{"id":3377,"date":"2022-02-27T13:40:17","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T13:40:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/?page_id=3377"},"modified":"2025-07-15T15:05:40","modified_gmt":"2025-07-15T19:05:40","slug":"lassiter","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/lassiter\/","title":{"rendered":"Luke Eric Lassiter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"LukeDirector of the Graduate Humanities Program<\/strong>
\nProfessor of Humanities and Anthropology<\/strong><\/p>\n

304-746-1923 \/ lassiter@marshall.edu<\/a><\/p>\n

Link to my collaborative ethnography page here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I received my PhD in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995.\u00a0 I taught anthropology at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, until 2005 when I came to Marshall University.\u00a0 As Director of Marshall’s Graduate Humanities Program I coordinate interdisciplinary graduate study in cultural, historical, literary, and Appalachian studies. I am jointly appointed in the College of Liberal Arts<\/a> and the doctoral program of the College of Education and Professional Development<\/a>, and direct graduate projects, theses, and dissertations, as well as teach a broad range of graduate seminars in the humanities, social sciences, and interdisciplinary research methods (including ethnography, qualitative and mixed methods research). My research interests include ethnographic theory and practice; reciprocal and collaborative research; social memory and oral history; race and ethnicity; folklore, ethnomusicology, and community aesthetics; belief and worldview; collaborative and community-based pedagogies.<\/p>\n

In my early career, my research and writing focused on elaborating the relationships between community expressions (e.g., language, song, narrative) and larger systems of meaning (e.g., memory, belief, identity).\u00a0 I did much of that work with Kiowa people in southwestern Oklahoma, who had an enormous influence on how I thought about doing new kinds of collaborative ethnography<\/a>, an approach to ethnographic research that emphasizes how scholars and research participants\/consultants can research and write together to advance multicultural understanding and social change.\u00a0 When I was at Ball State, a series of collaborative research partnerships with African Americans in Muncie, Indiana (the site of the famous “Middletown” studies) prompted me to expand my thinking about how community partners, faculty, and—in particular—students can carry out collaborative research and writing projects in ways that foster collaborative and reciprocal learning.\u00a0 One of the projects was the award-winning<\/a> book The Other Side of Middletown<\/em><\/a>, which a group of faculty, community members, and undergraduate students collaboratively conceptualized, researched, and wrote.\u00a0 When I moved to Marshall, I turned my attention to doing this kind of collaborative research and writing with graduate students working in interdisciplinary contexts, and with a wide-range of community groups in southern West Virginia. Our recent book, I’m Afraid of that Water: A Collaborative Ethnography of a West Virginia Water Crisis<\/em><\/a> (a Weatherford Award<\/a> recipient) is an example of the kind of community-based, collaboratively engaged projects we do in this Program. I’ve spent much of my career reflecting on how this kind of research and writing can work with both undergraduate and graduate students (see, for example, here<\/a> and here<\/a>); but most recently, I’ve become increasingly interested in how collaborative modes of research and writing also engender collaborative modes of shared pedagogies where all parties (faculty, students, and community members) can be actively engaged in shared processes of teaching and learning from one another about difference.<\/p>\n

Selected Awards and Honors<\/strong><\/p>\n

Outstanding Junior Faculty Award, Ball State University (2001).
\nFellow, Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry, Ball State University (2003).
\nMargaret Mead Award<\/a>, Society for Applied Anthropology and the American Anthropological Association (2005).
\nDistinguished Artists and Scholars Award, Marshall University (2007).
\nJohn & Frances Rucker Outstanding Graduate Advisor Award, Marshall University (2010).
\nDistinguished Artists and Scholars Team Award (with Brian Hoey), Marshall University (2019).
\nWeatherford Award<\/a> (with Elizabeth Campbell & Brian Hoey), Best Non-fiction Book about Appalachia, I\u2019m Afraid of that Water<\/a><\/em> (2021).
\nHonorary Doctorate<\/a> (with Elizabeth Campbell), Faculty of Education and Society, Malm\u00f6 University (2023).
\n28th Distinguished Drinko Fellow<\/a>, John Deaver Drinko Academy, Marshall University (2023-2025).<\/p>\n

Books and Edited Volumes<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Power of Kiowa Song<\/em><\/a> (University of Arizona Press, 1998).<\/p>\n

The Jesus Road: Kiowas, Christianity, and Indian Hymns<\/em><\/a>, with Clyde Ellis and Ralph Kotay (University of Nebraska Press, 2002).<\/p>\n

Invitation to Anthropology<\/em><\/a>, 1st – 4th edition (AltaMira Press \/ Rowman & Littlefield, 2002, 2006, 2009, 2014).<\/p>\n

