Elayne Oliphant

Lecturer in Anthropology-Sociology

Contact 309-341-7145 eoliphan@knox.edu

General Interests
"I am interested in the how, as social groups, we shape, represent, reproduce, and transform our worldviews, and how these processes are limited by the economic, social, political, and semiotic ideologies we have inherited. Specifically, I explore how worldviews are influenced by ideas of secularism and religion in Europe, with a particular focus on France. I do not view religious and secular understandings of the world as completely separate and distinct categories; instead, I examine what they share and how they both require explicit systems of belief, action, and representation while always struggling against the specter of doubt. My interest in how our worldviews are represented have led me to look at how visual arts exhibitions are places in these representations are displayed in very explicit terms. My dissertation research was centered on a contemporary art exhibition site owned and operated by the French Catholic Church in the center of Paris."

Years at Knox: 2011 to present

Education
Ph.D. candidate, Department of Anthropology, University of Chicago.
M.A., Institute of Political Economy, 2005, Carleton University, Ottawa.
B.A., Political Science and International Development Studies, 2003, Trent University, Peterborough, Canada.

Teaching Interests
Contemporary French society, religion and secularism in the state.

Selected Professional Accomplishments

Honors/Grants
International Dissertation Research Fellowship, Social Science Research Council, USA.
Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship, Social Science Research Council, USA.
Doctoral Award, Social Science and Humanities Research Council, Canada.

Publications
"Voices and Apparitions in Jules Bastien-Lepage's Joan of Arc." In Martha Ward and Anne Leonard, Looking and Listening in Nineteenth-Century France, Exhibition Catalogue. Chicago: Smart Museum of Art (2007): 42-49.

Presentations
"The Visual Traces of Politics: Art, Religion and Secularism in Contemporary Europe." Coordinator and Presenter, Panel co-hosted by Society for Visual Anthropology and the Society for the Anthropology of Europe. American Anthropological Association Conference. November 2011, Montreal.

"Renaissance: Catholic Cultural Renewal In Paris." Michicagoan Graduate Student Conference, The Trouble with Doubles. May 2011, Ann Arbor.

"The Art and Aesthetics of a Republican Faith." American Anthropological Association Annual Meeting. November 2010, New Orleans.

"September 11 and the Canadian National Museum: ‘The Lands within Me'". University of Western Ontario's Visual Studies Graduate Conference, 2005.

"New Borders between Israel and Palestine". Institute of Political Economy March 2004 Conference: Conflict, Challenge and Change, 2004.