John S. Henderson

Professor

Publications

2015 The myth of Maya: archaeology and the construction of Mesoamerican histories. In Harri Kettunen and Christophe Helmke (eds.), On Methods: How We Know What We Think We Know About the Maya, pp. 7-24. Acta Mesoamericana Vol. 28. Markt Schwaben: Verlag Anton Saurwein. (with Kathryn M. Hudson)

2015 Calendar structures for Venus in Mesoamerican divinatory books: common approaches to commensuration and correction. Journal for the History of Astronomy 46(4):387-412.

2015 Weaving words and interwoven meanings: textual polyvocality and visual literacy in the reading of Copán’s Stela J. Image: Zeitschrift für Interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft 22:108-128. (with Kathryn M. Hudson)

2014 Talking to the Past: endangerment, history, and the economics of language in northwest Honduras. In Patrick Heinrich and Nicholas Ostler (eds.), Indigenous Languages: Their Value to the Community, pp. 27-36. Proceedings of the 18th FEL Conference. (with Kathryn M. Hudson)

2014 Multi-proxy analysis of plant use at Formative Period Los Naranjos, Honduras. Latin American Antiquity 25(1):65-81. (with Shanti Morell-Hart and Rosemary Joyce)

2014 Life on the edge – Identity and interaction in the Land of Ulúa and the Maya World. In Janne Ikäheimo, Anna-Kaisa Salmi, and Tiina Äikäs (eds.), Sounds Like Theory, pp. 157-171. Monographs of the Archaeological Society of Finland 2. (with Kathryn M. Hudson)

2012 The southeastern fringe of Mesoamerica. In Christopher A. Pool and Deborah L. Nichols (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology, pp. 482-494. New York: Cambridge University Press. (with Kathryn M. Hudson)

2010 Being “Olmec” in Early Formative period Honduras. Ancient Mesoamerica 21(1):187-200. (with Rosemary Joyce)

2010 Forming Mesoamerican taste: cacao consumption in Formative Period contexts. In John E. Staller and Michael Carrasco (eds.), Pre-Columbian Foodways: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Food, Culture, and Markets in Ancient Mesoamerica, pp. 157-173. New York: Springer. (with Rosemary Joyce)

2007 From feasting to cuisine: implications of archaeological research in an early Honduran village. American Anthropologist 109(4):642-653. (with Rosemary Joyce)

2007 Chemical and archaeological evidence for the earliest cacao beverages. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) 104(48):18937–18940. (with Rosemary Joyce, Gretchen R. Hall, W. Jeffrey Hurst, and Patrick E. McGovern)

2006 Brewing distinction: the development of cacao beverages in Formative Mesoamerica. In Cameron L. McNeil (ed.), Chocolate in Mesoamerica: A Cultural History of Cacao, pp. 140-153. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. (with Rosemary Joyce)

2006 The plunder of the Ulua Valley, Honduras and a market analysis for its antiquities. In Neil Brodie, Morag Kersel, Christina Luke, Kathryn Walker Tubb (eds.), Archaeology and the Commodification of Material Culture, pp. 147-172. Gainesville: University Press of Florida. (with Christina Luke)

2001 Beginnings of village life in eastern Mesoamerica. Latin American Antiquity 12(1):5-23. (with Rosemary Joyce)

1997 World of the Ancient Maya. 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.

1993 Lowland Maya Civilization in the Eighth Century A.D. Washington: Dumbarton Oaks. (co-edited with Jeremy A. Sabloff)

1993 Configurations of Power: Holistic Anthropology in Theory and Practice. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. (co-edited with Patricia J. Netherly)

1993 Pottery of Prehistoric Honduras: Regional Classification and Analysis. UCLA Institute of Archaeology, Monograph 35. (coedited with Marilyn P. Beaudry-Corbett)

1992 Variations on a theme: a frontier view of Maya civilization. In Elin C. Danien and Robert J. Sharer (eds.), New Theories on the Ancient Maya, pp. 161-171. Philadelphia: University Museum.

1992 Elites and ethnicity along the southeastern fringe of Mesoamerica. In D.Z. Chase and A.F. Chase (eds.), Mesoamerican Elites: An Archaeological Assessment, pp. 157-68. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.

