Return to Faculty List

Faculty

Hildi Hendrickson

Hildi Hendrickson

Chair, Department of Sociology/AnthropologyAssociate Professor of Anthropology

B.A., M.A., M.Phil., Ph.D., New York University

Description

Dr. Hildi Hendrickson is associate professor of anthropology and chair of the Department of Sociology/Anthropology. Dr. Hendrickson joined the faculty at Long Island University’s Brooklyn Campus in 1993, having completed a Ph.D. at New York University in 1992. She has done ethnographic and archaeological fieldwork in southern Africa, southwestern France, Illinois, Maryland and lower Manhattan. Her interests include small-scale societies, African cultures, ritual and performance, art and material culture, and religion and spirituality. Dr. Hendrickson teaches a wide variety of courses including “Archaeology,” “African Cultures,” “Comparative Folk Religions,” “Marriage and Family” and “Social Research Methods,” as well as capstone seminars. Her edited book, “Clothing and Difference: Embodied Identities in Colonial and Post-Colonial Africa,” was published by Duke University Press. More recently, her interests have included clothing as a world-wide phenomenon as well as Tibetan culture and religion. She is now teaching a one-credit workshop to introduce students to meditation through practice and academic study. Dr. Hendrickson has served as chair of the Department of Sociology-Anthropology for nine years and is currently Brooklyn Campus chair of the University’s Internationalization Laboratory, a university-wide project undertaken with the guidance of the American Council on Education.

Specialties

Small-Scale Societies, Clothing Cross-Culturally, African Cultures, Material Culture, Ritual and Spirituality

Publications

  • Author and Editor, “Clothing and Difference: Embodied Identities in Colonial and Post-colonial Africa”
  • Author, “Toward A Cross-cultural Analysis of Dress in 19th and 20th Century Namibia” and “A Sign of the Times: Samuel Maharero's Body and the Legitimation of Herero Leadership" (book chapters)
  • Author, “The ‘Long’ Dress and the Construction of Herero Identities in Southern Africa,” published in African Studies
  • Author, “Namibia,” published in The Berg Encyclopedia of World Dress and Fashion (in press)

Honors/Awards

  • Recipient, Zora Neale Hurston Fellowship
  • Recipient, National Science Foundation Grant
  • Recipient, Wenner-Gren Foundation Grant
  • Recipient, Social Science Research Council Grant
  • Member, Phi Beta Kappa

Professional Affiliations

  • Member, American Anthropological Association
  • Member, African Studies Association