Lee D. Baker, Professor of Cultural Anthropology

Please note: Lee has left the "Cardea Fellows Program" group at Duke University; some info here might not be up to date.

Lee D. Baker is Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Sociology, and African and African American Studies at Duke University. He received his B.S. from Portland State University and doctorate in anthropology from Temple University. He has been a resident fellow at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History, Johns Hopkins’s Institute for Global Studies, The University of Ghana-Legon, the American Philosophical Society, and the National Humanities Center. His books include From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954 (1998), Life in America: Identity and Everyday Experience (2003), and Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture (2010). Although he focuses on the history of anthropology, he has published numerous articles on such wide ranging subjects as socio-linguistics to race and democracy. Baker is also the recipient of Richard K. Lublin Distinguished Teaching Award. He served as Dean of Academic Affairs from 2008-2016. 

Contact Info:

Office Location:	210 Friedl Bldg, Durham, NC 27708-0042
Office Phone:	(919) 681-3263
Email Address:
Web Pages:	https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRAVEm3mDno http://www.duke.edu/~ldbaker

Teaching (Spring 2024):

• CULANTH 172.01, ANTHROPOLOGY OF DESIGN AND UX Synopsis

  Friedl Bdg 107, TuTh 11:45 AM-01:00 PM

  (also cross-listed as CMAC 172.01, I&E 172.01, ISS 172.01, SOCIOL 172.01)

• CULANTH 499S.01, SENIOR DISTINCTION SEMINAR Synopsis

  Friedl Bdg 118, Tu 03:05 PM-05:35 PM

• CULANTH 208.01, ANTHROPOLOGY OF RACE Synopsis

  Friedl Bdg 204, TuTh 11:45 AM-01:00 PM

  (also cross-listed as AAAS 251.01, ICS 239.01, RIGHTS 208.01)

• CULANTH 801S.01, GRADUATE THEORIES Synopsis

  Friedl Bdg 204, Tu 03:05 PM-05:35 PM

Education:

Ph.D.	Temple University	1994
Certificate in African Studies	University of Ghana-Legon, Accra, Ghana	1995
B.S.	Portland State University	1989
PhD, MA	Temple University

Specialties:

Race
Identity
North America
Australia, New Zealand & Oceanania
Ethnohistory
Race Studies
African Diaspora

Research Interests:

Lee D. Baker received his Ph.D. from Temple University in 1994. His research explores the history of anthropology and its role in the U.S. as the science of race and arbiter of culture. He is author of From Savage To Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954 (UC Press 1998). While his main research explores the history of anthropology in the U.S., he is also interested in the Aboriginal experience in Australia, and the African American experience in the U.S.

Areas of Interest:

History of US Anthropology
race, racism, and democracy
politics of culture
US
Australia

Keywords:

Anthropology, Cultural • Famous Persons • History, 20th Century • Humans • Jews • National Socialism • Prejudice • Race Relations • United States

Current Ph.D. Students   (Former Students)

• Margot Weiss  

Recent Publications   (More Publications)

1. Baker, LD, The Gamble and the Game: Reflections on Writing From Savage to Negro, Transforming Anthropology, vol. 31 no. 2 (October, 2023), pp. 96-99 [doi]
2. Baker, LD, Franz Boas: the emergence of the anthropologist, JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE, vol. 28 no. 4 (2022), pp. 1396-1397
3. Baker, L, W. E. B. Du Bois and American Anthropology, in The Oxford Handbook of W.E.B. DoBois (Online Edition, 19 May 2022, edited by Morris, A (2022) [doi]
4. Baker, LD, The Racist Anti-Racism of American Anthropology, Transforming Anthropology, vol. 29 no. 2 (October, 2021), pp. 127-142 [doi]  [abs]
5. Baker, LD, :From Boas to Black Power: Racism, Liberalism, and American Anthropology. Mark Anderson. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2019. ix + 262 pp. (Cloth US$90, Paper $28.00, E‐Book $15.12), Transforming Anthropology, vol. 28 no. 2 (October, 2020), pp. 184-185, University of Chicago Press [doi]