Interests
Cultural Anthropology, Ethnography of Law and Politics, State Power, Ethnography and Democracy, United States

Short Bio
Carol Greenhouse is Arthur W. Marks ’19 Professor of Anthropology at Princeton University.  Her research focuses on the discursive and experiential dimensions of state power, especially federal power in the United States, and the reflexive and critical connections – in the U.S. and elsewhere – between ethnography and democracy. Her courses take up themes from the ethnography of law and politics as engagements with both current events and anthropology’s disciplinary traditions.  Greenhouse has been recognized by the Law & Society Association with the Harry Kalven Prize (for contributions to sociolegal research) and the Association for the Study of Law, Culture and Humanities with the James Boyd White Prize (for contributions to law and humanities research); she is a recipient of the President’s Award for Distinguished Teaching. Her publications include The Paradox of Relevance:  Ethnography and Citizenship in the United States, A Moment's Notice: Time Politics Across Cultures; Praying for Justice: Faith, Order, and Community in an American Town; and Law and Community in Three American Towns (with Barbara Yngvesson and David Engel); as well as edited volumes, Democracy and Ethnography: Constructing Identities in Multicultural Liberal States and Ethnography in Unstable Places: Everyday Life in Contexts of Dramatic Political Change (with Elizabeth Mertz and Kay Warren). She has taught at Cornell University (1977- 91) and Indiana University - Bloomington (1991-2001); she was visiting professor at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris) in 1998-99, and Phi Beta Kappa visiting scholar in 2015-16. Professor Greenhouse is past president of the Law & Society Association, the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology and the American Ethnological Society; she is a past editor of American Ethnologist. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.