Signifying Serpents and Mardi Gras Runners: Representing Identity in Selected Souths<\/em><\/a>, with Celeste Ray (U of Georgia Press, 2003).<\/p>\n

The Other Side of Middletown: Exploring Muncie’s African American Community<\/a>, <\/em>with Hurley Goodall, Elizabeth Campbell, Michelle Natasya Johnson, and the students of the “Other Side of Middletown” Virginia B. Ball Center for Creative Inquiry<\/a> seminar (AltaMira Press, 2004). Recipient of the 2005 Margaret Mead Award<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Powwow: Ethnographic Texts<\/a><\/em>, ed. with Clyde Ellis and Gary Dunham (U of Nebraska Press, 2005).<\/p>\n

The Chicago Guide to Collaborative Ethnography<\/a><\/em> (U of Chicago Press, 2005).<\/p>\n

Explorations in Cultural Anthropology<\/em><\/a>, ed. with Colleen Boyd (AltaMira Press, 2011).<\/p>\n

Collaborative Anthropologies<\/em><\/a>, ed., Vol. 1 – 6 (U of Nebraska Press, 2008, 2009 & [with Samuel R. Cook] 2010 – 2013).<\/p>\n

Doing Ethnography Today<\/a><\/em>, with Elizabeth Campbell (Wiley-Blackwell, 2015).<\/p>\n

I\u2019m Afraid of that Water: A Collaborative Ethnography of a West Virginia Water Crisis<\/a><\/em>,<\/a> with Brian Hoey, Elizabeth Campbell, and the Graduate Humanities Program faculty, students, and community research partners of the \u201cCharleston Water Crisis\u201d Graduate Humanities Program seminars (West Virginia U Press, 2020).\u00a0 Recipient of the 2020 Weatherford Award<\/a>.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The New Invitation to Anthropology<\/em><\/a>, with Eric I. Karchmer and Dana E. Powell (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024).<\/p>\n

New Generation Change Agents in Appalachia<\/em><\/a>, with Anna Osborne, Justin M.L. Whittington, Cat Pleska, Trish Hatfield, and Elizabeth Campbell (Mountain State Press, 2025).<\/p>\n

Selected Articles and Essays<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cWe Keep What We Have by Giving it Away.\u201d\u00a0 Anthropology News <\/em>40(1):3, 7 (1999).<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018Who Am I? I Am the One Who Sits in the Middle\u2019: A Conversation with Billy Evans Horse, former Kiowa Tribal Chairman (1982-1986, 1994-1998).\u201d\u00a0 American Indian Quarterly<\/em> 23(2):59-69 (1999).<\/p>\n

\u201cAuthoritative Texts, Collaborative Ethnography, and Native American Studies.\u201d\u00a0 American Indian Quarterly<\/em> 24(4):601-14 (2000).<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2018From Here On, I Will Be Praying to You\u2019: Indian Churches, Kiowa Hymns, and Native American Christianity in Southwestern Oklahoma.\u201d\u00a0 Ethnomusicology<\/em> 45(2):338-52 (2001).<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom \u2018Reading Over the Shoulders of Natives\u2019 to \u2018Reading Alongside Natives\u2019, Literally: Toward a Collaborative and Reciprocal Ethnography.\u201d\u00a0 Journal of Anthropological Research<\/em> 57 (2):137-49 (2001).<\/p>\n

\u201cKiowa: On Song and Memory.\u201d\u00a0 In Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives<\/em>, edited by Jacob Climo and Maria Cattell, pp. 131-41.\u00a0 Lanham: AltaMira\/Rowman & Littlefield (2002).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Muncie Race Riots of 1967, Representing Community Memory through Public Performance, and Collaborative Ethnography between Faculty, Students and the Local Community.\u201d\u00a0 Co-authored with Lee Papa [first author].\u00a0 Journal of Contemporary Ethnography<\/em> 32(2):147-66 (2003).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography.\u201d\u00a0 AnthroNotes<\/em> 25(1):1-14 (2004).<\/p>\n

\u201cMusic.\u201d\u00a0 In Companion to the Anthropology of American Indians<\/em>, edited by Thomas Biolsi, pp. 196-211.\u00a0 Oxford: Blackwell Publishers (2004).<\/p>\n

\u201cKiowa Indian Hymns.\u201d In Encyclopedia of American Indian Religious Traditions<\/em>, edited by Suzanne J. Crawford and Dennis F. Kelley, 440-42.\u00a0 Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO (2005).<\/p>\n

\u201cA Tribal Chair\u2019s Perspective on Inherent Sovereignty.\u201d Co-authored with Billy Evans Horse [first author]. In Sovereignty, Colonialism and the Future of the Indigenous Nations<\/em>, edited by Robert Adawi Porter, 30-35.\u00a0 Durham: Carolina Academic Pres (2005).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography and Public Anthropology\u201d Current Anthropology<\/em> 46(1):83-106 (2005).<\/p>\n

