N. LOUANNA FURBEE
Professor
Ph.D., University of Chicago, 1974
C.V. (in pdf)

My intellectual concerns are language, culture, and thought, and the relationships among them. I am both a Mesoamericanist, specifically a Mayanist, and an Andeanist. I have also worked in the North American Great Plains.

In January 2003, I took early retirement to work more extensively on the research interests I outline below, and to involve myself more with service to the profession - efforts to maintain languages languages and work on electronic archiving of indigenous. I spend about half the year in the field in Latin America (in Chiapas, Mexico, and in Peru), but I continue to work with graduate and under- graduate students.

I am pursuing four research interests at present:

• I am writing a book about a miracle that occurred in a Tojolab'al Maya village and is the religious reflection of the Zapatista Revolt in Mexico.
   
• I am engaged in efforts to maintain endangered languages through electronic archiving. I have just begun a project to establish a language documentation center for Tojolab'al Maya in Comitán, Chiapas, Mexico. I have helped members of the Otoe-Missouria and Iowa Tribes prepare themselves as curators of Chiwere, their now obsolescent language. I have prepared with technical assistance a web-based giving catalog for philanthropy to the Foundation for Endangered Languages.
   
• As archivist for the Linguistic Society of America, I have convened "conversations" on appropriate roles for the Society in the archiving of endangered languages; I organized a conference for the LSA on language documentation, and with Lenore A. Grenoble, I recently edited a book based on the conference papers.
   
• I just completed a project on the effect of the language in which an interview is conducted on the information obtained, collaborating with Tojolab'al Maya colleagues at El Centro de Investigaciones en Salud de Comítan in Chiapas, Mexico.

I welcome the participation of graduate and undergraduate students in these investigations or in any area of linguistic anthropology, and I would be pleased to help students obtain field experience, especially in Chiapas, where I maintain close association with Mexican research organizations.

Contact: FurbeeL@missouri.edu

Selected Honors, Professional Offices, and Affiliations

• The Victoria A. Fromkin Award for Lifetime Service, Linguistic Society of America, 2007
   
• Gold Chalk Award for Graduate Teaching, Graduate School, University of Missouri-Columbia, 1995
   
• Archivist (1998-present; Co-archivist 1996-98), Linguistic Society of America
   
• Executive Committee (2000-present), Foundation for Endangered Languages
   
• President, Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, 1988
   
• Chair, The SSILA Book Award Selection Committee, 1989
   
• Investigadora Afiliada, El Centro de Investigaciones en Salud de Comitán, Chiapas, 2001-present
   
• Fellowships Panel, National Endowment for the Humanities, 2005
   
• Grants Panel, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, 2001-2003
   
• Fellowships Panel, Ford Foundation for Minority Fellowships, 1990-95, Chair 1993-9
   
• Editorial Boards, Journal of Linguistic Anthropology (1990-1996); Journal of Mayan Linguistics (1978-1982)

Recent Grants and Fellowships

• National Science Foundation, Grant, Tojolab'al Maya Language Documentation Project. 2007-2010.
   
• Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Grant, Effect of the Language of the Interview on Information Obtained. 2004-2005.
   
• Jacobs Fund, Whatcom Museum, Grant, Effect of the Language of the Interview on Information Obtained. 2003-2004.
   
• National Endowment for the Humanities, Fellowship, The Miracle of Lomantán: Narratives of the Religious Reflection of the Zapatista Revolt. 2002.

Recent Publications

• Book
  Submitted Lenore A. Grenoble and N. Louanna Furbee (Editors). Language Documentation: Praxis and Values. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins.

• In press N. Louanna Furbee. Poética del Maya Tojolabal, Política y Religión: Fábulas del Milagro de Lomantán. Liminar.

• In press N. Louanna Furbee. Perspectiva del Lenguaje: Etnía y Globalización del Maya Tojolabal. Liminar.2006 N. Louanna Furbee. La tradición literaria renacida en tojolabal. Entre Tejas, March 2006, No. 7.

• 2006 N. Louanna Furbee. Language and the Religion of Politics in Chiapas. In Language, Culture and the Individual. A Tribute to Paul Friedrich. Catherine O'Neil, Mary Scoggin and Kevin Tuite, Editors. Pp. 189-204. Munich: LingCom.

• 2004 N. Louanna Furbee. Expert Systems. In Encyclopedia of Social Science Research Methods. M. Lewis-Beck, A. E. Bryman, and Tim Futing Liao, Editors. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.

• 2003 N. Louanna Furbee. The Landscape of Language: Tojolab’al Maya Ethnicity and Globalization. In Maintaining Links: Language, Identity and the Land. N. Ostler, J. Blythe, and McK. Brown, Editors. Pp. 78-83. Bath, England, Foundation for Endangered Languages.

• 2002 N. Louanna Furbee and Lori A. Stanley. A Collaborative Model for Creating Heritage Language Curators. International Journal of the Sociology of Language, 154:113-128.

• 2002 N. Louanna Furbee. Combinando el Enfoque Conductista y Cognitivo en la Investigación Etnopedológica: Restricciones en la Construcción Social. In Atualidades em Etnobiologia e Etnoecologia. U. Paulino de Albuquerque, A.G. Chaves Alves, A.C. Borges Lins e Silva, and V. Atazázio da Silva, Editors. Pp. 73-85. Recife, Pernambuco,Brasil: Sociedade Brasileira de Etnobiologia e Etnoecologia.

Selected Recent Presentations

• 2007 N. Louanna Furbee. Tojolabal Reflexes of a Classic Maya Rhetorical Structure and Its Discourse Markers. (T 126/M-L 32M & T 679/M-L YM1). Poster presented to the Society for the Study of the Indigenous Languages of the Americas, LSA, Anaheim, Jan. 7, 2007.
   
• 2006 N. Louanna Furbee. The LSA Conversation on Endangered Languages Archiving. Presentation to the Linguistic Society of America, Albuquerque, Jan. 5, 2006.
   
• 2005 N. Louanna Furbee. A literary Tradition Reborn in Tojolabal. Invited Plenary Lecture, El Primero Simposio Internacional Tojolabal, Comitán, Chiapas, Mexico, Sept. 22, 2005.
   
• 2004 N. Louanna Furbee. Idiomas en Peligro. Invited Lecture, Department of Linguistics, Universidad Nacional Frederico Villareal, Lima, Peru, Aug. 2004.
   
• 2004 N. Louanna Furbee. The Miracle of Lomantán. Invited lecture, Museum of Athropology, Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, NC, October 2004.
   
• 2002 Robert A. Benfer and N. Louanna Furbee. "Capturing and Representing Expert Knowledge in Skeletal Analysis." Paper presented in the Paleodemography Workshop, Max Planck Institute for Demography, Rostock, Germany, June, 2002.
   
• 2002 N. Louanna Furbee and Robert A. Benfer. Combining Behavioral and Cognitive Approaches in Ethnoscientific Research, 3-day workshop presented to IV Simpósio Brasileiro de Etnobiologia e Etnoecologia, Recife, Pernambuco, 25 Feb. -1 Mar. 2002.
   
• 2002 N. Louanna Furbee. Combinando el enfoque conductista y cognitivo en la investigación etnopedológia: Restricciones en la construccíon social de la realídad. (Plenary Talk.) IV Simpósio Brasileiro de Etnobiologia e Etnoecologia, Recife, Pernambuco, Brasis, 25 Feb.-1 Mar. 2002.
   
• 2002 N. Louanna Furbee. Terrace Agriculture in the Peruvian Andes. Invited lecture, University of Paraibo, Brasil, March 2002.