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Media Relations
Kansas State University
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Manhattan, KS 66506
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  5. Harald E.L. Prins bio

HARALD E.L. PRINS
University Distinguished Professor of anthropology

 

Harald PrinsBorn and raised in The Netherlands, Harald E.L. Prins was trained in anthropology, archaeology and comparative history at various universities in The Netherlands and the United States.

Professionally trained in 16-mm filmmaking, he has co-authored and consulted on several documentary films and juried documentary film festivals. Prins has done extensive fieldwork among indigenous peoples in South and North America, in particular among the Mi'kmaq and Mapuche Indian nations.

His publications include his book, "The Mi'kmaq: Resistance and Accommodation"; a co-edited volume, "American Beginnings: Exploration, Culture and Cartography in the Land of Norumbega"; four co-authored and widely used anthropology textbooks, including "Cultural Anthropology: The Human Challenge" (12th ed.); two co-edited special journal issues; and more than 100 scholarly articles, book chapters, reviews and encyclopedia entries.

He also had an instrumental role in the successful federal recognition and land claims case of the Aroostook Band of Micmacs in 1990, and served as an expert witness in several Mi'kmaq native rights cases in the U.S. Senate and Canadian courts.

Prins is principal investigator for a National Park Service ethnographic research project on the Maine coast and serves as guest curator on a human rights anthropology museum exhibit for the Smithsonian Institution.

He served as president of the Society for Visual Anthropology and visual anthropology editor of the journal, American Anthropologist.

He co-produced "Our Lives in Our Hands," an internationally screened documentary film on Mi'kmaq Indians in Maine, and an award-winning video and DVD, "Oh, What A Blow That Phantom Gave Me!" He also served as principal research adviser for another award-winning film, "Wabanaki: A New Dawn."

Prins has a doctoral degree from the University of Nijmegen (Netherlands) and a Ph.D. from the New School for Social Research. Having taught at Bowdoin College in Maine, he joined K-State in 1990, was promoted to full professor in 1996, and was selected as University Distinguished Professor in 2005.

He has received many honors for his teaching, including K-State's Presidential Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in 1999 and the Conoco Award for Outstanding Undergraduate Teaching in 1993. He served as K-State's 2004-2005 Coffman Chair for Distinguished Teaching Scholars. In 2006, the Carnegie Foundation for the Support of Education/Council for the Advancement and support of Education selected him as Kansas Professor of the Year.

Prins can be reached by phone at 785-532-4966, or via e-mail at prins@k-state.edu.

 

Photo courtesy Gizmo Pictures 2006.