1984 Archaeology in Northwestern Honduras: Interim Reports of the Proyecto Arqueologico Sula. Vol. I. Occasional Papers. LatinAmerican Studies and Archaeology Programs, Cornell University. (ed.)

1979 Atopula, Guerrero, and Olmec Horizons in Mesoamerica. Yale University Publications in Anthropology, Number 77.

1977 The Valle de Naco: ethnohistory and archaeology in northwestern Honduras. Ethnohistory 24(4): 363-77.

1974 Origin of the 260-day cycle in Mesoamerica. Science 185: 542.

Klarman Hall
225 McGraw Hall
jsh6@cornell.edu

Departments and programs

Links

Keywords

 

 

Mesoamerica.  Andes.  Development of complex societies.  Writing systems.  Settlement archaeology.

 

Magnus Fiskesjö

Associate Professor

Publications

Books

Interview podcast, on “Stories from an Ancient Land: Perspectives on Wa History and Culture.” New Books Network / Southeast Asian Studies. Hosted by Nick Cheesman. Recorded Dec. 3, 2022, publ. Jan. 1. 2023: https://newbooksnetwork.com/stories-from-an-ancient-land


•    China Before China: Johan Gunnar Andersson, Ding Wenjiang, and the Discovery of China’s Prehistory.  Stockholm: Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities, 2004.

•    The Thanksgiving Turkey Pardon, the Death of Teddy's Bear and the Sovereign Exception of Guantánamo.  Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press, 2003.

Book Chapters

  • "State Strategies to Implement (and Hide) Genocide in China and Myanmar, Since 2017.” Invited contribution, to Handbook of Genocide Studies, edited by David J. Simon and Leora Kahn. Cheltenham, Glos [England]: Edwar Elgar Publishing, 2023, pp. 123-41. 
  • "Identities and Polities in the Maelstrom of World-System Cycles: The Wa of the Burma-China borderlands." Chapter 25, in Routledge Handbook of the Modern Anthropology of Highland Asia, ed. Michael Heneise and Jelle JP Wouters. London: Routledge, 2022, 339-350. 
  • "Agamben and the Chinese Forced-Confession Ritual." Chapter 2, in Philosophy on Fieldwork: Case Studies in Anthropological Analysis, ed.  Nils Bubandt and Thomas Schwarz Wentzer. London: Routledge, 2022, pp. 27-47. 
  • "Le Xinjiang chinois, "nouvelle frontière" de l'épuration nationale" [China's Xinjiang: The 'New Frontier' of National Purification]. In: Anne Cheng, ed. Penser en Chine. Paris: Gallimard, 2021, pp. 391-433. Collection Folio essais (n° 669). ISBN: 9782072870927. In French. http://www.gallimard.fr/Catalogue/GALLIMARD/Folio/Folio-essais/Penser-en-Chine

  • "Who's Afraid of Confucius? Fear of Encompassment in the Global Debates over the Confucius Institutes." Chapter 9, in Franck Billé and Sören Urbansky, eds., Yellow Perils: China Narratives in the Contemporary World. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2018, 221-245. Open access (2022): 

    https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/81591;                                  http://hdl.handle.net/10125/81591

•    China's Animal Neighbors. The Art of Neighbouring: Making Relations Across China's Borders. Eds. Martin Saxer and Zhang Juan. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. 2017. 


•    Chinese Autochthony and the Eurasian Context: Archaeology, Mythmaking and Johan Gunnar Andersson's 'Western Origins.' Fitful Histories and Unruly Publics: Rethinking Temporality and Community in Eurasian Archaeology. Eds. Kathryn O. Weber, et al. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2016, 303-320. (Proceedings from the Fourth Conference on Eurasian Archaeology, 2012).


•    Art and Science as competing values in the formation of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities. Collectors, Collections, and Collecting the Arts of China: Histories and Challenges. Ed. Lai, Guolong.  Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2014, 67-98.


•    Gifts and debts: The morality of fieldwork in the Wa lands on the China-Burma frontier.  Red Stamps and Gold Stars: Fieldwork Dilemmas in Upland Socialist Asia. Ed. Turner, Sarah.  Vancouver: UBC Press, 2013, 61-79.


