Eli Thorkelson

Anthropology Ph.D. Program, University of Chicago

Research Interests
Academic cultures, knowledge production, academic labor, neoliberalism, ideologies of the future, semiotics of textual production, history and sociology of literary theory and philosophy, France, United States.
Working dissertation title: The future of the 'knowledge society': Philosophy and university politics in contemporary France.
Education
2005-present Doctoral Program in Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Chicago.
In progress.
2007 M.A. Anthropology, University of Chicago
Thesis: Literary theory as commodity & literary theorists as brands
2000-2004 A.B. Anthropology, Cornell University
Thesis: The Silent Social Order of the Theory Classroom
summa cum laude with distinction in all subjects
Honors
2005 Graduate Research Program Fellowship, National Science Foundation
Publications
2010 Experience, Reflexive Socialization and Disciplinary Order in Anthropology, Michigan Discussions in Anthropology 18:1-38.
2010 The Limits of Theory: Idealism, Distinction and Critical Pedagogy in Chicago Anthropology, Michigan Discussions in Anthropology 18:324-377.
2008 The Silent Social Order of the Theory Classroom, Social Epistemology 22(2):165-196.
2008 Anthropology as Trauma and as Transformation, Anthropology News 49(1):13-14.
2007 On the Socialization of Graduate Students in Anthropology, Anthropology News 48(4):56.
Presentations
2009 "Ethnographic preface to an epistemology of university models in recent French politics." Univ. of Chicago Paris Center Workshop, Paris.
2009 "Politicized intellectual collectives" (with Andrew Yale). Reworking the University, Minneapolis, MN.
2008 "The will to knowledge and cultural crisis in universities." Rethinking the University, Minneapolis, MN.
2007 "Liminality, socialization, democratization (and ambivalence): Rethinking graduate education." AAA Annual Meetings, Washington, DC.
2007 "Knowledge as Ideology: Lycée philosophy classes and the category of the intellectual." Semiotics workshop, University of Chicago.
2007 "The case of the Bad Writing Contest: Literary theory as commodity & literary theorists as brands." Michicagoan, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
2006 "Bureaucratic order and social purification in literary theory classrooms." AAA Annual Meetings, San Jose, California.
2005 "Ethnography of literary theory classrooms." Social Science & Higher Education Network meeting, Herencia, Spain.
Translations
2009 "And if it was starting now? Reflections by Save the University! on the university springtime of 2009." (Et si c'était maintenant que ça commençait? Réflexions de Sauvons L'Université! sur le printemps 2009 des universités.)
Scholarly organization
2006-10 Editor, "Graduate Socialization in Anthropology," a pair of edited collections, appearing in Michigan Discussions in Anthropology and Anthropology News.
2007 Coordinator, Anthropology of Europe Workshop, University of Chicago
2007 Organizer, "Trauma, transformation, and tactics: Rethinking the socialization of graduate students in anthropology," AAA Annual Meetings.
2007 Organizer, "Regards Croisés: Crossing Cultural Borders," Collaborative workshop with University of Chicago and University of Paris X.