CURRICULUM VITA. Education. Employment History. Recent Teaching and Research

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1 CURRICULUM VITA Eric J. Montgomery, Ph.D. Adjunct Professor Wayne State University College for Creative Studies Detroit, Michigan, Education PhD MA BA 2005 Wayne State University: Detroit, MI, USA Wayne State University: Detroit, MI, USA University of Michigan: MI, USA. Employment History Fall 2014-Current Center for Peace and Conflict Studies, Wayne State University, Instructor Fall Wayne State University, Irvin D. Reid Honors College, Senior Lecturer Business Anthropology and Globalization / Urban Anthropology Fall 2007-Current Wayne State University, Department of Anthropology. Adjunct Faculty, Business Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Africa Eastern Michigan University, Adjunct Faculty, Anthropology of Religion Wayne County Community College, Instructor, Geography, Sociology and Anthropology Wayne State University, GTA, Various Courses in Anthropology: Archaeology, Physical Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology Recent Teaching and Research

2 For a decade I have taught in the Irvin D. Reid Honors College and in the Anthropology department at Wayne State University in inner-city Detroit. My teaching philosophy involves relativity, holism, and the power of culture. Recently I have been modifying my pedagogical approach to involve: ethnography, service learning, cultural passports, flip videos, and community engagement. My courses range from cultural anthropology and ethnography at the undergraduate level to anthropology of design and global anthropology at the graduate level. My research is on Ewes people of Ghana and Togo in West Africa with a focus on political-economy, ritual, and the anthropology of religion. Recently we completed two ethnographic films on Ewe culture and have various publications forthcoming. I also investigate American Cities and contemporary trends in American city life. Teaching and Research Interests 1. Anthropology of Religion 2. Cultural Anthropology / Ethnography 3. Global Foundations 4. Anthropology Methods and Theory 5. Detroit: In Focus 6. City and Citizenship 7. Anthropology of Africa 8. Doing Visual Anthropology 9. Business Anthropology 10. Service Learning and Activist Anthropology Honors and Awards 2014 February, Professor of the Semester, recognized by Wayne State Student Senate 2012 Honorable Mention, Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo, Ahueafa.org, Film Festival, Paris, France Presidents Distinguished Teaching Award Finalist, Wayne State University Thomas Rumble Award Fellow, received Fall and Winter funding for six Months of field research Ghana, Togo; West Africa Received three awards to travel abroad to West Africa to study: Aswad Award, Kaplan Prize and Global Education Scholarship, Wayne State University 1998 Co-Authored grant from Greenpeace via Clean Water Action to study 2

3 Senate Bill 778 and House Bill 1462, African Growth Act Selected as United States Student Ambassador by People to People. A study trip to Russia to study political science and economics before I entered college (Moscow State University) Dissertation Converting the Converters: The Transformative Power of Ewe Gorovodu Rituals in Modernity [December 2005] M.A. Thesis No Freedom in Bureaucracy: Notes from a Detroit Refugee Center [May 1999] Publications and Research Ethnography of a Shrine: Sensing Sacred Voodoo in Togo, [forthcoming] (book proposal approved, awaiting manuscript), BRILL Publications: Religion in Africa series 2015 Plants, Spirits, and Proverbs; (submitted to Applied Anthropology); December 2015 Chasing the Spirit (FILM REVIEW of our film) Comparative Studies in Society and History, Cambridge: Volume 57: 1, (August 2015) [forthcoming] The Use of Medicinal Plants amongst Vodu Practitioners in Southern Togo; submitted to Transforming Anthropology, September, 2014 (full review) Slavery, Spirit Possession and Mimesis in Ewe Voodoo; (re-submitted to AFRICA, December, 2014) [revise and resubmit] Testing Syncretism: Voodoo and Orisha in Africa and Latin America; (under review Anthropology Theory, December, 2014). African Herbsmen: Healing and Religion along the Bight of Benin, (37 minute), Film, Amazon.com: Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo, (67 minutes) An ethnographic film on Ewe Gorovodu religion in Togo, West Africa. Amazon.com: Activist Anthropology in Anthropology News, January 2012 Habitat for Humanity Detroit, Produced and Directed a short PR film on Habitat for Humanity Detroit, in cooperation with Philadelphia Soul Foundation (May 2011) 3

4 Rock to the Beat, documentary film about Detroit Electronic Music Festival (2001) PBS, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Producer Fieldwork Current Overseeing some student visual projects in Detroit, Detroit History and Architecture College for Creative Studies, Wayne State University 2013 Intensive ethnographic research in southern Togo, home village of Gbedala [Archival, film, interview, participant-observation, focus group] 2012 Did preliminary fieldwork on Indian Hindu Temples in Greater-Detroit; and also documenting Detroit architecture and culture 2011 Two months of plant medicine research in Tepa, Tema, Accra, Cape Coast, Ghana 2009-current Urban anthropological research in Detroit working with 501 3C and other NGO and governmental organizations, Wayne State, CCS Ethnographic field research in Southern Togo, Ghana and Benin, conducted doctoral research 2002 Cotonou, Benin, West Africa. I carried out preliminary fieldwork on Ewe and Fon religion. Also studied French and Ewe languages at CE.BE.LA.E (Centre Les Langues Etrangeres, Cotonou, Benin) 2000 Eight months of participant-observation at Freedom House, a refugee center on Detroit s southwest border with Canada Recent Lectures and Co-curricular Activity 2015 [Forthcoming] Humanities Brown Bag symposium, Assessing Globalization: From the African Village to the Detroit Ghetto ; Wayne State University, Center for Peace and Conflict, Anthropology Department 2013 Paper on Ewe Syncretism at American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings. Chicago, Ill, (November) 2012 Film Screening of African Herbsmen at Wayne State University 2012 Premiere of film Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo at the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History. Detroit, Michigan, (February) 4

5 2012 International Premiere of Chasing the Spirit: Gorovodu in Southern Togo, at Cine 104, Paris, France (March). Info also at togoculture.com and ahuefa.org 2012 Live interview on WDET (Public Radio) with Craig Fahle Show. Discussing Chasing the Spirit, (January) 2012 Lecture on African Plant Medicine. American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, San Francisco, California, USA 2011 Poster Presentation on Service-Learning in Detroit. American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, Montreal, Canada 2011 Lecture on Africa, America, and the Making of the Soul, Pro-World Symposium on African Culture, University of Ghana-Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana References Jerry Herron Thomas Killion Christian Vannier Dean of Irvin D. Reid Honors College, Wayne State University, / Jerry.herron@wayne.edu Professor of Archaeology and Anthropology, Chair, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI (313) / Thomas.killion@wayne.edu Visiting Professor of Anthropology, Grand Valley State University Grand Rapids, MI, Guerin Montilus Kevin Rashid David Akin Judy Rosenthal Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Wayne State University, (313) / aa1485@sbcglobal.net Undergraduate Curriculum Coordinator, Honors College, Wayne State University, (313) , kevin.rashid@wayne.edu Managing Editor, Comparative Studies in Society and History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI (734) / dwakin@umich.edu Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, University of Michigan-Flint, Flint, MI / jvrosen@umflint.edu Eric James Montgomery 5

6 1933 Haynes Street Birmingham, MI (Dr. Montgomery in the field at Gbedala village. Southern Togo, West Africa, 2013) 6