Freidberg, Susanne 1966-

views updated

Freidberg, Susanne 1966-

PERSONAL:

Born 1966. Education: Yale University, B.A. (summa cum laude), 1988; University of California, Berkeley, M.A., 1991, Ph.D., 1996.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Geography Department, Dartmouth College, 6017 Fairchild, Hanover, NH 03755; Fax: 603-646-1601. E-mail—Freidberg@dartmouth.edu.

CAREER:

Geographer, educator, and writer. University of California, Berkeley, teaching assistant in the department of geography, 1989-95, manuscript editor in city and regional planning department, 1995-96, lecturer and postdoctoral fellow, 1996-97; Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH, assistant professor, 1998-2004, associate professor of geography, 2004—. Also Bunting Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, 2000-01, and nonresident fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute at Harvard University, 2005—.

MEMBER:

Association of American Geographers, Phi Beta Kappa.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Recipient of numerous fellowships, including Society of Women Geographers Fellowship, 1990; SRC Joint Committee on African Studies Predissertation Fellowship, 1992; African Studies Rocca Family Fellowship, 1992, 1994; Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowship (Bambara), 1993; IIE Fulbright Fellowship, 1993; Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College Urban and Regional Studies Fellowship, 1999; Bunting Institute Fellow- ship, 2000; Rockefeller Center at Dartmouth College Junior Faculty Fellowship, 2001, 2003; American Council of Learned Societies Charles A. Ryskamp Fellowship, 2003; Dartmouth College Pettit Family Fellowship, 2004; Dartmouth College Leslie Humanities Center Fellowship, 2004; and Rockefeller at Dartmouth College Faculty Fellowship, 2005. Recipient of grants, including National Science Foundation Grant, 2000, and Schlesinger Library Research Support Grant, 2006.

WRITINGS:

French Beans and Food Scares: Culture and Commerce in an Anxious Age, Oxford University Press (New York, NY), 2004.

Contributor to periodicals, including Cultural Geographies, Africa Today, Society and Space, Journal of Historical Geography, Social and Cultural Geography, Journal of Rural Studies, GlobalNetworks, Gender, Place and Culture, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, Journal of Modern African Studies, and Journal of African Rural and Urban Studies. Africa editor for Encarta Africana, 1997-98.

SIDELIGHTS:

Susanne Freidberg is a geography professor whose interests include cultural economies of food, colonial and postcolonial Africa, critical development studies, political ecology, agrarian change, and gender analysis. In her first book, French Beans and Food Scares: Culture and Commerce in an Anxious Age, the author discusses European food scares and controversies in relation to African farmers who struggle to meet European demand for African foods with a focus on the certifiably clean green bean. Examining England's and France's trade with African nations, the author begins her analysis in the mid-nineteenth century and goes on to discuss the daily work of modern exporters, importers, and other intermediaries in the global fresh food economy. Primarily through the viewpoints of the intermediaries of the food trade, the author provides a unique perspective on the practical and ethical challenges of globalized food in an anxious age. Among the topics discussed by the author are the consequences of the mad cow crisis and the go-betweens who work behind the scenes in the globalized food economy network.

Wesley Longhofer, writing on the Red Orbit Web site, noted: "This book is an excellent addition to a graduate course on agro-food issues or globalization. It offers important insights into the food debates of our day, a period in which the public discourse takes for granted and lifts food globalization from its historical and cultural roots." Geographical Review contributor Paul Laris noted that the book is also suitable for the general public. Laris wrote that French Beans and Food Scares is "a highly accessible and informative book," adding later in the same review that the author "effectively links theory and practice while raising a number of issues of concern to the broader public."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Current Anthropology, December, 2006, Angelique Haugerud, "Culture, Power, Food," review of French Beans and Food Scares: Culture and Commerce in an Anxious Age, p. 1052.

Geographical Review, January, 2006, Paul Laris, review of French Beans and Food Scares, p. 167.

Journal of Modern African Studies, December, 2006, Nicola Scott, review of French Beans and Food Scares, p. 650.

Regional Studies, August, 2007, Ann Myatt James and Amy Glasmeier, review of French Beans and Food Scares, p. 869.