Quick Facts
Biography
Michael M. J. Fischer is Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities and Professor of Anthropology and Science and Technology Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Lecturer in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School.
He has done anthropological fieldwork in the Caribbean (Jamaica), the Middle East (Iran), South Asia (India), Southeast Asia (Singapore) and the United States on social change and religion (Protestants and Afro-Caribbean religions in Jamaica; Zoroastrians, Shi'ites, Baha'is, Jews in Iran; Jains and Parsis in India); on bazaars, merchants, craftsmen, and agriculture in Iran, Jamaica, India, and Antwerp; on revolutionary processes in Iran; on cinema in Poland, India, and Iran; on communities of scientists, engineers, and physicians in India, Iran, Singapore, and the U.S. He teaches courses on social theory, ethnography, anthropology and film, social and ethical issues in the biosciences and biotechnologies, law and ethics on the electronic frontier. He studied geography and philosophy at Johns Hopkins (B.A. 1967), social anthropology and philosophy at the LSE, anthropology at the University of Chicago (Ph.D. 1973). He has taught at the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Rice before moving to MIT, and served as Director of the Center for Cultural Studies at Rice, and Director of the Program in Science, Technology and Society at MIT. He's been a Fulbright Lecturer in Brazil, a CIES Fellow in India, a Senior Fellow at the Smithsonian, and a Visiting Research Professor at NUS/Asian Research Center in Singapore.
Works
Books
- Fischer, Michael M. J. (1973). Zoroastrian Iran Between Myth and Praxis (Ph.D.). Chicago.
- Fischer, Michael M. J. (1980). Iran: From Religious Dispute to Revolution. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299184742.
- Fischer, Michael M. J.; Abedi, Mehdi (1990). Debating Muslims: cultural dialogues in postmodernity and tradition. Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 9780299124342. Details.
- Fischer, Michael M. J.; Marcus, George (1999). Anthropology as cultural critique (2nd ed.). Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago. ISBN 9780226504506.
- Fischer, Michael M. J. (2003). Emergent forms of life and the anthropological voice. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822332381. Details.
- Fischer, Michael M. J. (2004). Mute dreams, blind owls, and dispersed knowledges: Persian poesis in the transnational circuitry. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822332985. Details.
- Fischer, Michael M. J. (2009). Anthropological futures. Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press. ISBN 9780822344766.
- Fischer, Michael M. J.; Good, Byron; DelVecchio Good, Mary Jo; Willen, Sarah (2010). A reader in medical anthropology: theoretical trajectories, emergent realities. Malden, Massachusetts: Blackwell. ISBN 9781405183147.
Book chapters
- Fischer, Michael M. J. (2000), "Calling the future(s) with ethnographic and historiographic legacy disciplines", in Traweek, Sharon; Reid, Roddey, Doing science + culture, New York: Routledge, pp. 275–322, ISBN 9780415921121.