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Kathleen C. Riley

Visiting Assistant Researcher Professor

Department of Anthropology, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ

Education

I’ve “double-majored” all my life: a BA in Anthropology and Creative Writing at Cornell, an MA in Cultural Anthropology at Columbia and another MA in Creative Writing at the City College of New York, and finally a PhD in Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Teaching

I've taught writing, literature, and archaeology, but mostly cultural and linguistic anthropology at Rutgers University (New Brunswick), Concordia University (Montreal), City University of New York (Queens College and City College), Fordham University (NYC), Barnard College (NYC), University of Vermont, and Johnson State College (Vermont).

Research

Research interests: language, culture, society, and justice; language ideologies and language socialization; multilingual practices (forms, functions, and meanings); food-and-language socialization; interdiscursively constructed identities (gender, class, ethnicity…); endangered and emergent languages and foodways; semiotic foodscapes; planetary health and justice.
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Research projects: the socialization of dialogic identities in the Marquesas; multilingual practices and ideologies in the Marquesas, Vermont, and Montreal; food-and-language socialization in the Marquesas, France, and New York City; food (inter)activism in the Marquesas and Vermont; language, food, and sex in the Marquesas; multilingual landscapes of New Brunswick.​

EDUCATION

1979  Cornell University  BA  Anthropology/English

1984  Columbia University  MA  Cultural Anthropology

1987  City College of New York  MA  Creative Writing

2001  Graduate Center CUNY  PhD  Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology

GRANTS & AWARDS

9/24-5/25  Research 2 Practice Program Award: “Exploring the Multilingual Landscape of New Brunswick” (with Nicole Houser, Claudio Mir, and Kendra Dickinson). Funded by the Tyler Clementi Center for Diversity Education and Bias Prevention, Rutgers University.

9/20-5/21  Rutgers Institute for Research on Women Seminar Fellowship: “ Queer Sex and Cultural Sovereignty in the Marquesas, French Polynesia.”

3/20-5/20 Rutgers Research Council Award (302461): “Language, Food, and Sex in the Marquesas, French Polynesia.”

9/19  Rutgers Global International Travel Grant to attend the Food and Communication Conference at Queen Margaret’s University, Edinburgh, Scotland.

7/02-6/03  Richard Carley Hunt Fellowship for Research and Writing (Wenner-Gren Foundation Grant #6890): "The Emergence of Dialogic Identities: Transforming Heteroglossia in the Marquesas, French Polynesia."

12/92-12/93  Wenner-Gren Foundation Predoctoral Grant (#5551): “Language socialization and the construction of Marquesan identity in French Polynesia.”

12/92-12/93  National Science Foundation Dissertation Research Grant (#9216722): “Language socialization and the construction of Marquesan identity in French Polynesia.”

9/85-5/86  Graduate fellowship at City College of New York.

RESEARCH EXPERIENCE

12/23  Marquesas  Language, Food, and Sex in the Marquesas, French Polynesia

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12/19-5/20  Marquesas and France  Language, Food, and Sex in the Marquesas, French Polynesia. 
 

9/16–5/17  Vermont  Food (Inter)activism: Fixing the Food System One Small State(ment) at a Time (Rutgers Aresty project)
 

10/14  Aix-en-Provence, France  Archival research in the Archives Nationals d’Outre-Mer
 

9-10/13  French Polynesia  Fieldwork in the Marquesas on food and language socialization.  
                 

1/11-6/13  New York, NY  Language Socialization and the School Food Change Movement in NYC.
 

8/07-8/09  Montreal, Canada  Montreal as a Multilingual Speech Community.
 

11/05-5/08  Montreal, Canada  Project supervisor: Language attitudes and communicative strategies of immigrant francophones in Montreal.
 

8/03-7/04  Bailly, France  Post-doctoral research (Paris X – Nanterre): La socialisation langagière en Ile-de-France,
funded by Johnson State College and the Université de Paris X.
 

1/03  French Polynesia  Follow-up fieldwork in the Marquesas on language socialization and the construction of Marquesan identity (funded by Wenner-Gren)
 

9/97-5/02  Northern Vermont  Research with Robert S. Williams: Language shift and cultural identity among
Franco-Americans, funded by St. Michael's College
 

12/98-8/99  Northern Vermont  Data collection for Literacy Practices of Adult Learners Study, Harvard Graduate
School of Education
 

12/92-12/93  French Polynesia  Doctoral research: "Language Socialization  and the Construction of Marquesan Identity", funded by Wenner-Gren and NSF.

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

2015-2023 | Rutgers University, Instructor (2015-2020), Assistant Teaching Professor (2020-2023), 

  • Introduction to Linguistic Anthropology

  • Learning an Endangered Language

  • Semiotics of Planetary Health and Justice

  • Anthropology of Europe

  • Gender and Global Diversity

  • Language and Social Diversity

  • Language, Food, and Society

  • Methods and Analysis in Cultural and Linguistic Anthropology

  • Anthropology of Development

  • Interdisciplinary Honors Seminar: Language, Gender, and Sexuality

  • Language as Social Action (grad course)

  • Research design and methods in Cultural Anthropology (grad course)

 

2009-2015 | Queens College, CUNY,  Adjunct Assistant Professor 

  • Language, Culture, and Society

  • Language and Power

  • Culture, Food, and Talk

  • Language, Gender, and Sexuality

 

2013-2015 | Fordham University, Adjunct Assistant Professor 

  • Language, Gender, and Power

  • Bilingualism: Local Practices and Global Perspectives

 

Spring 2014 | Barnard College, Adjunct Assistant Professor

  • Language and Culture

 

2010-12 | City College, CUNY, Adjunct Assistant Professor

  • Language and Society

  • Language and Power

 

2004-2008 | Concordia University (Montreal), Part-time Faculty

  • Elements of Ethnolinguistics

  • Culture, Language, and Mind       

  • Sociolinguistics 

 

1990-2009 | Johnson State College (Vermont),  Part-time Faculty 

  • Introduction to Cultural Anthropology

  • Linguistics and Language History

  • Cultures through Cuisine

  • Introduction to Sociolinguistics      

  • Peoples and Cultures of the World

  • Culture Change in the Modern World 

  • Exploring the Human Past

 

2001 | University of Vermont,  Lecturer

  • Language, Culture, and Society

 

1986-87 | City College of New York, Adjunct Lecturer

  • Freshman Comp

  • Literature for Engineers

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