Being a Professor: The Professoriate in Anthropological Perspective

'Being a Professor' examines academic life through the personal experiences of its central protagonist: the professor. The syllabus focuses on first-person accounts of professors: autobiographies, memoirs, storytelling, personal narratives of professors with diverse social backgrounds in a half-dozen countries; guest presentations by professors; and our classmates' participant observation among professors inside and outside of the classroom. However, our ultimate goal will be an anthropological and cross-culturally comparative analysis of the professoriate, outlining the underlying conceptual structures, the social contexts, and the local and cross-cultural diversity of professors.