Charles D. Piot, Professor of Cultural Anthropology
Charlie Piot, Peter Lange Faculty Director of DukeEngage and Professor of Cultural Anthropology & African and African American Studies, does research on the political economy and history of rural West Africa. His first book, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (1999), attempted to re-theorize a classic out-of-the-way place as within the modern and global. His next book, Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa after the Cold War (2010), explored shifts in Togolese political culture during the 1990s, a time when the NGOs and charismatic churches took over the biopolitical, reorganizing social and political life in the absence of the state. His most recent book, The Fixer: Visa Lottery Chronicles (2019), is about Togolese who apply for and attempt to game the US Diversity Visa Lottery. He has begun research focusing on the return of Togolese from the diaspora to West Africa.
Teaching (Spring 2024):
- AAAS 307.01, DEVELOPMENT AND AFRICA
Synopsis
- Friedl Bdg 204, TuTh 11:45 AM-01:00 PM
- (also cross-listed as CULANTH 307.01, ICS 308.01, PUBPOL 207.01)
- CULANTH 802S.01, GRADUATE THEORIES
Synopsis
- Friedl Bdg 216, Th 03:05 PM-05:35 PM
Teaching (Fall 2024):
- AAAS 390.02, SPECIAL TOPICS
Synopsis
- Friedl Bdg 240, TuTh 11:45 AM-01:00 PM
- (also cross-listed as CULANTH 290.02, ECON 290.02, HISTORY 390.03, ICS 390.02)
- CULANTH 890S.01, ADVANCED SELECTED TOPICS
Synopsis
- West Duke 108A, F 12:00 PM-02:30 PM
- Education:
| Ph.D. | University of Virginia | 1986 |
| M.A. | University of Virginia | 1982 |
| B.A. | Princeton University | 1973 |
- Specialties:
-
Transnationalism
Political Economy
Post Colonialism
Popular Culture
Africa
African Diaspora
- Research Interests: Transnationalism, Postcolonialism, Marxism, Religious Movements, West Africa, African Diaspora
Charlie Piot is Creed C. Black Associate Professor of Cultural Anthropology and African and African American Studies. His work focuses on the political economy and history of rural West Africa. He is the author of Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa (1999) and is currently conducting research on transnational constructions of Africa through discourses on FGM, human rights, democracy, and charismatic Christianity.
- Current Ph.D. Students
- Christina Tekie
- Louis Yako
- Mackenzie Cramblit
- Yidong Gong
- Robert Penner
- Brian Smithson
- Spencer Orey
- Ameem Lutfi
- Jon Stapnes
- Jennifer Chien
- Sarah Lincoln
- Juhyung Shim
- Jatin Dua
- Laura Premack
- Eric Owens
- Margaret Mahon
- Ellen Gray
- Danny Hoffman
- Yektan Turkyilmaz
- Senay Ozden
- Attiya Ahmad
- Netta Van Vliet
- Mara Kaufman
- Johnetta Pressley
- Chad Eggleston
- Brendan Pietsch
- Justin Izzo
- Brian Goldstone
- Tami Navarro
- Amy Johnson
- Arianne Dorval
- Louisa Lombard
- Katherine Lambert-Pennington
- Kaifa Roland
- Gonzalo Lamana
- Heather Settle
- Caroline Yezer
- Nilgun Uygun
- Jennifer Prough
- Nichole Green
- Representative Publications
- Piot, C, Nostalgia For the Future: West Africa After the Cold War
(2010), University of Chicago Press (Winner of the African Politics Conference Group Award for Best Book on African Politics published in 2010.)
- Piot, C, Remotely Global: Village Modernity in West Africa
(1999), University of Chicago Press (Co-winner of the Royal Anthropological Institute's Amaury Talbot Prize for Africanist Anthropology and a finalist for the African Studies Association's Herskovits Prize. French translation - "Isolement Global: la Modernite du Village au Togo" - Karthala Press, 2008..)
- Piot, C, Heat on the Street: Video Violence in American Teen Culture,
Journal of Postcolonial Studies, vol. 6 no. 3
(2003),
pp. 351-365
- Piot, C, Des cosmopolites dans la brousse,
Les Temps Modernes, vol. 57 no. 620-21
(2002),
pp. 240-260
- Piot, C, Atlantic Aporias: Africa and Gilroy's Black Atlantic,
South Atlantic Quarterly, vol. 100 no. 1
(January, 2001),
pp. 155-170, Duke University Press, ISSN 0038-2876 [Gateway.cgi], [doi]
