MICHAEL M.J. FISCHER
Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies
Room E51-296B
617-253-2564

mfischer@mit.edu

Michael M.J. Fischer has done anthropological fieldwork in the Caribbean (Jamaica), the Middle East (Iran), South Asia (India), and the U.S. on social change and religion (Protestants and Afro-Carribean religions in Jamaica; Zoroastrians, Shi'ites, Baha'is, Jews in Iran; Jains and Parsis in India); on bazaars, merchants, craftsmen, and agriculture in Iran, Jamaica, India, and Antwerp; on revolutionary processes in Iran; on cinema in Poland, India, and Iran; on communities of scientists, engineers, and physicians in India and the U.S. He teaches courses on social theory, ethnography, anthropology and film, social and ethical issues in the biosciences and biotechnologies, law and ethics on the electronic frontier. He studied geography and philosophy at Johns Hopkins (B.A. 1967), social anthropology and philosophy at the L.S.E., anthropology at the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1973). He has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Rice before coming to MIT, and has served as Director of the Center for Cultural Studies at Rice, and Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT. He's been a Fulbright Lecturer in Brazil, a CIES Fellow in India, and a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian. He is the author of Zoroastrian Iran Between Myth and Praxis (PhD 1973); Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution (1980), Anthropology as Cultural Critique (with George Marcus, 1986, 2nd edition 1999), Debating Muslims (with Mehdi Abedi, 1990), Emergent Forms of Life and the Anthropological Voice (2003), and Mute Dreams, Blind Owls, and Dispersed Knowledges: Persian Poesis in the Transnational Circuitry (2004).