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Anthropologist Receives Distinguished Visiting Professorship

Claire R. Farrer, professor in the Department of Anthropology, has been selected by the University of Hartford in Connecticut as the National Endowment for the Humanities/Harry Jack Gray Distinguished Visiting Professor for 2002–2003.

As a visiting professor, Farrer will teach a weeklong seminar/workshop in July 2002 for University of Hartford professors and selected high school teachers. She will return in fall 2002 and spring 2003 to present public lectures.

Farrer is internationally known for her work with the Mescalero Apaches of the Southwest. Her book Living Life’s Circle: Mescalero Apache Cosmovision is a seminal work on Apache cosmology and world view. She will use the book in the five-day seminar/workshop series with the general theme, “Kaleidoscopes, Crayons, Bubbles, and Other Wondrous Things.” Farrer will discuss the concept of toys to illustrate that any cultural system can by entered from any access point, even those points as small, seemingly insignificant toys.

Farrer received both her M.A. and her Ph.D. in anthropology and folklore from the University of Texas, Austin. Her Ph.D. dissertation was on play and interethnic communication. She has taught at CSU, Chico since 1985 and developed the Certificate Program in Applied Anthropology.

The author of nine published books and dozens of refereed journal articles, Farrer was also a visiting professor at Colorado College, Colorado Springs in 1998 and held the Hulbert Endowed Chair and visiting professor of Southwest studies at Colorado College in 1997.

Farrer has received numerous honors, fellowships, and awards. Some of the most recent are her inclusion in the Reference Encyclopedia of the American Indian in 2000 and Who’s Who in the World, 14th edition, 1997. She was a CSU, Chico Master Teacher and received a CELT research award for work with a Whiteriver Apache healer in 1999.

Farrer’s ongoing research includes work with a Whiteriver Apache woman on her life history, work with a singer of ceremonies and healer, and individual work with Mescalero Apache singers of ceremonies on ritual, religion, medicine, and healing.