1976

Ph.D. (Social Thought), University of Chicago

1973

M.A.  (Social Thought), University of Chicago

1970

B.A. (History), Brandeis University

1967

Intermediate Arts, University of Bombay

2004-2008

John Dewey Professor in the Social Sciences, The New School

2006-2007

Senior Advisor for Global Initiatives, The New School

2004-2006

Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, The New School

2002-2004

William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of International Studies, Yale University

Director and Chair, Initiative on Cities and Globalization, Yale University

2001-2002

               Samuel N. Harper Distinguished Service Professor, University of Chicago

1992-1996

Director, Chicago Humanities Institute

Barbara E. and Richard J. Franke Professor in the Humanities, University of Chicago

1987-1992

Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

Consulting Curator, Asian Section, University Museum, University of Pennsylvania

1981-1987

Associate Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

1976-1981

Assistant Professor of Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania

2016

Guest Editor, Special on “Failure” of Social Research, Vol 83, No. 3, Fall 2016

2015

Banking on Words: The Failure of Language in the Age of Derivative Finance. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

2013

The Future as Cultural Fact: Essays on the Global Condition. London: Verso

2012

India’s World: The Politics of Creativity in a Globalized Society (New Delhi: Rupa)

2011

Le Aspirazioni Nutrono la Democrazia. Milano: et al.

Fear of Small Numbers: An Essay on the Geography of Anger.  North Carolina: Duke University Press. 

2001

Globalization (edited volume). Durham, NC: Duke University Press (Translation) Modernità in polvere. Rome: Meltemi

1996

Modernity At Large:  Cultural Dimensions of Globalization.  Minneapolis:  University of Minnesota Press.

1991

Co-editor (with M. Mills and F. Korom, Eds.), Gender, Genre and Power in South Asian Expressive Traditions.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 

1988

Guest Editor, Special Issue of Cultural Anthropology on “Place and Voice in Anthropological Theory” (Vol. 3, No. 1).

1987

Guest Editor (with Carol A. Breckenridge), Special Annual Issue of The India Magazine (New Delhi) on “Public Culture.”

1986

The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective (Edited Volume).  New York: Cambridge University Press.

1983

(Reprint).  Worship and Conflict Under Colonial Rule:  A South Indian Case.  New Delhi: Orient Longman.

1981

Worship and Conflict Under Colonial Rule:  A South Indian Case.  Cambridge:  Cambridge University Press.

2017

“Democracy Fatigue”, in Heinrich Geislelberger (ed.) The Great Regression,  Suhrkamp and Polity Press.

2015a

"The Cinematic Soteriology of Bollywood." In Handbook of religion and the Asian city: aspiration and urbanization in the twenty-first century, ed. by Peter van der Veer, 403-14. Oakland, CA: University of California Press.

2015b

"Mediants, Materiality, Normativity." Public Culture 27. 2 (Spring 2015).

2015c

"Success and Failure in the Deliberative Economy." In Reclaiming Democracy: Judgment, Responsibility and the Right to Politics, ed. by Albena Azmanova and Mihaela Mihai. New York, NY: Routledge.

2015d

"History and Epistemology of Anthropology." In Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences: Interdisciplinary Directions, ed. by Robert A. Scott and Stephen M. Kosslyn. SAGE Publications Inc.

2015e

"Globalization, Anthropology of." In The International Encyclopedia of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2nd Edition, Vol 10, ed. by James D. Wright (editor-in-chief), 233-238. Oxford: Elsevier.

2015f

"Speculation, After the Fact." In Speculation, Now: Essays and Artwork, ed. by Vyjayanthi Rao, Prem Krishnamurthy, and Carin Kuoni. Duke University Press Books.

2014a

"The fork in the urban road." Hindustan Times, Oct 5, 2014.

2014b

"Foreword." In Design as Future-Making, ed. by Susan Yelavich and Barbara Adams, 9-12. London: New York: Bloomsbury Academic.

2014c

“Interview.” Globalizations 11 (4): 481–90.

2012

“The Spirit of Calculation”, Cambridge Anthropology, Volume 30, Number 1, Spring 2012, pp. 3-17(15).

2011a 

The Ghost in the Financial Machine”, Public CultureVolume 23, Number 3 65: 517-539.

2011b

“What Does the Nano Want? Design As a Tool For Future-Building”, AAP (Architecture, Art, Planning), Cornell University (Summer 2011)

2012

“How Histories Make Geographies”, Transcultural Studies, Vol. 1, No. 1. University of Heidelberg, On-Line Publication.

2011c

“Dialogue, Risk and Conviviality” in Can There Be Life Without the Other? Antonio Pinto Ribeiro, Editor. Carcanet Press, Manchester.

2010

“The Right to Research.” in Globalization, Societies and Education.

Volume 4 (2) July.

