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Britt Halvorson

Title

Associate Professor of Anthropology; Chair of Anthropology

Department

Anthropology

Information

Current Courses

CRS Title Sec
AY253 Cultural Perspectives on Global Economies A
AY313 Researching Cultural Diversity A
AY323 Medicine, Religion, and Bioethics A
GS481 Honors Workshop A

Education

Albion College, B.A.

University of Michigan, M.A., Ph.D.

Areas of Expertise

  • Global Christianities

  • Medical humanitarianism

  • Waste economies

  • Material culture studies

  • Ethics and politics of care

  • Whiteness and the Midwest U.S.

 

Selected Publications

Books

Halvorson, B. and J. Reno. 2022. Imagining the Heartland: White Supremacy and the American Midwest. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

Halvorson, B. 2018. Conversionary Sites: Transforming Medical Aid and Global Christianity from Madagascar to the Midwest United States. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Articles and Chapters

Halvorson, B. 2024. “Ancestral Cites: Citation Politics and Canonical Figures in Protestant Communities.” Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 00084298231219260.

Reno, J. and B. Halvorson. 2023. “The Gendering of Anthropological Theory since 2000: Ontology, Semiotics, and Feminism.” Current Anthropology 64(5): 475-497.

Halvorson, B. and I. Hovland. 2023. “A Language-and-Materiality Approach to Reading: Reinvigorating Thirty-Year-Old Questions.” In The Ethnography of Reading at Thirty. Edited by Matthew Rosen. Palgrave Macmillan.

Halvorson, B. and J. Reno. 2021. “Waste and Whiteness.” In Routledge Handbook of Waste Studies. Josh Lepawsky and Zsuzsa Gille, eds. New York and London: Routledge.

Halvorson, B. and I. Hovland. 2021. “Reconnecting Language and Materiality in Christian Reading: A Comparative Analysis of Two Groups of Protestant Women.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 63(2): 499-529.

Halvorson, B. 2021. “Malagasy Art on the Move: Materiality, Home Displays, and Problems in Decolonizing Christianity.” Journal of Material Culture 26(2): 142-161.

Halvorson, B. 2020. “Reassessing Charitable Affect: Volunteerism, Affect and Ethical Practice in a Medical Aid Agency.” Anthropological Quarterly 93(2): 151-175.

Halvorson, B. 2019. “What Is ‘the Midwest’ Thinking? U.S. Regionalism and Nationalism.” Co-Authored with Josh Reno. Cultural Anthropology , Fieldsights Section, March 2019.

Halvorson, B. 2017. “When God Is a Moral Accountant: Requests and Dilemmas of Accountability in U.S. Medical Relief in Madagascar.” In The Request and the Gift in Religious and Humanitarian Endeavors. Fred Klaits, ed. Pp. 65-92. Palgrave Macmillan.

Halvorson, B. 2015. “The Value of Time and the Temporality of Value in Socialities of Waste.” Discard Studies [Online Journal]. 21 September 2015.

Halvorson, B. 2012. “Woven Worlds: Material Things, Bureaucratization, and Dilemmas of Caregiving in Lutheran Humanitarianism.” American Ethnologist 39, no. 1 (2012): 122-137.

Halvorson, B. 2012. “‘No Junk for Jesus’: Redemptive Economies and Value Conversions in Lutheran Medical Aid.” In Economies of Recycling: The Global Transformation of Materials, Values and Social Relations. Catherine Alexander and Josh Reno, editors. Pp. 207-233. London: Zed Books.

Halvorson, B. 2010. “Translating the Fifohazana (Awakening): The Politics of Healing and the Colonial Mission Legacy in African Christian Missionization.” Journal of Religion in Africa 40, no. 4 (2010): 413-441.