PEOPLE & CULTURE

People are first from a particular place, a particular family, a particular world view and culture. (Likewise, in reverse, cultures are about people...) And all people have interesting stories to tell, each one unique and untellable by anyone else. I love learning about others and I love writing about them in the context of their surroundings and influences. While this is the fundamental skill and purpose of an anthropologist, which I draw on for every project, I take it a step further in my skill as a writer toward translating complex cultural and personal issues and patterns into their organic stories in an engaging and accessible language.


The Spiritual Traveler--Spain. The Guide to Sacred Sites and Pilgrim Routes in Spain.
Mahway, NJ: HiddenSpring/Paulist Press. Forthcoming Spring 2009.

Feasting in Fez.
Runner-up winner, 2008 Narrative Travel Writing Contest,
TransitionsAbroad.com.
February 2008. Read

Suso--the Rule of Dogs in Norhern Spain.
Bark magazine. Sept/Oct 2007.

The Ethnologist Sets Out: William Curtis Farabee in the Amazon.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Sept/Oct 2007. Read

The Mother Hens of Andrin.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. May/June 2007. Read

Berlin's Eclectic Music Scene.
TransitionsAbroad.com. February 2007. Read

The Radical and the Restorer (Akhenaten and Tutankhamun).
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Jan/Feb 2007. Read

Eternal Tut.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Jan/Feb 2007. Read

The Puppy Shower.
Wag magazine. Winter 2006-07.

Understanding Pashto. Feature story.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. May/June 2006. Read

A Widely Traveled Compass. Website review.
Archaeology. May/June 2006.

Channeling Archaeology. Website review.
Archaeology. May/June 2006.

What's Been Cooking? Profile on Laurie Burrows Grad, celebrity chef.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Jan/Feb 2006. Read

Local Taste.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Sept/Oct 2005 Read

Secrets from the Field: An Ethnographer's Notes from North Western Pakistan.
Book review. Expedition May/June 2005.

Life, Death, and the Afterlife in Ancient China and Egypt.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Summer 2005. Read

Talking About Sexuality and Social Justice.
(MLK Symposium with Angela Davis and Mary Frances Berry).
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Mar/Apr 2005.

Harry and Richard Goodwin.
Birgraphy for Heroes. Philadelphia: National Liberty Museum. April 2005.

Minding Her P's nd Q's.
Radius. Radian Corporation newsletter. Winter 2005.

The Serpent's Story--Revealed on Canvas.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Jan/Feb 2005.

Making the Most of Our Cultural Differences.
The Pennsylvania Gazette. Nov/Dec 2004. Read

Let's Dance! Angelo "Eng" Mathews
Radius. Radian Corporation newsletter. Boston: Pohly & Partners. Fall 2004.

The Modern Celts of Northern Spain
Expedition. Winter 2003. Read

Los Lunes en el Sol/Mondays in the Sun. Film review.
Expedition. Summer 2003. Read

Portrait: An Enduring Legacy - Robert L. Trescher
Expedition. Summer 2003.

Middle East and North Africa. Fourteen cultural essays in
Peoples of the World. National Geographic Society books. 2001. Read

A Door to Paradise: Converts, the New Age, Islam, and the Past in Granada, Spain.
City and Society. S. Nagy and F. Ghannam, eds. 1999.

'Al-Andalus', Complex Identity, and Modern Global Processes: The Construction of Identity
Among Hispano-Moroccan Descendants of Families from Islamic Spain.

Chapter 4 in Charting Memory: Recalling Medieval Spain.
Stacy N. Beckwith, ed., Garland Publishing. 1999.

The Persistence of the Andalusian Identity in Rabat, Morocco
Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Pennsylvania, 1995. Read

What's in a Relative? Household and Family in Formentera, and,
The Villagers of the Sierra de Gredos: Transhumant Cattle-raisers in Central Spain.
Book reviews. Bulletin of the Society for the Anthropology of Europe. May 1996.

Daughter of Persia.
Book review. Journal of Iranian Studies. Winter/Spring 1993.

 
I am a painter as well as a professional writer.
I accept commissions for visual work and invite
you to enjoy my online gallery.

In celebration of the pilgrim's spirit and the
feast of life, I invite you to visit The Pilgrim's
Way Cafe for recipes from my travels.