Sam Pack is an assistant professor of cultural anthropology at Kenyon College. His research interests address the relationship between media and culture and specifically focus on an anthropological approach to the production and reception of television, film, photographs, and new media. In this capacity, he has conducted ethnographic studies among school-aged children in inner city Philadelphia, middle-class families in suburban Pennsylvania and New Mexico, and adults in two different Native American communities (Navajo Nation and Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community). More recently, he has undertaken research and film projects in Southeast Asia (Thailand, Vietnam, and Philippines), Central America (Honduras and Costa Rica), the Arctic (Labrador, Canada), and the Middle East (West Bank, Palestine).

Dr. Pack has authored over three-dozen articles published in a variety of peer-reviewed journals and edited volumes. He has completed two manuscripts (Television Through Navajo Eyes: Situating Reception in Everyday Life and Vis-à-Vis: The Life History as Dialogue) as well as two films (Celebrating Semana Santa: Change, Conflict, and Continuity in Rural Honduras (with Said Zagha '11) and Water Puppetry in Vietnam: An Ancient Tradition in a Modern World (with Caleb Bissinger '13).

Dr. Pack teaches a wide variety of courses in cultural anthropology, visual anthropology, Native American Studies, and narrative history. He is currently developing a short-term study abroad program in Costa Rica in collaboration with the Center for International Multidisciplinary Education. Dr. Pack is the grateful recipient of the 2010 ASIANNetwork Freeman Award for Faculty-Student Collaborative Research and the 2011 Alpha Delta Phi's Outstanding Teaching Award.

Areas of Expertise

Cultural identity formation and contestation, global and local dynamics of mass media, media ethnography, reception studies, indigenous modes of (self-re)presentation, subject-generated imagery, life history, Navajo

Education

M.A., Ph.D. Temple University
B.A. Colorado College

Selected Publications

"The Native's Point of View" as Seen Through the Native's (And Non-Native's) Points of View." Talking Back: Native American Responses on Film and Media, edited by Eric Buffalohead and Elise Marubbio. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. (In press)

Who Can Say What to Whom?: The Grey's Anatomy Game. Strategies in Teaching Anthropology (Volume VII), edited by Particia Rice, David W. McCurdy and Scott Lukas. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (In press)

Digital Repatriation in Vietnam: Towards an (Alter) Native Media Tradition. Visual Anthropology. (In press)

Global Transmission and Local Consumption: Navajo Resistance to Mainstream American Television. Journal of International and Global Studies. 2(2): 80-94.

"I Hate White People": Subverting the Televisual Gaze. Visual Anthropology. 21(2): 136-150. (2008)

How They See Me vs. How I See Them: The Ethnographic Self and The Personal Self. Anthropological Quarterly 79(1): 105-122. (2006)

Television's Unintended Audience. Television: Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies (Volume IV), edited by Toby Miller. London: Routledge. (2003)

Constructing "The Navajo": Visual and Literary Representations From Inside and Out. Wicazo Sa Review 15(1): 137-156. (2000)

Indigenous Media Then and Now: Situating the Navajo Film Project. Quarterly Review of Film and Video 17(3): 273-286. (2000)

Public Library Use, School Performance, and the Parental X-Factor: A Bio-Documentary Approach to Children's Snapshots. Reading Improvement.37(4): 161-172. (2000)

Familiarizing the Exotic in Ethnographic Film. Strategies in Teaching Anthropology, edited by Patricia Rice. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (1999)

Courses Taught

Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Freshman Seminar)
Ethnographic Research Methods
Narrative Live
Pictorial Lives
Peoples and Cultures of Native North America
Contemporary Issues in Native North America
Anthropology of Mass Media
Anthropology of Borat
Anthropological Cinema I and II (Independent Study)
Culture and/as Tourism (Independent Study)
Lonely Planet Ethnography (Independent Study)
Cultural Tourism in Vietnam (Independent Study)
Urban Native American Centers (Independent Study)

Courses Planned

Visual Anthropology
Ethnographic Film
Indigenous Media
Media Audiences
Visualizing American Culture
Indians of the Southwest
Native Americans in/through Film