\u201cKiowa Folklore.\u201d\u00a0 In Greenwood Encyclopedia of World Folklore and Folklife: Volume 4, North and South America<\/em>, edited by William M. Clements, 60-67.\u00a0 Westport: Greenwood Press (2006).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography Matters,\u201d Anthropology News<\/em> 47(5):20-21 (2006).<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the Job: Applied Anthropology in a Graduate Humanities Program.\u201d\u00a0 Society for Applied Anthropology Newsletter<\/em> 18(3):8-10 (2007).<\/p>\n

\u201cMoving Past Public Anthropology and Doing Collaborative Research.\u201d In Careers in Applied Anthropology: Advice from Practitioners and Academics<\/em>, edited by Carla Guerron-Montero.\u00a0 National Association of Practicing Anthropologists, Bulletin 29, 70-86.\u00a0 Washington, D.C.: American Anthropological Association (2008).<\/p>\n

\u201cAmerican Indian Music.\u201d\u00a0 In The Encyclopedia of Oklahoma History and Culture<\/em>, 994-95. Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Historical Society (2009).<\/p>\n

\u201cSerious Fieldwork: On Re-functioning Ethnographic Pedagogies.\u201d Co-authored with Elizabeth Campbell.\u00a0 Anthropology News<\/em> 51(6):4, 8 (2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Will We Have Ethnography Do?\u201d Co-authored with Elizabeth Campbell. Qualitative Inquiry<\/em> 16(9):757-67 (2010).<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom Collaborative Ethnography to Collaborative Pedagogy: Reflections on the Other Side of Middletown Project and Community-University Research Partnerships.\u201d Co-authored with Elizabeth Campbell [first author]. Anthropology & Education Quarterly<\/em> 41(4):370-85 (2010).<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019To Fill in the Missing Piece of the Middletown Puzzle\u2019: Lessons from Re-studying Middletown.\u201d Sociological Review<\/em> 60:421-37 (2012).<\/p>\n

\u201cRethinking our Pedagogies.\u201d Comments on \u201cThe Undergraduate Ethnographic Field School as a Research Method.\u201d Current Anthropology<\/em> 55(5): 574-75 (2014).<\/p>\n

Comments on \u201cCo-Producing Efficacious Medicines: Collaborative Event Ethnography with Himalayan and Tibetan Sowa Rigpa Practitioners,\u201d by Calum Blaikie, Sienna Craig, Barbara Gerke, and Theresia Hofer. Current Anthropology<\/em> 56(2):197 (2015).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography in Context\u201d (with Elizabeth Campbell [first author] and Kate Pahl [second author]), in Re-Imagining Contested Communities<\/em>, edited by Elizabeth Campbell, Kate Pahl, , Elizabeth Pente, and Zanib Rasool, pp. 91-106.\u00a0 Bristol, UK: Policy Press (2018).<\/p>\n

\u201cEthnographic Engagement.\u201d\u00a0 International Encyclopedia of Anthropology<\/em>, edited by Hillary Callan. Oxford: Wiley (2018).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography: What is It and How Can You Start Doing It?\u201d in Building Research Design in Education: Theoretically Informed Advanced Methods<\/em>, edited by Lorna Hamilton and John Ravenscroft, pp. 153-71.\u00a0 London: Bloomsbury (2018).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography,\u201d in SAGE Research Methods Foundations<\/em>, edited by Paul Atkinson, Sara Delamont, Melissa Hardy, and Malcolm William (Sage, 2019).<\/p>\n

\u201cCommunity-University Partnerships and the Marshall University Major Scholar Seminar.\u201d Practicing Anthropology <\/em>41(3):11-12 (2019).<\/p>\n

\u201cForeword,\u201d in Artistic Mentoring as a Decolonizing Methodology: An Evolving Collaborative Painting Ethnography with Maya Artists Pedro Rafael Gonz\u00e1lez Chavajay and Paula Nicho C\u00famez<\/em>, by Kryssi Staikidis, pp. xiv-xvii. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill (2020).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography: Trends, Developments, and Opportunities,\u201d in Transforming Ethnomusicology: Methodologies, Institutional Structures and Policies<\/em>, Vo1. 1, edited by Beverley Diamond \u00a0and Salwa El Shawan Castelo-Branco, pp. 59-72. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2021).<\/p>\n

Selected Invited Lectures<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cTeaching a Relevant and Public Anthropology.\u201d\u00a0 Department of Social Anthropology, Lund University, Sweden (2000).<\/p>\n

