Richard Horwitz

Richard P. Horwitz is a Senior Fellow of the Coastal Institute at the University of Rhode Island and Emeritus Professor of American Studies at the University of Iowa as well as an independent consultant. He holds a Ph.D. (1975) in American Civilization from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied interdisciplinary approaches to the United States, emphasizing anthropology and history. For more than 30 years his teaching and research have centered on the interpretation of everyday life in the U.S. – institutions, routines, and folkways on the job, at home, and in neighborhoods, qualitative methods, fieldwork, ethnographic writing, and intercultural relations. The work is both scholarly and applied, particularly in regard to environmental and international affairs. He has worked extensively in more than a dozen African, Asian, and European nations to contribute to the development of his field and cross-cultural understanding more generally. These visits have been sponsored by universities, NGOs, national and binational agencies, including two Distinguished Senior Fulbright Awards. Major publications include five books: two anthologies – The American Studies Anthology (an international, interdisciplinary introduction to the sources of interest in the U.S.) and Exporting America (about American Studies around the world, with contributions from eleven countries) – and three original volumes – Anthropology Toward History (about interdisciplinarity, applied toward understanding workaday life in a nineteenth-century New England town), The Strip (about highway-oriented commerce, making beds, burgers, cash, and community along a modern Midwestern roadside) and Hog Ties (about the implications of modern agriculture and medical science for the quality of life in America). This last work draws on his experience moonlighting as a hired hand on a 2000-acre hog/grain/cattle farm for 20 years. He has also served as a researcher, writer, photographer, consultant, and public presenter for the Smithsonian Institution (e.g., for the Festival of American Folklife) and several state and national arts, education, science, public policy, and humanities agencies. His public-sector projects include documentary fieldwork on refugees and on relations between producers and consumers ("stakeholders") of environmental information (emergencies, global warming, highway safety, and wildlife management). Recent awards include prizes for life-time achievement in mentoring students and for the outstanding article of the year in American Studies. He is currently working as a researcher, writer, and consultant on cultural issues in environmental affairs – analyzing and assisting communication among policymakers, scientists, first responders, and the public. Since 2002 he has produced and maintained all State plans for dealing with environmental emergencies.

Ongoing Research, Writing, and Consulting:
For the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management
	Emergency Response Plan (Comprehensive, for all environmental hazards)
	Agricultural Emergency Response Plan (Comprehensive, for all plant, pet, and livestock hazards)
	Protocols and Public Information for BART (Bay Assessment and Response Team)
	Emergency Response and Remediation of the Mercury Release at Lawn Terrace Apartment Complex in Pawtucket, RI, 2004
	Exercises of DEM Emergency Response  (Oil Spill, Hurricane, AI Epidemic, Animal Sheltering and Rescue)
	Web Resources for the Office of Emergency Response
	Develop the Rhode Island Disaster Animal Response Team (RIDART)
	Procedures for Closure and Re-opening of Fisheries
	Continuity of Operation Plan (COOP)
For RI DEM and the RI Emergency Management Administration
	State Emergency Operations Plan for ESF #10 (Hazardous Materials and Environmental Protection)
	State Emergency Operations Plan for ESF #16) (Animal Care)
For the Coastal Institute
	Scientific Support for BART (Bay Assessment and Response Team)
For American Studies
	Curricular and Instructional Development
	On-line Resources for Students and Teachers of American Studies
	"Beyond Environmental Awareness"
	"Get Real: Cultural Criticism and Emergency Preparedeness"

Five Books:
	Hog Ties: What Pigs Tell Us about America (University of Minnesota Press, 2002);
	– and as Hog Ties: Pigs, Manure, and Mortality in American Culture (Palgrave Macmillan/St. Martin's, 1998). 
	(Editor and Contributor), The American Studies Anthology (SR Books, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers, 2001).
	(Editor and Contributor) Exporting America: Essays on American Studies Abroad (Garland Publishing, 1993).
	The Strip: An American Place, with photographs by Karin E. Becker (University of Nebraska Press, 1985).
	Anthropology Toward History: Culture and Work in a 19th Century Maine Town (Wesleyan University Press, 1978).

Works in Progress:
	 A Leap from the Ivory Tower: Contemplating Culture and Environmental Disaster.
	"Beyond Environmental Awareness" (in press).

Plus dozens of book chapters, journal articles, and book reviews in American Anthropologist, American Quarterly, American Studies, Ethnohistory, Great Plains Quarterly, Annals of Iowa, Journal of Social History, Journal of the Society for the Humanities and Technology, and Winterthur Portfolio as well as contributions to series published in Europe and Asia.

E-mail: rhorwitz@cox.net
WWWeb: http://myweb.uiowa.edu/rhorwitz
Resume: http://myweb.uiowa.edu/rhorwitz/vita.htm