Eli Thorkelson

Anthropology Ph.D. Program, University of Chicago

Research Interests
Academic cultures, knowledge production, academic labor, neoliberalism, ideologies of the future, semiotics of textual production, history and sociology of literary theory and philosophy, France, United States.
Working dissertation title: Hostile Futures: Philosophy and university politics in contemporary France.
Education
2005-present Doctoral Program in Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Chicago.
In progress.
2007 M.A. Anthropology, University of Chicago
Thesis: Literary theory as commodity & literary theorists as brands
2000-2004 A.B. Anthropology, Cornell University
Thesis: The Silent Social Order of the Theory Classroom
summa cum laude with distinction in all subjects
Honors
2010-11 Doctoral Exchange Fellowship, Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales
2005-8 Graduate Research Program Fellowship, National Science Foundation
Publications
2011 “Comment ‘La Pensée’ Se Fait Monde Malgré Tout.” [How ‘Thought’ Becomes World After All.] Forthcoming in proceedings of Colloque Philosophie et Frontières.
2011 Review of L’Enseignement Supérieur entre Nouvelle Gestion Publique et Crise Systèmique [Higher Education between New Public Management and Systemic Crisis], Annie Vinokur and Carole Sigman, eds. Forthcoming in Learning and Teaching.
2010 Experience, Reflexive Socialization and Disciplinary Order in Anthropology, Michigan Discussions in Anthropology 18:1-38.
2010 The Limits of Theory: Idealism, Distinction and Critical Pedagogy in Chicago Anthropology, Michigan Discussions in Anthropology 18:324-377.
2008 The Silent Social Order of the Theory Classroom, Social Epistemology 22(2):165-196.
2008 Anthropology as Trauma and as Transformation, Anthropology News 49(1):13-14.
2007 On the Socialization of Graduate Students in Anthropology, Anthropology News 48(4):56.
Presentations
2012 "Emancipation and the relations of intellectual production in French radical philosophy." Knowledge/Value Workshop, University of Chicago.
2011 "The problems of experience: precarious work in French public universities." Invited session on Flexible Labor in Academia. AAA Annual Meetings, Montreal.
2011 "French academic precarity and the politics of moral crisis." Graduate Student Symposium on Labor, Northwestern University.
2011 "First as fantasy, then as farce: Internationalism in the European university movement." Rethinking Europe, Center for German and European Studies, University of Minnesota.
2011 "Emancipation at the University of Paris-8, between occupied space and philosophical text." Anthropology of Europe Workshop, University of Chicago.
2010 "On an anthropology of a philosophy of emancipation." Paris Center Workshop, University of Chicago.
2010 "A break in the circularity of utopia: On the temporary persistence of the Ronde Infinie des Obstinés." EASA Conference, Maynooth, Ireland.
2010 "French universities and the politics of resistance and resignation." Poster presentation displayed at "Beneath the University, the Commons," University of Minnesota.
2009 "Ethnographic preface to an epistemology of university models in recent French politics." Paris Center Workshop, University of Chicago.
2009 "Politicized intellectual collectives" (with Andrew Yale). Reworking the University, Minneapolis, MN.
2008 "The will to knowledge and cultural crisis in universities." Rethinking the University, Minneapolis, MN.
2007 "Liminality, socialization, democratization (and ambivalence): Rethinking graduate education." AAA Annual Meetings, Washington, DC.
2007 "Knowledge as Ideology: Lycée philosophy classes and the category of the intellectual." Semiotics workshop, University of Chicago.
2007 "The case of the Bad Writing Contest: Literary theory as commodity & literary theorists as brands." Michicagoan, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor.
2006 "Bureaucratic order and social purification in literary theory classrooms." AAA Annual Meetings, San Jose.
2005 "Ethnography of literary theory classrooms." Social Science & Higher Education Network meeting, Herencia, Spain.
Scholarly organization
2007, 2011-12 Coordinator, Anthropology of Europe Workshop, University of Chicago
2006-10 Editor, "Graduate Socialization in Anthropology," a pair of edited collections, appearing in Michigan Discussions in Anthropology and Anthropology News.
2007 Organizer, "Trauma, transformation, and tactics: Rethinking the socialization of graduate students in anthropology," AAA Annual Meetings, Washington, DC.
2007 Organizer, "Regards Croisés: Crossing Cultural Borders," Collaborative workshop with University of Chicago and University of Paris X.