Dr. Arjun Appadurai

Dr. Arjun Appadurai was born (1949) and raised in Mumbai, India. He graduated high school and received his Intermediate Arts Degree from Elphinstone College in Mumbai before moving to the United States. In 1970, he received his Bachelors degree from Brandeis University. (Wilk) Over the course of the years he has had many different jobs at an array of different colleges. He was a professor at the University of Chicago where he received both his Masters and his PhD and is now a faculty member of New York University’s Media Culture and Communication Department. Dr. Appadurai’s anthropological studies heavily focus on both Media and Communication which has caused some skepticism among other anthropologists. (Goddard)

Appadurai has done field work in London as well as India. He seems to have an especially large focus on India. Through his work he has focused on the concepts that help an anthropologist approach subjects such as modernity, globalization and public culture. These topics were not and still remain hardly touched by anthropologists and Appadurai has focused heavily on incorporating these into anthropological studies. He heavily focuses on modernity and published a book entitled “Modernity At Large: Cultural Dimensions of Globalization”.  (Wilk) Many anthropologists don’t believe that modernity is a logical anthropological study and therefore are still having trouble grasping his theory. Appadurai heavily believes that anthropology is a “series of lived actualities” (Wilk) He has helped anthropology develop and has pushed new realms into anthropological studies. He is a "leading figure" in his field of work. (Goddard)