\u201cHymns, History, and Experience: A Discussion of Collaborative Ethnography.\u201d Co-presented with Clyde Ellis and Ralph Kotay, Native American Studies Program and the Department of Anthropology, Dartmouth College (2002).<\/p>\n

\u201cKiowa Song and Collaborative Ethnography.\u201d Southern Plains Lecture Series, University of Oklahoma, Norman (2005).<\/p>\n

\u201cMiddletown, Collaboration, and Undergraduate Research.\u201d\u00a0 St. Mary\u2019s College of Maryland (2005).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Research Methodologies.\u201d\u00a0 Keynote Address.\u00a0 College of Education Spring Research Conference, Texas Tech University (2007).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Other Side of Middletown: Building Bridges Between Universities and Local Communities through Collaborative Ethnography.\u201d\u00a0 Elon University (2007).<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat Will We Have Ethnography Do?\u201d Rackham Graduate School, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor (2009).<\/p>\n

\u201cNew Developments in Student Ethnography.\u201d\u00a0 Sewanee: University of the South (2009).<\/p>\n

\u201cProspects for Collaborative Anthropologies.\u201d\u00a0 Department of Anthropology, Georgetown University (2010).<\/p>\n

\u201c\u2019To Fill in the Missing Piece of the Middletown Puzzle\u2019: Lessons from Re-studying Middletown,\u201d School of Sociology and Social Policy, University of Nottingham, England (2011).<\/p>\n

“Collaborative (Participatory) Research in Anthropology: Concerning its Current Conditions and Future Trajectories,\u201d Department of Anthropology, University of British Columbia (2011).<\/p>\n

\u201cIs Collaborative Ethnography Finished?\u201d Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, Athens (2012).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Anthropologies: Where to Next?\u201d Department of Anthropology, Princeton University (2013).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography, Collaborative Research: Co-Imagining New Possibilities for Appalachian Studies\u201d (with Elizabeth Campbell). Invited Plenary Lecture. Thirty-seventh Annual Appalachian Studies Conference (2014).<\/p>\n

\u201cFutures of Collaborative Ethnography (in\/with African American Communities).\u201d\u00a0 Institute on Black Life and the Center for Africa and the Diaspora, University of South Florida (2014).<\/p>\n

\u201cDoing Ethnography Today.\u201d Gehman Lecture, Department of Anthropology, University of Western Ontario (2014).<\/p>\n

\u201cFields of Collaboration: On Collaborative Ethnography and Community-Based Research.\u201d University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2015).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography: Recent Developments and Opportunities,\u201d Invited Plenary, Joint International Forum of the International Council for Traditional Music and the Society for Ethnomusicology, University of Limerick, Ireland (2015).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography\u201d (with Elizabeth Campbell).\u00a0 United Kingdom National Centre for Research Methods Training, University of Edinburgh, Scotland (2015).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Charleston Water Crisis and Collaborative Ethnography.\u201d Sewanee: University of the South (2017).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Glenwood Project, Charleston Slave Histories, and Community-University Research Partnerships.\u201d The Dr. Carter G. Woodson Lyceum 2018 Black History Month.\u00a0 Marshall University (2018).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography\u201d (with Elizabeth Campbell). University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee (2019).<\/p>\n

“Collaborative Complications: Shared Commitments, Competing Aims, and Ethical Exits in Collaborative Ethnographic Research\u201d (with Elizabeth Campbell). Virtual presentation (during COVID-19 pandemic), Ohio Field School, Center for Folklore Studies, The Ohio State University (2021).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography: Contexts, Applications, and Outcomes\u201d (with Elizabeth Campbell). Virtual Presentation, Glasgow School for Business and Society, Glasgow Caledonian University (Scotland) (2022).<\/p>\n

\u201cTangled Convictions and Shared Uncertainties: What Can We Do with Collaborative Ethnography Today?\u201d (with Elizabeth Campbell).\u00a0 Malm\u00f6 University (Sweden) (2023).<\/p>\n

\u201cCollaborative Ethnography and Stories of Public Service: New Generation Change Agents in Appalachia,\u201d Keynote, 2025 Drinko Symposium, The John Deaver Drinko Academy, Marshall University, Huntington, West Virginia (2025).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Director of the Graduate Humanities Program Professor of Humanities and Anthropology 304-746-1923 \/ lassiter@marshall.edu Link to my collaborative ethnography page here. I received my PhD in anthropology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1995.\u00a0 I taught anthropology at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, until 2005 when I came to Marshall<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":72,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-3377","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/72"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3377"}],"version-history":[{"count":45,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3377\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4122,"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/3377\/revisions\/4122"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.marshall.edu\/graduatehumanities\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}