Associate Professor Thomas M. Malaby 

Thomas M. Malaby, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Anthropology College of Letters & Science Office: Sabin 325 Phone: (414) 229-5247 e-mail: malaby[at]uwm[dot]edu blog: Terra Nova curriculum vitae

I arrived at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in the Fall of 2001 after previously teaching at Amherst College and Harvard University. I am a cultural anthropologist, and my book, Gambling Life: Dealing in Contingency in a Greek City (University of Illinois Press), explores human attitudes toward risk and chance through an examination of the practice of gambling in Crete. My principal research interest is in the relationships among modernity, unpredictability, and technology, particularly as they are realized through games and game-like processes. Other areas of interest include social theory, modernity and institutional legitimacy, urban criminality, and performance theory. My current projects include an examination of evasion and belonging under the seemingly novel conditions of the “New” Europe, and the status of ethics and contingency in the production and maintenance of online virtual worlds. In the Spring of 2005 I co-organized a conference on the emergence of online governance at UWM. I am an author at the blog Terra Nova, and my research papers in progress can be found via my author page at the Social Science Research Network. At UWM, I typically teach the large lecture course of Anthropology 102 in the spring, and my other course is usually an upper-level course on a specific theoretical or ethnographic topic. Selected Articles and Essays: Stopping Play: A New Approach to Games. In Preparation. Available here. Command Lines: Control & Contingency Online. Introduction to Command Lines: The Emergence of Governance Online, Sandra Braman and Thomas Malaby, eds. In Preparation. Available here. Parlaying Value: Capital in and beyond Virtual Worlds. Games & Culture 1(2):141-162, Spring 2006. Available here. Spaces in Tense: History, Contingency, and Place in a Cretan City. In The Usable Past: Greek Metahistories, K. Brown and Yannis Hamilakis, eds. Pp. 171-190. Ranham, MD: Lexington Books. 2003. The Currency of Proof: Euro Competence and the Refiguring of Value in Greece. Social Analysis 47(1):42-52, Spring 2003. Odds and Ends: Risk, Mortality, and the Politics of Contingency. Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, September 2002, 26(3):283-312. Book: Gambling Life: Dealing in Contingency in a Greek City. University of Illinois Press, 2003. Illinois Press website listing Amazon listing UWM Affiliations Center for 21st Century Studies B.A. in Global Studies Teaching Fall 2006 Anthropology 349: Seminar in Ethnography & Cultural Processes T Th 2-3:15, Sabin G28 back to top