Eric Gable

Professor of Sociology and Anthropology University of Mary Washington

  • Fredericksburg VA

Dr. Gable is an expert on museum studies, heritage, and the religion and politics of West Africa and of Outer Island Indonesia.

Contact

University of Mary Washington

View more experts managed by University of Mary Washington

Social

Biography

Eric Gable, Professor of Anthropology, earned a Ph.D. (1990) in anthropology from the University of Virginia and a B.A. (1978) in anthropology from the University of California at San Diego. Dr. Gable has conducted intensive field research in Guinea-Bissau, in Sulawesi, Indonesia, in Colonial Williamsburg, and at Monticello.

He is author of Anthropology and Egalitarianism (2011) and co-author of The New History in an Old Museum: Creating the Past at Colonial Williamsburg (1997). His articles have been published in numerous journals, including American Anthropology, Journal of American History, American Ethnologist, and Cultural Anthropology. Dr. Gable is book review editor for American Ethnologist, managing editor of Museum and Society, and a past member of the editorial board of Cultural Anthropology. Dr. Gable is an expert on museum studies, heritage, and on the religion and politics of West Africa and of Outer Island Indonesia.

Areas of Expertise

Anthropology
Museum Studies
Heritage
Religion and Politics of West Africa and Outer Island Indonesia

Affiliations

  • American Ethnologist (Journal) : Book Review Editor
  • Museum and Society (Journal) : Managing Editor

Media Appearances

Why Separating Fact From Fiction Is Critical In Teaching US Slavery

Omaha Daily Record  online

2023-10-03

Of all the debate over teaching U.S. slavery, it is one sentence of Florida’s revised academic standards that has provoked particular ire: “Instruction includes how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”

View More

Anthropology Professor Wins Faculty Achievement Award

Fredericksburg Today  online

2018-04-30

Eric Gable, University of Mary Washington professor of anthropology, was named the recipient of the 2018 Waple Faculty Professional Achievement Award at a general faculty meeting on Wednesday, April 25.

View More

Griot Institute to host series on Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson

Bucknell University  online

2012-01-26

"What Heritage Does and Does Not Do to Identity: The Case of Hemings and Jefferson," anthropologist Eric Gable, University of Mary Washington, 7 p.m., Forum, Elaine Langone Center. Gable will use material from his fieldwork in Indonesia, West Africa and Monticello, the historic home of Thomas Jefferson. This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Griot Institute for Africana Studies...

View More

Show All +

Articles

The Culture Development Club: youth, neo-tradition, and the construction of society in Guinea-Bissau

Anthropological Quarterly

2000-01-01

As members of a youth organization called the "Culture Development Club," young men of the Manjaco ethnic group in Guinea-Bissau respond to and try to manage what they perceive to be community collapse in the face of endemic demographic decline ...

View more

A secret shared: Fieldwork and the sinister in a West African village

Cultural Anthropology

1997-01-01

In this article I discuss the ways the Manjaco of Guinea-Bissau equate the secret and the sinister and what this can tell us about a Manjaco moral sensibility. I also use Manjaco secrecy, and more specifically my attempts at understanding or interpreting Manjaco ...

View more

After authenticity at an American heritage site

American Ethnologist

1996-01-01

An enduring image of modernist anxiety is that the world we inhabit is no longer authentic-that it has become fake, plastic, a kitschy imitation. Anxiety, so the common wisdom has it, goes hand in hand with desire. We may have lost authenticity, but we want ...

View more

Show All +