U of A Professor Leading Society of Humanistic Anthropology

University Relations

Jonathan S. Marion, associate professor of anthropology

Jonathan S. Marion, associate professor of anthropology in the J. William Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences, has assumed leadership of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology. He was twice elected to the organization's Board before his election two years ago as president-elect. Marion took office as president of the society after the American Anthropological Association's 115th annual meeting, held Nov. 16-20 in Minneapolis.

"This is a great honor for Dr. Marion and our department, especially as Dr. Marion is just stepping down as past-president of the Society for Visual Anthropology," said Justin Nolan, chair of the department. "Dr. Marion's leadership of the SVA and now SHA highlights the exceptional scholarship being done at the University of Arkansas, and our contributions as academic leaders."

Marion joined the U of A faculty in 2012. Before coming to Fulbright College, he was a visiting scholar at the University of California-San Diego, and taught at California State University San Marcos. His research focuses on performance, embodiment, image, identity, and gender, as well as visual and sensorial research ethics, theory, and methodology.

"I am honored by my colleagues' endorsements," Marion said, "and deeply committed to foregrounding myriad expressions of the human lives, stories, and experiences which are what ultimately matter most in all cultural research and exposition."

In addition to his office with the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, Marion is president of the anthropology affiliate for the Southwestern Social Science Association, as well as an editorial board member for Visual Anthropology Review. His books include Ballroom Dance and Glamour (2014), Visual Research: A Concise Introduction to Thinking Visually (2013), and Ballroom: Culture and Costume in Competitive Dance (2008).

The Society for Humanistic Anthropology was first discussed at the 1974 meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Mexico City to open a dialogue concerning how anthropologists might evoke, represent, or give account of the human subject both visually and in writing. Humanistic anthropology involves the recognition that professional inquiry takes place in a context of human value. The society's humanistic orientation is particularly concerned with the personal, ethical, and political choices facing humans.