معرفی
Deborah A. Thomas is the R. Jean Brownlee Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she serves as Department Chair and Director of the Center for Experimental Ethnography. She holds core faculty appointments in Gender, Sexuality and Women’s Studies, secondary affiliations with the Graduate School of Education and Africana Studies, and participates in graduate groups in English, Comparative Literature, and Social Policy. She also acts as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the Race:Gender:Class Centre, University of Johannesburg.
- Ph.D., New York University (2000)
Her research explores the afterlives of imperialism, sovereignty, violence, and transnational diasporas, with a focus on the Caribbean. She employs embodied methods and multimodal approaches, including film and installations, to interrogate coloniality and envision radical futures.
Thomas’s recent work emphasizes sovereignty, witnessing, and repair, reflected in her award-winning book Political Life in the Wake of the Plantation (2019). Her articles span topics like state violence, postcolonial temporality, and decolonial praxis, appearing in journals such as Annual Review of Anthropology and American Ethnologist.
- Guggenheim Fellowship
- Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Book Award (2021)
- Senior Book Prize (American Ethnological Society, 2020)
- Gregory Bateson Prize Runner-Up (2020)
- Election to American Academy of Arts and Sciences (2024)
Her editorial leadership includes Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist (2016–2020) and co-editorships in Transforming Anthropology and Social and Economic Studies. She co-produced documentaries like Four Days in May and Bad Friday, and curated the Bearing Witness installation at the Penn Museum.
