Sam Shuman Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology

I am a cultural anthropologist and Jewish Studies scholar. My research, teaching, and writing focus on race and religion, critical theory, global trade and diaspora, masculinities, and economic and political theology.

My first book (in progress), In Antwerp We Speak Diamond, focuses on the spectral figure of the Jewish merchant in contemporary European politics from the vantage point of the diamond industry in Antwerp (a port city central to the efflorescence of global capitalism).

My new project examines the political theology of patronage, protection, and policing secured by the veneration of an early 20th-century Hasidic patron saint. I am currently working on the mediation of this patron saint in both historical and contemporary encounters between Hasidic men and the state.

I am keen on exploring multimodal ethnography with students and drawing upon my emerging audio-visual archive of amulets, icons, and incantations in my teaching.