Rate My Professor James Clifford

James Clifford, Professor Emeritus in the History of Consciousness Department at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is a prominent scholar in anthropology and cultural studies. He joined UCSC in 1978 following his Ph.D. in History from Harvard University (1977), an M.A. from Stanford University (1968), and an A.B. from Haverford College (1967). Rising to full professor, he was appointed Distinguished Professor in the Humanities in 2003 and retired in 2011 while continuing as emeritus. Clifford served as founding director of UCSC's Center for Cultural Studies for seven years. He holds a part-time Visiting Professor position in the Anthropology Department at Stanford University since 2013 and has been a visiting professor at Yale University (1990), University College London (1994), École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris (2003), and Freie Universität Berlin (2012).

Clifford's research combines history, literature, anthropology, and cultural studies, focusing on the poetics and politics of ethnography, indigeneity, museums, travel, translation, and cross-cultural encounters in colonial and postcolonial settings. His critiques of anthropological authority and emphasis on dialogical perspectives have profoundly influenced the field. Major publications include Person and Myth: Maurice Leenhardt in the Melanesian World (University of California Press, 1982), Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography co-edited with George E. Marcus (University of California Press, 1986), The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art (Harvard University Press, 1988), Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century (Harvard University Press, 1997), On the Edges of Anthropology (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003), and Returns: Becoming Indigenous in the Twenty-First Century (Harvard University Press, 2013). Recent works encompass articles such as “Feeling Historical” in Cultural Anthropology (2012) and “The Times of the Curator” (2019).

His honors include election to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2011), Guggenheim Fellowship (2007), External Fellowship at the Stanford Humanities Center (2007), American Council of Learned Societies Research Fellowship (1990-1991), and Doctor of Letters honoris causa from Haverford College (2004). Clifford has contributed editorially through volumes like Traveling Theories, Traveling Theorists co-edited with Vivek Dhareshwar (1989).