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Dr. Susan
Dauria, Dept. Chairperson Ph.D. State University of New York at
Albany email: sdauria@bloomu.edu |
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Interests: |
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What interested you in Anthropology?
"I learned about anthropology
for the first time as a freshman in
college. My professor in introduction to anthropology encouraged me
to write about my experience with the U.S. Army from a cultural
perspective. Over the next four years I searched for a major and
continued taking anthropology courses. I finally decided to take
anthropology as a second major because I enjoyed the courses so much.
At that time I didn't expect to
have a career as an anthropologist.
After graduation, I got a job in New York City as an international
licensing coordinator for United Features Syndicate, Inc. My career
as an anthropologist was born during a business trip to Thailand,
where I spent a week at meetings in the Bangkok Hilton Hotel. After
that week, I broke out of the corporate world of the Hilton and spent
time backpacking around the countryside. It was that trip that put my
life in focus: I decided that I didn't want to work in business, but
I wanted to experience life and stay in touch with the unique culture
of regular people.
Once I returned from that trip I
submitted applications to graduate
school. Three months later I was at the State University of New York
at Albany where I spent the next five years. I originally thought I
would become an archaeologist and began working in a mortuary
archeology lab on skeletal samples from Michigan. I later decided
that cultural anthropology was more to my liking since it allowed me
to interact with living people. I ultimately wrote my dissertation on
the effects of deindustrialization on ethnic identity in a post-
industrial community in upstate New York. Today, I still work in that
community, as well as in northeastern Pennsylvania."