•    Science across borders: Johan Gunnar Andersson and Ding Wenjiang. In Denise M. Glover, Stevan Harrell, Charles McKhann, and Margaret Swain, eds. Explorers and Scientists in China's Borderlands, 1880-1950. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2011, 240-66. ISBN: 9780295991177


•    Giorgio Agamben och den kommande gemenskapen [Giorgio Agamben and the coming community]. Sociologik: Tio essäer om socialitet och tänkande [Sociologics. Ten essays on sociality and thought]. Eds. Christian Abrahamsson et al. Stockholm: Santérus, 2011, 53-87. In Swedish


•    The Politics of Cultural Heritage.  Reclaiming Chinese Society: The New Social Activism. 225-245. 2010


•    The Autonomy of Naming: Kinship, Power and Ethnonymy in the Wa lands of the Southeast Asia-China Frontiers.  Personal Names in Asia: History, Culture and Identity. Singapore: University of Singapore Press. 150-174. 2009 

 

Webcast events/lectures/interviews, selection:

•    "Heritage and Ancestors: The Politics of Chinese Museums and Historical Memory." Elvera Kwang Siam Lim Memorial Lecture/Center for Chinese Studies, University of California-Berkeley, November 6, 2015.

 

Academic Articles, and more:

•    "Cultural genocide is the new genocide." Pen/Opp, May 5, 2020.

•    "Bury Me With My Comrades: Memorializing Mao's Sent-Down Youth." Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 16, Issue 14, Number 4 (July 15, 2018).

• "Confessions Made in China." Made in China 3.1 (January-March 2018), p. 18-22; 108-109 (list of references).https://madeinchinajournal.com/2018/05/17/confessions-made-in-china/

•    The Return of the Show Trial: China’s Televised “Confessions.”  Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus, Volume 15, Issue 13, Number 1. (June 25, 2017). 

•    “The Legacy of the Chinese Empires: Beyond ‘the West and the Rest.’” Education About Asia 22.1 (Spring 2017), 6-10. Special issue on “Contemporary Postcolonial Asia.”

•    “People First: The Wa World of Spirits and Other Enemies.” Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology. Published online: 19 Apr 2017.

•    Self and Subjectivity in a World of Diasporas: Nicholas Tapp's Anthropology of Hmong Identities. Journal of Social Science (Chiang Mai University, Thailand), (Special issue: "Ethnicity and Mobility: Nicholas Tapp's Anthropology," ed. Aranya Siriphon). 28 (2017), 125-148.

•    "Foreword." In Samak Kosem, ed. Border Twists and Burma Trajectories: Perceptions, Reforms, and Adaptations. Chiang Mai: Center for ASEAN Studies, Chiang Mai University, 2016, pp. iii-v.

•    "Lyxkonsumtion och utrotningskrig" [Luxury consumption and wars of extinction]. Kina-Rapport (Göteborg: Svensk-Kinesiska Föreningen) no. 4 (2015), 32-35. (In Swedish; on the Chinese smuggling and trade in elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn from Africa)

•    Terra-cotta Conquest: The First Emperor's Clay Army's Blockbuster Tour of the World.  Verge: Studies in Global Asias.  1 (2015): 162-183.

•    "Universal Museums." Article for "World Heritage" section, ed. Helaine Silverman, in _Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology_. Claire Smith, general editor. New York: Springer, 2014, pp. 7494-7500.

•    "Oscar Montelius and Chinese archaeology." Co-authored with Chen Xingcan. Bulletin of the History of Archaeology [Melbourne, Australia] 24:10 (2014).

•    Wa Grotesque: Headhunting Theme Parks and the Chinese Nostalgia for Primitive Contemporaries .  Ethnos: Journal of Anthropology 79 (2014): 497-523.

•    Introduction to Wa Studies.  Journal of Burma Studies 17 (2013): 1 -27.

•    Outlaws, Barbarians, Slaves: Critical Reflections on Agamben's homo sacer.  Journal of Ethnographic Theory.  2 (2012): 161-180.

•    Slavery as the Commodification of People: Wa "Slaves" and Their Chinese "Sisters".  Focaal: Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology.  59 (2011): 3-18.

•    The Reluctant Sovereign: New Adventures of the US Presidential Thanksgiving Turkey.  Anthropology Today.  26 (2010): 13-17.

•    Mining, History, and the Anti-State Wa: The Politics of Autonomy Between Burma and China.  Journal of Global History 5 (2010): 241-264.

