Clare Sammells

Clare Sammells

Associate Professor of Anthropology
Affiliated Faculty in Latin American Studies, On Leave '23-'24
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Educational Background

  • A.B. in Folklore and Mythology. Harvard College
  • M.A. in Cultural Anthropology. University of Chicago
  • Ph.D. in Anthropology. University of Chicago

Research and Teaching Interests

  • Anthropology of Tourism
  • Anthropology of Food
  • Economic Anthropology
  • Aymara-speaking peoples of the Bolivian Andes
  • Bolivian gastronomy and touristic foodways
  • Tourism to Antarctica
  • Zombies

Courses Typically Offered

  • Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
  • Food, Eating, and Culture
  • Transforming Food (IP with Prof. Karen Castle, Chemistry)
  • Money, Markets and Magic
  • Anthropology of Tourism
  • Zombies

Selected Publications

De pingüinos y personas: la red alimentaria antártica en la época Antropoceno. Proceedings of the SLACA Biennial Conference / Memorias de la Conferencia Bienal de SLACA. Cartagena, Colombia March 15-17, 2023. Clare A. Sammells and Natalia Quiceno Toro, eds., 34-39. 2023. https://slaca.americananthro.org/slaca-conference-proceedings-2023/ 

Tasting Quinoa: From Indigenous Food to “Healthy” U.S. Dining. Co-authored with Christina Morris. In The Cultural Politics of Food, Taste and Identity: A Global Perspective, Steffan Igor Ayora-Diaz, ed. Bloomsbury. 2021.

Scaffolding expertise with all five senses: teaching cuisine critically. Co-authored with Phillipe C. Dubois. Food, Culture & Society 23(5):627-630. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1080/15528014.2020.1808429

Reimagining Bolivian Cuisine: Haute Traditional Food and its Discontents. Food and Foodways 27(4):338-352. 2019. https://doi.org/10.1080/07409710.2019.1677396

Production, Trade, Reciprocity, Markets. In The Andean World, Linda J. Seligmann and Kathleen S. Fine-Dare, eds. London: Routledge. 275-289. 2018. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315621715

Frosted Windows And Compartmentalized Intimacies: Forging Relationships In A Bolivian Restaurant In Madrid. Food and Foodways 24(3-4): 213-231. Special Issue "Eating In Semi-Public Spaces," co-edited by Clare A. Sammells and Edmund Searles.

Haute Traditional Cuisines: How UNESCO's List of Intangible Heritage Links the Cosmopolitan to the Local. In Edible Identities: Food as Cultural Heritage, Ronda Brulotte and Michael Di Giovine, eds. Ashgate. 141-158.

The Aymara Year Count: Calendrical Translations In Tiwanaku, Bolivia. Ethnology 50(3):245-258.

Ancient Calendars and Bolivian Modernity: Tiwanaku’s Gateway of the Sun, Arthur Posnansky, and the World Calendar Movement of the 1930s. Journal of Latin American & Caribbean Anthropology 17(2):299-319.

The City of the Present in the City of the Past: Solstice Celebrations at Tiwanaku, Bolivia. In On Location: Heritage Cities and Sites. D. Fairchild Ruggles, ed. New York: Springer. 115-130.

Ode to a Chuño: Learning to Love Freeze-Dried Potatoes in Highland Bolivia. In Adventures In Eating: Anthropological Tales of Dining Around the World, Helen R. Haines and Clare A. Sammells, eds. 2010.

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