mariwomack.com

mariwomack.com

Dr. Mari Womack is a writer and anthropologist specializing in symbols, religion, gender, anthropological theory and methods, and American popular culture. A research scholar at the UCLA Center for the Study of Women, she was a scriptwriter for the PBS television series Faces of Culture and co-editor of The Other Fifty Percent (Waveland Press), a reader on gender. She is author of the textbook Being Human: An Introduction to Cultural Anthropology (Prentice Hall). Dr. Womack hones her classroom skills by teaching at several California institutions, including UCLA and Santa Monica College. The Santa Monica College chapter of Alpha Gamma Sigma, a student honor society, presented her with its Instructional Excellence Award in spring 2000.

Formerly an international radio broadcaster for Voice of America, Dr. Womack has been quoted in The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and The Wall Street Journal, and has appeared on a number of television programs, including the Today show, applying anthropological insights to contemporary issues. As a journalist, she has reported on news events ranging from U.S. presidential elections to earthquakes. She has interviewed a number of distinguished subjects, from Benezir Bhutto of Pakistan, to film stars, to Nobel Prize-winning scholars and spiritual leaders, including the 14th Dalai Lama of Tibet.

Her travels, both as a journalist and as an anthropologist, have taken her to the north coast of Alaska, to remote regions of Chile, to the former Yugoslavia, and to various parts of Asia. She has walked on the frozen waters above the Arctic Circle, been questioned by Pinochet's armed soldiers when he was dictator of Chile, haggled with hawkers in Hong Kong, danced at a pig feast on a Pacific Island, and braved the dangers of the Dodgers locker room.

Dr. Womack’s current interests center on producing books for the classroom and the general public. She has been asked to edit readers on psychological anthropology and comparative religion, and has completed two books on symbols: Symbols and Meaning and Sport as Symbol: Images of the Athlete in Art, Literature and Song. Her book on symbols for the public will be Gods, Heroes, and Demons: The Importance of Symbols in Everyday Life.

Dr. Womack may be contacted by email at anthropology@mariwomack.com.