•    Participant Intoxication and Self–Other Dynamics in the Wa Context.  The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology 11 (2010):111-127.

•    Collections of Chinese Antiquities Outside China: Problems and Hopes.  Public Archaeology 5 (2006): 111-126.

•    Rescuing the Empire: Chinese Nation-Building in the Twentieth Century.  European Journal of East Asian Studies 5 (2006): 15-44.

•    A Foreign Bird in a Golden Cage: Sweden's Asia Collections.  Res Publica 65 (2005): 68-80.In Swedish

•    Lost Civilizations, Lost Choices.  Dushu No. 4 (2003), 72-75. In Chinese

•    The Barbarian Borderland and the Chinese Imagination -- Travellers in Wa Country.  Inner Asia .  4.1 (2002): 81-99.

•    Rising From Blood-Stained Fields: Royal Hunting and State Formation in Shang China. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities.  72 (2001): 48-192.

 

Recent reviews:

  • Review of Bertil Lintner, The Wa of Myanmar and China’s Quest for Global Dominance (Chiang Mai, Thailand: Silkworm Books: 2021), Journal of Asian Studies 82.4, 759-61. 
  • Review of two books:  by Darren Byler, In the Camps: Life in China’s High-Tech Penal Colony (New York: Columbia University Press, 2021), and by Gulbahar Haitiwaji, How I Survived a Chinese "Re-education" Camp: A Uyghur Woman's Story (New York and Oakland: Seven Stories Press, 2022). Journal of Asian Studies 82.4, 663-665. 
  • Review of Gregory Forth, Between Ape and Human: An Anthropologist on the Trail of a Hidden Hominoid (New York: Pegasus,2020; 336 pp. ISBN 978-163-936-143-4). Kvartal, 1 dec. 2022. https://kvartal.se/artiklar/har-paabo-fel-ar-vi-inte-ensamma-kvar/ [In Swedish]. 
  • Review of Justin M. Jacobs, The Compensations of Plunder: How China Lost Its Treasures (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2020; vii, 348 pp. ISBN 978-0-226-71201-7). American Historical Review 127.3 (Sept. 2022), 1496–1497. Published: 29 November 2022. 
  • Review of John McWhorter, Woke Racism: How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America (New York: Portfolio/Penguin, 2021). Kvartal, 11 augusti 2022. https://kvartal.se/artiklar/antirasismen-som-infantiliserar-svarta/  [In Swedish]. 
  • Review of Enze Han, Asymmetrical Neighbors: Borderland State Building between China and Southeast Asia (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019; 240 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-006078-7). South East Asia Research [Great Britain], Online, 24 Feb 2021. 
  • Review of Jonathan Friedman, PC Worlds: Political Correctness and Rising Elites at the End of Hegemony (New York: Berghahn, 2019). Kvartal, 8 sept. 2020. https://kvartal.se/artiklar/politiskt-korrekt-ar-ett-maktmedel/

•    Review of Haiming Yan, World Heritage Craze in China: Universal Discourse, National Culture, and Local Memory. (New York: Berghahn Books, 2018. ISBN 978-1-78533-804-5). Asian Perspectives 58.2 (2019), 401-404.

•    Review article: "Ancient China reconsidered." Review of Katheryn M. Linduff, Yan Sun, Wei Cao, & Yuanqing Liu, Ancient China and its Eurasian neighbors: Artifacts, Identity, and Death in the Frontier, 3000-700 BCE (Cambridge University Press, 2018); Roderick Campbell, Violence, Kinship and the Early Chinese State: The Shang and Their World (Cambridge, 2018); and Xiaolong Wu, Material Culture, Power, and Identity in Ancient China (Cambridge, 2017). Antiquity, Volume 92, Issue 366 (Dec. 2018), pp. 1671-1673.

•    Review of Alice Yao, The Ancient Highlands of Southwest China: From Bronze Age to the Han Empire (Oxford 2016); & Erica Brindley, Ancient China and the Yue: Perceptions and Identities on the Southern Frontier, c.400 BCE-50 CE (Cambridge 2015), for the Zhejiang University Journal of Art and Archaeology (Hangzhou, China), Vol. 3 (2018), 260-272.

•    Review of Pál Nyíri and Danielle Tan, eds., Chinese Encounters in Southeast Asia: How People, Money, Ideas from China are Changing a Region (Seattle, WA and London: University of Washington Press, 2017). ISBN: 9780295999302; 9780295999296. China Quarterly 234 (2018), 577-578.

