultural history, social and cultural theory, tourism, youth culture, globalization, “development,” and South Asian history. Major publications include: Suitably Modern: Making Middle Class Culture in a New Consumer Society (Princeton University Press, 2003), Out Here in Kathmandu: Modernity on the Global Periphery (Kathmandu: Martin Chautari Press, 2010), ), The Global Middle Classes: Theorizing Through Ethnography (edited with Rachel Heiman and Karla Freeman, Santa Fe: SAR Press, 2012), and Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2017).
His most recent books are Epicenter to Aftermath: Rebuilding and Remembering in the Wake of Nepal’s Earthquakes (edited with Michael Hutt and Stefanie Lotter, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021) and What Went Right: Sustainability Versus Dependence in Nepal’s Hydropower Development (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022)
Since 1997 he has served as (founding) co-editor of the Nepal Studies journal Studies in Nepali History and Society.
Selected Publications
2018
Himalayas in the Western Mind’s Eye: “Incredibly Spiritual and Marvelous.” Economic and Political Weekly (Mumbai) 53(19):32-36, May 12.
2017
Far Out: Countercultural Seekers and the Tourist Encounter in Nepal. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Winner of the 2018 Kekoo Naoroji Book Award for Himalayan Literature.)
2012
The Global Middle Classes: Theorizing Through Ethnography. Santa Fe: SAR Press. Edited, with Rachel Heiman and Carla Freeman.
Middle Class Déjà Vu: Conditions of Possibility from Victorian England to Contemporary Kathmandu. In The Global Middle Classes: Theorizing Through Ethnography. Rachel Heiman, Carla Freeman, and Mark Liechty, eds. Pp. 271-300. Santa Fe: SAR Press.
2010
Out Here in Kathmandu: Modernity on the Global Periphery. Kathmandu: Martin Chautari Press.
2007
Carnal Economies: The Commodification of Food and Sex in Kathmandu. Cultural Anthropology 20(1):1-38.
2003
Suitably Modern: Making Middle-Class Culture in a New Consumer Society. Princeton: Princeton University Press
Service to Community
Founding co-editor (since 1996) of the interdisciplinary Nepal Studies journal Studies in Nepali History and Society (SINHAS).
Notable Honors
2017 - 2020, International Co-Investigator on collaborative grant, Arts & Humanities Research Council (UK), School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
2019, Visiting Professor, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London
2019, Edward Bruner Book Prize, for Far Out, American Anthropological Association
2018, Kekoo Naoroji Award for Himalayan Literature, for Far Out, The Himalayan Club
2014, "Fulbright Specialist" Appointee, US Department of State
2009, Advanced Seminar Participant, School for Advanced Research (Santa Fe), March-April
2007-2008, Fulbright Faculty Research Abroad Grant, US Department of State
Education
University of Pennsylvania, Department of Anthropology, 1986-1994
Ph.D. Anthropology dissertation advisor: Arjun Appadurai
Goshen College, Goshen Indiana, 1978-1983
B.A. History; B.A. Biology
Woodstock International School, Mussoorie, Uttarakhand, India, graduate, 1978
Research Currently in Progress
Liechty’s current interests revolve around questions of state sovereignty in 19th and early 20th century Nepal.