ASSW - Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work

Faculty and Staff Directory

Harriet Phinney

Assistant Professor (Anthropology)
Anthropology, Sociology, and Social Work, Asian Studies Program

Contact Information

Phone

(206) 296-5906

Email

phinneyh@seattleu.edu

Office

Casey 301

Teaching and Research Interests

Teaching Interests:

  • Introduction to Anthropology
  • Culture
  • Reproduction and Sexuality
  • Anthropology of the Body
  • Political & Economic Anthropology
  • Vietnam and Mainland Southeast Asia
  • Contemporary HIV/AIDS epidemic: an interdisciplinary approach.

Research Interests:

  • Viet Nam
  • Politics of reproduction
  • Affect and emotion
  • Gender (masculinities and femininities)
  • Sexuality
  • Marital and family law
  • Effects of war on kinship
  • Single women
  • Ethnography of the state
  • HIV/AIDS
  • Political economy
  • Medical anthropology

Biography

Key Publications: 

  • Phinney, Harriet. 2008. “’Rice is Essential but Tiresome; You should get some Noodles”: Doi Moi and the Political Economy of Men’s Extramarital Sexual Relations and Marital HIV Risk in Hanoi, Vietnam.” American Journal of Public Health, vol. 98, no. 4, pp. 650-660.
  • Phinney, Harriet. 2008. “Objects of Affection: Vietnamese Discourses on Love and Emancipation. positions 16(2): 329-356.
  • Phinney, Harriet. 2005. “The shifting yet conventional logic of sex and reproduction in northern Vietnam: Post-war refashioning of single women’s reproductive space.” The Asia Pacific Journal of Anthropology, vol.6, no. 3, pp. 215-230. 
  • Phinney, Harriet. 2005. “Discursive Transformations: Maternal Desire among older single women in northern Viet Nam.” in Bousquet, Gisele and Nora Taylor. Le Vietnam au Feminine, Vietnam: Women’s Realities. Paris: Les Indes Savantes.
  • Phinney, Harriet. 2000 “Van De Con Cai Cua Phu Nu Doc Than O Bac Viet Nam” [The Problem of Children among Single Women in Northern Vietnam]. Conference Publication - Vietnamese Studies and the Enhancement of International Cooperation, 14-17 July 1998. Vietnam National University and the National Center for Social and Human Sciences.

Faculty Highlights

Cohan 2Mark Cohan, accomplished scholar of the Steampunk subculture, was featured in the Seattle University Magazine.

Obrien, JJodi O’Brien recently published “Seeking Normal? Considering Same-Sex Marriage” in Seattle Journal for Social Justice.  

Efird, RRobert Efird is back from a Fulbright-sponsored sabbatical in China, where he spent a year working with local communities engaged in environmental education. 

Perry, Gary2Gary Perry presented a paper at the 2012 meetings of the Association of Black Sociologists titled “Class, Take Out Your iPhones: Teaching Urban Sociology with New Media.”