2006a

“The Thing Itself,” in Public Culture.  Winter 18.1.

2006b

“A man behind scapes: An Interview with Arjun Appadurai.” Tehri Rantanen, Global Media and Communication. 2: 7-19.

2006c

 “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” in Media and Cultural Studies: Keywords, eds. Meenakshi Gigi Durham and Douglas M. Kellner. Blackwell Publishing.

2005a

 “The Thing Itself,” in ARTIndia. Volume IX. Issue IV.

2005b

EIDOS Interview with Arjun Appadurai. “Glocalisation” Issue No. 1. St. Xavier’s College Mumbai.

2005c

“Materiality in the Future of Anthropology,”  in Commodification: Things, Agency and Identities. (The Social Life of Things Revisited) eds. Wim van Binsbergen and Peter Geschiere. LIT Verlag.                        

2004

“Minorities and the Production of Daily Peace,” in Feelings Are Always Local, V2_Publishing/NA I Publishers, Rotterdam.

2003a

“I&I Interview with Arjun Appadurai,” Items and Issues, 4 (4), Winter 2003/2004: 24-27.

2003b

“The Capacity to Aspire,” in Culture and Public Action, eds. V. Rao and M. Walton. Stanford University Press.

2003c

“Archive and Aspiration,” in Information is Alive, Joke Brouwer and Arjen Mulder (Editors): 14-25. Rotterdam: V2_Publishing/NAI Publishers.

2002a

“The Right to Participate in the Work of the Imagination” (Interview with Arjen Mulder), TransUrbanism: 33-46. Rotterdamn: V2_Publishing/NAI Publishers.

2002b

“Cultural Diversity: A Conceptual Platform,” UNESCO Declaration on Cultural Diversity, Cultural Diversity Series #1. Paris: UNESCO.

2002d

“Deep Democracy: Urban Governmentality and the Horizon of Politics,” Environment and Urbanization 13 (2), October 2001: 23-43.

2002e

“Deep Democracy: Urban Government and the Horizon of Politics,” Public Culture 14 (1): 21-47.

2001

“The Globalization of Archaeology and Heritage: A Discussion with Arjun Appadurai,” in Journal of Social Archaeology. 1 (1):35-49.

2000a

(with Katerina Stenou) “Sustainable Development and the Future of Belonging,” in World Culture Report 2000. Paris: UNESCO Publishing, 111-123.

2000b

“Globalization and Area Studies: The Future of a False Opposition.” Wertheim Lecture 2000. Amsterdam: Centre for Asian Studies.

2000c

“Savoir, circulation et biographie collective,” L’Homme. 156: 29-38.

2000d

“Spectral Housing and Urban Cleansing:  Notes on Millennial Mumbai,” in Public Culture, Special Issue on Cosmopolitanism, (Eds.: C. Breckenridge, H. Bhabha, D. Chakrabarty, S. Pollock). 12 (3): 627-651.

2000e

“Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination,” in Public Culture, Special Issue on Globalization, (Ed.: Arjun Appadurai). 12 (1):1-19

2000f

“The Grounds of the Nation-State:  Identity, Violence and Territory,” Nationalism and Internationalism in the Post-Cold War Era.  K. Goldmann, U. Hannerz, and C. Westin (Eds.).  London:  Routledge.

1999a

“The Bomb, Bombay, Mumbai,” Fellow Observer (Open Society Institute, New York) II: I:  10-11.

1999b

“Gift Trapped,” University of Chicago Magazine December: 35-37.

1999c

“Historical Memory, Global Movements and Violence: Paul Gilroy and Arjun Appadurai in Conversation,” Interview by V. Bell.  Theory, Culture & Society 16(2): 21-40.

1999d

“Public Culture,” Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology. Veena Das (Ed.).  New Delhi:  Oxford University Press.

1999e

(Reprint, with James Holston)  “Cities and Citizenship,” Cities and Citizenship.  J. Holston (Ed.).  Durham and London:  Duke University Press.

1999f

“Globalization and the Research Imagination,” International Social Science Journal, 160 (June 1999).

1998a

“How to Live Together: An Interview with Arjun Appadurai,” Interview by W. Burszta, F. Kujawinski, and T. Tabako.  2B (To Be): A Journal of Ideas 13: 106-112.

1998b

(Translation). “Globale ethische Räume,” Perspektiven der Weltgesellschaft.  U. Beck (Ed.).  Germany:  Suhrkamp.

1998c

“Full Attachment,” Public Culture, Winter, 10:2.

1998d

“Dead Certainty:  Ethnic Violence in the Era of Globalization,” Public Culture, Winter, 10:2.

1997a

(Translation - Chinese).  “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Identity and Public Culture.  S. C. K. Chan (Ed.).  Hong Kong:  Oxford University Press.

1997b

(Translation).  “Notas para uma geografia pós-nacional,” Novos Estudos. 49 (November).

