Bernadette Bucher

Licence-ès-Lettres, Sorbonne, Paris; 
DES (MA), Sorbonne, Paris;
PhD, EHESS, University of Paris, 1972

Anthropological theory, structural analysis of visual communications, European studies (especially the E.U.: ethnography of farmers, factory workers, and cattle breeders), informal local economy and world food problems, medical anthropology (including prions, brain degenerative diseases, mad-cow disease, ethno-psychiatry, and politics of medical research).

Paris born, anthropologist, social and literary critic Bernadette Bucher received her undergraduate degree from the Sorbonne and her doctorate from the University of Paris, where she studied under anthropologist C. Levi-Strauss. She taught both Anthropology and Comparative Literature in New York, mostly at Fordham University, where she established and directed the program in International/Intercultural Studies. She also lectured extensively in other academic forums in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Europe, the Middle East, and East Asia.

Apart from two full books (Icon and Conquest, Chicago University Press, 1981; Descendants de Chouans, Paris, MSH, 1995), she has published scores of articles in anthropological and literary journals, and chapters in collective volumes, here and abroad. Through a wide range of topics, from theater and art criticism (e.g., playwrights E. Albee or P. Claudel, and multi-media artist J. Chicago) to structural analysis of myth and ethnography of meat production in Europe, her work bears upon contemporary issues of our own Euro-American societies in the comparative perspective of social and cultural anthropology (image of otherness, icons of power, early colonial images, child abuse, taboos, cannibalism, and more recently, mad-cow disease and its cultural modes of disease transmission).

A member of the New York Academy of Sciences and other scientific associations on both sides of the Atlantic, she has been a reader and reviewer for the American Anthropologist, the American Ethnologist, Current Anthropology, and several American and European university presses, as well as foreign correspondent for the French anthropological journal L’Homme. She received several grants from national and private foundations (e.g., NEH, Wenner-Gren Foundation, CNRS) and a French literary award for her book Descendants de Chouans (1995).

Bucher, Bernadette. 1995. Descendants de Chouans: Histoire et culture populaire dans la Vendée contemporaine. Éditions de la Maison des sciences de l'homme, Paris.

Bucher, Bernadette. 1981.Icon and Conquest: A Structural Analysis of the Illustrations of De Bry's Great Voyages, translated by Basia Miller Gulati. University of Chicago Press.

Bucher, Bernadette. 1977. La sauvage aux seins pendants. Hermann, Paris.

2010. "Claude Gustave Lévi-Strauss (1909-2009)." American Anthropologist 112(4): 693-697.

2009. "La Nouvelle Chasse à Courre: Art de Vénerie, Écologie Planétaire et Rites d’Adaptation." Cinq Siècles de Chasse en Vendée, Christophe Vital, Stéphanie Auger-Bourdézeau, Claude d' Anthenaise, and Raphaël Abrillepp, eds, pp. 145-153. Silvana Editoriale, Paris, Milan.

2008. "De Bry, Theodore.” In Guide to Documentary Sources for Andean Studies 1530-1900, Joanne Pillsbury, ed., in collaboration with the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art (Washington, D.C.), vol. II, pp. 85-90. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman.

2008. "Les Chiffonniers de l’Histoire. Entretien avec Claude Lévi-Strauss." Agenda de la Pensée Contemporaine 10:23-46.

2006. "Dérive Nord-Atlantique. Réflexions d’une immigrante française sur la démocratie aux Etats-Unis, hier et aujourd’hui." "Impressions U.S.A." Conjonctures 43:43-53. Montreal.

2004. "Le Tao de l’Anthropologie: L’analyse structurale, en deçà, au-delà du structuralisme." In Lévi-Strauss, Michel Izard, ed., pp. 227-243. L’Herne, Paris.

1996. "Tzvetan Todorov," Dictionnaire des Intellectuels Français, pp. 1116-1117. Seuil, Paris.

1992. "Dal Cittadino al paziente mentale: autorita psichiatrica e diritti civili negli Stati Uniti: Studio comparativo."Psicologia Sociale V(3):34-38. Rome.

1990. "L'Analyse Comparative." In Dictionnaire d'Ethnologie, pp. 167-169. PUF, Paris.

1989. "From Stendhal to Malinowski: Private Diary and the Ethnographic Method." In Literature and Anthropology, P.A. Dennis and W. Aycock, eds, pp. 85-97. Texas Tech U.P., Lubbock.

1988. "Abuso all'infanzia e violenza: una prospettiva antropologica." Psicologia Sociale 1988(3/4):16-18.

1988a. "Sémiologie du Mixte et Utopie américaine: L'Hybride et le Métis indien dans l'imaginaire européen." In Figures de l'Indien, G. Thérien, ed., pp. 308-321. Presses de l'Université du Québec, Montréal.

1987. "The Non Oedipal and the Edible: A Structural Approach to Cannibalism." Psicologia Sociale 1987(4/5):27-31.

1985. "An Interview with Claude Lévi Strauss." American Ethnologist 12(2):360 368.

1984a. "Icon and Conquest: A reply to Joseph." American Anthropologist 86(3):699 701.

1984b. "Discours Anthropologique et Discours Théologique au XVIè siècle: L'Apologie de Raymond de Sebonde de Montaigne." In Histoires de l'Anthropologie: XVIè-XVIIè siècles, B. Rupp Eisenreich, ed., pp. 43-54. Klincksieck, Paris.

1981. "Ensembles Infinis et Histoire Mythe: Inconscient Structural et Inconscient Psychanalytique." L'Homme XXI(3):5-26.

1980. "La Vaillance et l'Honneur: Femmes et Codes culturels dans une société rurale atlantique (Vendée)." L'HommeXX(3):5-31.

1979a. "Les Fantasmes du Conquérant." In Lévi-Strauss, R. Bellour & C. Clement, eds, pp. 321-360. Gallimard, Paris.

1979b. "Words into Images: Semiotics of Text Illustration." Point of Contact 2(2):15-26.

1975. "The Savage European: A Structural Approach to European Iconography of the American Indian." Studies in the Anthropology of Visual Communication 2(2):80-86.

1970. "Edward Albee ou la Mort de Godot: Vers une Dramaturgie Structuraliste." In La Mort de Godot. Attente et Evanescence au théâtre. P. Brunel, ed., pp. 155-191. Minard (Lettres Modernes), Paris.