Fellows

The Department of Anthropology, History & Social Medicine has alternating fellowship positions, generally for the duration of two years.

Current Fellow

Brian Hoffman, PhD (2009, University of Illinois)
Postdoctoral Fellow

Dr. Hoffman’s research explores the role gender and sexuality played in the history of Complimentary and Alternative medicine in the modern United States. He especially interested in analyzing how the development and survival of alternative approaches to healing in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries gave voice to larger social, cultural and political debates. In addition, Hoffman’s work uses the history of visual culture, pornography, and obscenity to examine the intersections between medicine and sexuality.

Dr. Hoffman’s dissertation analyzed American nudism as an alternative health movement that blurred the erotic and the therapeutic, and in the process, redefined what could be seen, experienced and consumed in the Twentieth-Century United States. From 1929 to 1963, nudist activities, books, magazines, and films questioned the moral proscription of nakedness by asserting that the exposure of the body to the sun, light, and air corrected the ills of modern society and produced physical, mental, and moral benefits. Yet, the movement's therapeutic principles clashed with the police, government censors, and local community leaders. “Making Private Parts Public: American Nudism and the Politics of Nakedness, 1929-1963” argues that the natural healing approaches of American nudism helped forge a more open sexuality in the United States. It shows that twentieth century alternative healing systems maintained their identities and institutions despite the hostility of conventional medicine; it explores how the rural settings of nudist parks complimented the therapeutic values of the movement and created a space for alternative sexualities; and it interrogates the normative racial and gender ideologies that helped the movement win the right to display the nude body in magazines, in films, and at nudist resorts.

ph 415-476-7269
hoffmanb@dahsm.ucsf.edu

Future Fellowship Opportunities

The Department is also host to occasional fellowships offered by the University of California, including the Presidential Fellowship (see previous advertisement ) and the Regents' Pre-Doctoral Fellowship. Occasional fellowships are also awarded to work on grant-funded projects obtained by the faculty.

Watch this site for application invitations for the range of fellowship opportunities.