1997c

“The Research Ethic and the Spirit of Internationalism,” Items, Social Science Research Council, December, 51:4 (Part I), 55-60.

1997d

“Fieldwork in the Era of Globalization,” Anthropology and Humanism, 22:1.

1997e

“The Colonial Backdrop,” Afterimage, March/April, v. 24:5, 4-7.

1996a

(Translation).  “Fogyasztás, idÿtartam, történelem,” Replika, 21/22 május 1996: 81-98.

1996b

“Off-White,” A.N.Y. (Architecture New York), Winter.

1996c

(with James Holston) “Cities and Citizenship,” Public Culture 8: 187-204.

1996d

“Diversity and Disciplinarity as Cultural Artifacts,” Disciplinarity and Dissent in Cultural Studies. C. Nelson and D. Gaonkar (Eds.).  New York:  Routledge.

1996e

“Sovereignty Without Territoriality:  Notes for a Postnational Geography,” The Geography of Identity. P. Yaeger (Ed.).  Ann Arbor, Michigan:  The University of Michigan Press, 40-58.

1995a

(Translation).  “Le patriotisme et son avenir,” Futur Antérieur 27(1): 35-54.

1995b

(With Carol A. Breckenridge)  “Public Modernity in India.”  Introductory Essay, Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in a South Asian World. C.A. Breckenridge (Ed.).  Minneapolis:  University of Minnesota Press.

1995c

“Playing with Modernity: The Decolonization of Indian Cricket,” Consuming Modernity: Public Culture in a South Asian World.  C.A. Breckenridge (Ed.).  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

1995d

“The Production of Locality,” Counterwork.  R. Fardon (Ed.). London: Routledge.

1994e

“Contesting the Popular in Africa,” Passages: A Chronicle of the Humanities 8: 1.

1994f

(Translation).  “Indiase Kookkunst,” In Mijn Vaders Huis II.  A. Ramdas (Ed.).  Amsterdam: Uitgeverij Jan Mets.

1993a

“The Geography of Canonicity,” What is Fundamental? The Committee on Social Thought.  Chicago: The University of Chicago: 3-12.

1993b

(Reprint) “Consumption, Duration and History,” Streams of Cultural Capital.  D. Palumbo-Liu and H. U. Gumbrecht (eds.).  Stanford:  Stanford University Press.

1993c

“Consumption, Duration and History,” Stanford Literary Review 10 (1-2, Spring-Fall): 11-23.

1993d

(Reprint) “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” The Phantom Public Sphere.  Bruce Robbins (Ed.).  Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 269-295.

1993e

“The Heart of Whiteness,” Callaloo 16: 797-807.

1993f

“Patriotism and Its Futures,” Public Culture (3) 5: 411-429, Spring 1993.

1993g

“Number in the Colonial Imagination,” Orientalism and the Post-Colonial Predicament. C.A. Breckenridge and P. van der Veer (eds.).  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

1992a

“Father Britto,” Polygraph 5: 248-250.

1992b

(Reprint).  “Putting Hierarchy in its Place,” Rereading Cultural Anthropology.  G. E. Marcus (Ed.).  Durham and London: Duke University Press.

1991a

“Afterword,” Gender, Genre, and South Asian Expressive Traditions.  A. Appadurai, F. J. Korom and M. A. Mills (Eds.).  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

1991b

(With F. J. Korom and M. A. Mills)  “Introduction,” Gender, Genre, and South Asian Expressive Traditions.  Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

1991c

(With Carol A. Breckenridge) “Museums are Good to Think: Heritage on View in India,” Museums and Their Communities: The Politics of Public Culture.  I. Karp, S. Levine and T. Ybarra-Frausto (Eds.).  Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 34-55.

1991d

“Global Ethnoscapes:  Notes and Queries for a Transnational Anthropology,” Interventions: Anthropologies of the Present.  R.G. Fox (Ed.). Santa Fe: School of American Research, 191-210.

1991e

(With Carol A. Breckenridge) “Marriage, Migration and Money: Mira Nair’s Cinema of Displacement,” Visual Anthropology 4 (1, Spring): 95-102.

1991f

“Dietary Improvisation in an Agricultural Economy,” Diet and Domestic Life in Society. Sharman et. al. (Eds.).  Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 207-232.

1990a

(with Carol A. Breckenridge) “Public Culture in Late 20 th- Century India,” Items 44 (4), December 1990: 77-80.

1990b

“Technology and the Reproduction of Values in Western India,” Dominating Knowledge: Development, Culture and Resistance. S.A. Marglin and F.A. Marglin (Eds.).  Oxford: Clarendon Press.

1990c

“Topographies of the Self:  Praise and Emotion in Hindu India,” Affecting Discourse:  Anthropological Essays on Emotions and Social Life. C. Lutz and L. Abu-Lughod (Eds.). New York and London: Cambridge University Press: 92-112.

