Laura Nelson

Associate Professor of Anthropology and Chair

Department of Anthropology

E-mail:

laura.nelson@csueastbay.edu

Phone:

(510) 885-7509

Office:

MI 3089

Office Hours:

No office hours in summer

Courses Taught

Introduction to Anthropology
Viewing Diversity
Anthropology of the Modern World
Social Anthropology
Japan
Anthropology on the Internet
Women in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Media in Cross-Cultural Pespective
Business Anthropology
Anthropology in Action
Pro-Seminar in Anthropology
Applied Anthropology
Internship Planning and Analysis
Post-Internship Seminar
Special Topics: Anthropology of Time
Seminar in Socio-Cultural Anthropology

Recent Scholarship

The Many Challenges of Urbanization in Korea.  In Insight into Korea: Understanding the Challenges of the Twenty-First Century. Seoul: Korea Herald Press, 2007.

"Is Korea Ephemeral? Anthropological Perspectives on Koreanness. In Korea Studies Curricula in the Age of Multimedia Education. (An on-line project led by Cho Young-mee Yu, Rutgers University.)

Microenterprise Update: Long Term Narratives.  Annual Meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA), Tampa, FL, March 30, 2007.

South Korea's Credit Card Debacle: Narratives of Moral Hazard.? Invited colloquium presenter, Princeton University, Department of Asian Studies, January 15, 2007.

South Korean Consumer Nationalism: Women, Children, Credit and Other Perils. In Sheldon Garon and Patricial Maclachlan, eds., Consumer Culture and its Discontents. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. 2006.

Implementation of Welfare Reform in Los Angeles. Chapter 2 in Denise F. Polit et al., Welfare Reform in Los Angeles: Implementation, Effects, and Experiences of Poor Families and Neighborhoods.  New York: MDRC. 2005

2003: "Intensive Qualitative Research: Challenges, Best Uses, and Opportunities." MRDC Working Paper on Research Methodology. New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
2003: "Supporting CalWORKs Students at California Community Colleges: An Exploratory Focus Group Study." New York: Manpower Demonstration Research Corporation.
2000: Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Nationalism in South Korea. New York: Columbia University Press.

Research Interests

Dr. Nelson's research interests are focused on two areas. She has published a book, "Measured Excess: Status, Gender, and Consumer Nationalism in South Korea," on economic and social change in South Korea, and continues to look at consumer life in that country. She has two projects in development for this area, one on credit cards and one on changing demographics in South Korea. She's also interested in the anthropology of public policies in this country, particularly from an applied perspective. She is conducting interviews with women in the Bay Area who participated between 6 and 10 years ago in microenterprise programs aiming to help them achieve self-sufficiency to find out what their experiences have been with self-employment.

Education

• B.A., 1983, Renaissance Studies, Brown University
• MA, 1987, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
• MCP (Masters of City and Regional Planning), 1991, University of California, Berkeley
• Ph.D., 1997, Department of Anthropology, Stanford University

Page Last Updated: September 25, 2012