•    Review of Craig Clunas, Chinese Painting and Its Audiences (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017). The Art Newspaper, 295 (Nov. 2017), p. 22.

•    Review of Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney, Flowers That Kill: Communicative Opacity in Political Spaces (Stanford 2015). American Anthropologist 118.3 (2016), 685-686.

•    Review of Tamara T. Chin, Savage Exchange: Han Imperialism, Chinese Literary Style, and the Economic Imagination (Cambridge, 2014). Journal of Asian Studies 75.3 (2016), 806-807.

•    Review of Sarah Turner, Christine Bonnin, and Jean Michaud, Frontier Livelihoods: Hmong in the Sino-Vietnamese Borderlands (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2015). Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 22.3 (2016), 750-751.

•    Review of David Faure and Ho Ts'ui-p'ing, eds. Chieftains into Ancestors: Imperial Expansion and Indigenous Society in Southwest China (Vancouver 2013). Asian Highlands Perspectives 40 (2016), 479-488.

•    Review essay: "The Museum Boom in China and the State efforts to Control History" (on Marzia Varutti, Museums in China: The Politics of Representation after Mao [Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK, 2014]; Kirk Denton, Exhibiting the Past: Historical Memory & the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China [Honolulu, 2014]; Amy Jane Barnes, Museum Representations of Maoist China: From Cultural Revolution to Commie Kitsch [Surrey, UK, 2014]. Museum Anthropology Review 9.2 (2015), 96-105.

•    "Hail to the King!" Review of two books by David N. Keightley: Working for His Majesty: Research Notes on Labor Mobilization in Late Shang China (ca.1200-1045 B.C.), as Seen in the Oracle-Bone Inscriptions, with Particular Attention to Handicraft Industries, Agriculture, Warfare, Hunting, Construction, and the Shang's Legacies (Berkeley: University of California-Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, 2012); and The Ancestral Landscape: Time, Space, and Community in Late Shang China, ca. 1200-1045 B.C. (Berkeley: University of California-Berkeley, Institute of East Asian Studies, 2000). Early China 37.1 (2014), 567-573. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/eac.2014.18

•    Review of Unearthing the Nation: Modern Geology and Nationalism in Republican China. By Grace Yen SHEN. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014. Journal of Asian Studies 73.4 (2014), 1120-1122. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0021911814001259

•    Review of Mandy Sadan, Being and Becoming Kachin: Histories Beyond the State in the Borderworlds of Burma. (Oxford & London: Oxford University Press & the British Academy, 2013; with an accompanying website, "Research Notes: Fieldwork Notes, Photographs and Translations" ). Thailand-Laos-Cambodia [TLC] network/New Mandala Review LXX.  In: New Mandala: New Perspectives on Southeast Asia, May 16, 2014.

•    Review of Michael Oppitz et al, eds. Naga Identities: Changing Local Cultures in the Northeast of India (Gent: Snoeck Publishers, 2008). Asian Highlands Perspectives 28 (2013): 299-304.

•    Review of Gunnar Skirbekk, Multiple Modernities: A Tale of Scandinavian Experiences (Hong Kong: Chinese Univ. Press, 2011). Journal of World History 24.3 (2013), 707-10.

•    Review of Berma Klein Goldewijk et al, eds. Cultural Emergency in Conflict and Disaster (Rotterdam: NAI Publishers, 2011). Anthropological Forum: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Comparative Sociology (2012; iFirst article, pp. 1–3.

•    Review of Michael Keevak, Becoming Yellow: A Short History of Racial Thinking (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2011). Journal of World History 23.3 (2012), 676-80.  

 

Klarman Hall
201 McGraw Hall
magnus.fiskesjo@cornell.edu

Education

Lund University, Sweden, BA equivalent 1986 (undergraduate studies also at the University of Stockholm, Sweden; Copenhagen University, Denmark; and Fudan university, Shanghai, China).

Koobi Fora Field School in African Archaeology & Paleoanthropology, 1992.

University of Chicago, Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, MA, 1994.

University of Chicago, Dept. of Anthropology, and Dept. of East Asian Languages & Civilizations, joint PhD degree, 2000.

Departments and programs

Links

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