1990d

“Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Theory, Culture and Society 7 (2 and 3, July): 295-310 (Short Version).

1990e

“Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” Public Culture  (2) 2: 1-24 (Long Version).

1989a

“Small-Scale Techniques and Large-Scale Objectives,” Conversations Between Economists and Anthropologists. P. Bardhan (Ed.).  New Delhi: Oxford University Press, 250-282.

1989b

“Transformations in the Culture of Agriculture,” Contemporary Indian Tradition .  Carla Borden (Ed.). The Smithsonian Institution Press:  Washington and London, 173-186.

1988a

(With Carol Breckenridge) “Why Public Culture?” Public Culture 1 (1, Fall): 5-9.

1988b

“Imagined Worlds: The Decolonization of Cricket,” The Olympics and Cultural Exchange.  S.P. Kang, J. McAloon and R. da Matta (Eds.).  Seoul:  Hanyang University, Institute for Ethnographic Studies, 163-190.

1988c

“Comment on Francis Zimmerman, The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats,” Social Science and Medicine 27 (3): 206-207.

1988d

“Putting Hierarchy in its Place,” Cultural Anthropology 3 (1, February): 37-50.

1988e

“Place and Voice in Anthropological Theory,” Cultural Anthropology 3 (1, February): 16-20.

1988f

“How to Make a National Cuisine: Cookbooks in Contemporary India,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 30 (1, January): 3-24.

1987a

“Street Culture,” The India Magazine 8 (1, December): 2-23.

1987b

“The Indian Cow,” Encyclopedia of Asian History.  New York:  The Asia Society and Scribner and Sons, Volume 1: 347.

1987c

“Hinduism,” Encyclopedia of Asian History.  New York:  The Asia Society and Scribner and Sons, Volume 2: 56-59.

1986a

“Is Homo Hierarchicus - A Review Essay,” American Ethnologist 13 (4): 745-761.            

1986b

“Center and Periphery in Anthropological Theory,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 28 (2): 356-361.

1986c

(with Wilhelm Halbfass)  “History of the Study of Indian Religions,” Encyclopaedia of Religion.  Mircea Eliade, Editor.  Macmillan, New York.

1986d

“Commodities and the Politics of Value,” Introductory Essay, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. A. Appadurai (Ed.).Cambridge University Press, 3-63.

1985a

“Gratitude as a Social Mode in South India,” Ethos 13 (3, Fall): 236-245.

1985b

(Review) “Understanding Green Revolutions: Agrarian Change and Development Planning in South Asia,” Tim P. Bayliss-Smith and Sudhir Wanmali, eds., Third World Quarterly (London).

1985c

(Review) “The Cult of the Goddess Pattini, by G. Obeyesekere,” Journal of Asian Studies 44 (3, May): 647-649.

1984a

“How Moral is South Asia’s Economy? -- A Review Essay,” Journal of Asian Studies 43 (3, May): 481-497.

1984b

(with Gregory Possehl) “Cow,” Man and Animals: Living, Working and Changing Together.  Philadelphia:  University Museum, University of Pennsylvania: 47-56.

1984c

“Wells in Western India: Irrigation and Cooperation in an Agricultural Society,” Expedition 26 (3): 3-14.

1983d

“The Puzzling Status of Brahman Temple Priests in Hindu India,” South Asian Anthropologist 4 (1, March): 43-52.

1981a

“Rituals and Cultural Change,” Reviews in Anthropology 8 (2, Spring): 121-138.

1981b

“The Past as a Scarce Resource,” Man (N.S.) 16 (2, June): 201-219.

1981c

“Gastro-Politics in Hindu South Asia,” American Ethnologist 8 (3, August): 494-511.

1981d

(Review) “Gopal Krishna, ed., Contributions to South Asian Studies 1, Delhi, Oxford University Press,” American Ethnologist 8 (1, February): 211-212.

1980

“Comment on Female Lingam: Interchangeable Symbols and Paradoxical Associations of Hindu Gods and Goddesses by G. Eichinger Ferro-Luzzi,” Current Anthropology 21 (1, February): 54.

1978

“Understanding Gandhi,” Childhood and Selfhood:  Essays on Tradition, Religion and Modernity in the Psychology of Erik H. Erikson, P. Homans (Ed.). Lewisburg, Pennsylvania:  Bucknell University Press: 113-43.

1977

“Kings, Sects and Temples in South India, 1350-1700 A.D.,” Economic and Social History Review 14 (1): 47-73.

1976

(with Carol A. Breckenridge) “The South Indian Temple: Authority, Honor and Redistribution,” Contributions to Indian Sociology 10 (2): 187-211.

1974

“Right and Left Hand Castes in South India,” Indian Economic and Social History Review 11 (2-3): 216-259.