Michelle "Shelly" Zimbalist Rosaldo (1944 in

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

– 1981 in

Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...

) was a social, linguistic, and psychological

anthropologist An anthropologist is a scientist engaged in the practice of anthropology. Anthropologists study aspects of humans within past and present societies. Social anthropology, cultural anthropology and philosophical anthropology study the norms, values ...

famous for her studies of the

Ilongot people The Bugkalot (also Ilongot or Ibilao) are an Indigenous peoples of the Philippines, indigenous peoples inhabiting the southern Sierra Madre (Philippines), Sierra Madre and Caraballo Mountains, on the east side of Luzon in the Philippines, primar ...

in the Philippines and for her pioneering role in women's studies and the anthropology of gender.

Life

Born in New York in 1944, Michelle Zimbalist attended

Radcliffe College Radcliffe College was a Women's colleges in the United States, women's Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that was founded in 1879. In 1999, it was fully incorporated into Harvard Colle ...

(

Harvard College Harvard College is the undergraduate education, undergraduate college of Harvard University, a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Part of the Harvard Faculty of Arts and Scienc ...

's sister school, formally merged with Harvard in 1999), where she concentrated in English literature. She spent a summer among the

Maya Maya may refer to: Ethnic groups * Maya peoples, of southern Mexico and northern Central America ** Maya civilization, the historical civilization of the Maya peoples ** Mayan languages, the languages of the Maya peoples * Maya (East Africa), a p ...

in southern

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

as part of a field trip arranged by Evon Z. Vogt. After receiving her AB, she began graduate study at Harvard in

social anthropology Social anthropology is the study of patterns of behaviour in human societies and cultures. It is the dominant constituent of anthropology throughout the United Kingdom and much of Europe, where it is distinguished from cultural anthropology. In t ...

. Rosaldo and her husband, anthropologist Renato Rosaldo, both carried out their dissertation fieldwork with the Ilongot people in northern

Luzon Luzon ( , ) is the largest and most populous List of islands in the Philippines, island in the Philippines. Located in the northern portion of the List of islands of the Philippines, Philippine archipelago, it is the economic and political ce ...

, the Philippines, during 1967–1969. Rosaldo's research focused on Ilongot concepts of emotion (an exercise in ethnopsychology, the study of local or folk concepts of mind), while her husband collected material on the history of Ilongot

headhunting Headhunting is the practice of hunting a human and collecting the severed head after killing the victim. More portable body parts (such as ear, nose, or scalp) can be taken as trophies, instead. Headhunting was practiced in historic times ...

practices, which were dying out at the time of their research. Rosaldo received her PhD in social anthropology from

Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher lear ...

in 1972. After completing their PhDs, Michelle and Renato Rosaldo were both hired at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

. The couple returned again to the Ilongot in 1974 for further research, published as ''Knowledge and Passion'' (1980). Rosaldo wrote or edited several important works in the anthropology of women and gender relations and co-founded the Program in Feminist Studies at Stanford University. In 1979 she received Stanford's Dinkelspiel Award for outstanding service to undergraduate education. Rosaldo died from an accidental fall while conducting fieldwork in the Philippines in 1981. The Michelle Z. Rosaldo Summer Field Research Grant was later established in her memory at the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University to provide funding for undergraduate students to conduct fieldwork.

Selected publications

*Rosaldo, Michelle Z. (1971) Context and metaphor in Ilongot oral tradition. PhD thesis. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Archives. *Rosaldo, Michelle Zimbalist. (1980) ''Knowledge and Passion: Ilongot Notions of Self and Social Life''. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Rosaldo, Michelle Z. (1984) "Toward an anthropology of self and feeling." In ''Culture Theory: essays on mind, self, and emotion''. R. A. Shweder and R. A. LeVine, editors. pp. 137–157. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. *Keohane, Nannerl O., Michelle Z. Rosaldo, and Barbara C. Gelpi, editors. (1982) ''Feminist theory: a critique of ideology''. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. * Lamphere, Louise and Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo, editors. (1974) '' Women, Culture, and Society''. Stanford University Press. Stanford, California. *Lugo, Alejandro and Bill Maurer, editors. (2000) ''Gender Matters: Rereading Michelle Z. Rosaldo''. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.

References

External links

Memorial Resolution: Michelle Zimbalist Rosaldo
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rosaldo, Michelle Stanford University Department of Anthropology faculty Psychological anthropologists American women anthropologists Radcliffe College alumni 1944 births 1981 deaths Accidental deaths from falls Accidental deaths in the Philippines 20th-century American women scientists 20th-century American scientists 20th-century American anthropologists