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Elizabeth Smith

Assistant Professor of Instruction and Weinberg College Advisor

New York University, PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, BA in Anthropology and Comparative Literature
Biography 

Elizabeth received her PhD in Sociocultural Anthropology from New York University. Her previous research concerns race and media images of Nubians in Egypt, nostalgia for Nubia linked to women and archaeological sites, material culture, museums, and nationalism, and how photographs of Nubia circulate in popular culture. Professor Smith has taught courses on cultural anthropology, gender in the Middle East, tourism and museums, and the history of anthropology. Prior to coming to Northwestern, she was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of California-Berkeley and an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Vermont.  At Northwestern, Professor Smith is a College Adviser in the Weinberg Office of Undergraduate Studies and Advising. 

Courses 

ANTH 101 Constructing College Communities 

ANTH 101 Tourism of Trauma 

ANTH 211 Culture and Society

Courses taught previously/elsewhere include ANTH 212 Global Cultures, Global Inequalities, History of Anthropology, Gender in the Middle East, Peoples of the Middle East, Tourism and Heritage, and Careers with Anthropology 

Current Research (on leave Spring 2026)

The Trans Families Project (co-PI with Eli Kean, Gender and Sexuality Studies, IRB study numbers #STU00224568 and #STU00224660) addresses how current political attacks on trans and gender non-conforming people affect the daily lives, sense of self, and hopes for the future of trans youth; how this hostile climate impacts parent and caregiver ability to navigate healthcare, education, and legal aspects in the racialized US gender system and under ever widening economic equality; and looks at resources trans youth and their families in our region have and need. 

Publications 

2009 “In His Heart and Soul He’s Egyptian, the Nile Flows through His Veins”: Bakkar as Egyptian and African. Critical Interventions: Journal of African Art History and Visual Culture. Number 5 (Fall 2009): 123-39.

2006 “Place, Class and Race in the Barabra Café: Nubian Urban Spaces and Media Identities.” In Cairo Cosmopolitan: Politics, Culture, and Urban Space in the New Middle East, pp. 399-413. eds. Paul Amar and Diane Singerman. Cairo: American University in Cairo Press. https://doi.org/10.5743/cairo/9789774162893.003.0015