My Biography
Susanna M. Hoffman (Ph.D. University of California, Berkeley) is a disaster anthropologist, author, co-author and editor of thirteen books, two ethnographic films, and over forty articles and chapters. Among her books are: Cooling Down: Local Responses to Global Climate Change (Berghahn 2021, co-edited with Thomas Eriksen and Paulo Mendes); Nostalgia (Pain of Past), Ecalgia (Pain of Home) and Topalgia (Pain of Place): The Deep Cultural Complexities Behind the Persistent Problematic of Displacement and Resettlement (Berghahn, 2022); Inplacement: Global Outbreaks and the Anthropology of Isolation (Berghahn, 2022, co-edited with Virginia Garcia-Acosta); The Angry Earth: Disaster in Anthropological Perspective and its sequel Angry Earth Two (Routledge, 1999 and 2020 co-edited with Anthony Oliver-Smith), Disaster Upon Disaster: Exploring the Gap Between Knowledge, Policy and Practice (2020 Berghahn Books co-edited with Roberto Barrios), and Catastrophe and Culture: The Anthropology of Disaster (School of American Research Press, 2002 co-edited with Anthony Oliver-Smith). Her ethnographic films include the award winning Kypseli: Women and Men Apart and the Emmy winning The Nature of Culture. She launched the Risk and Disaster Thematic Interest Group for the Society of Applied Anthropology and initiated and chairs the Commission on Risk and Disaster for the International Union of Anthropology and Ethnographic Sciences. She was the first recipient of the Fulbright Foundation Aegean Initiative Grant concerning disasters between Greece and Turkey and helped write the United Nations Statement on Women and Disaster. Among her films is Kypseli: A Cultural Grammar of a Greek Village. She also wrote two non-fiction books on modern relationships and five food books. She is also a member of the American Anthropology Task Force on World Food Problems.