Biography:

Richard Saumarez Smith joined the SBS department part-time in 1998 and teaches courses in anthropology as well as the four core courses in the Civilization Sequence Program.  He obtained his doctorate from the University of Cambridge in 1989 after doing a B.A. in Maths and Social Anthropology at Cambridge and an M.Litt. at the University of Delhi.  His Ph.D. thesis, published in 1996 as Rule by Records: Land registration and village custom in early British Panjab, critiqued the colonial construction of knowledge about Indian society by analysing a central institution of British rule in India, the registration of land.  He subsequently joined Martha Mundy in research on land registration under Ottoman rule and the British Mandate in villages of northern Jordan, which resulted in a joint monograph published in 2007, Governing property, making the modern state: Law, administration and production in Ottoman Syria.

Curriculum Vitae: 

Select publications

Mundy, Martha and Richard Saumarez Smith, 2007, Governing property, making the modern state: Law, administration and production in Ottoman Syria, London: I.B. Tauris.

Saumarez Smith, Richard, 2004, “Mapping landed property: a necessary technology of imperial rule?”, in Huricihan Islamoglu (ed.), Constituting modernity: Private property in East and West, London: I.B. Tauris for the European Science Foundation, pp. 149-179.

Saumarez Smith, Richard, 2003, “The historiography of Indian society”, in Veena Das (ed.), The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology, Vol. 1, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 99-113.

Mundy, Martha and Richard Saumarez Smith, 2003, “Al-mahr zaituna: Property and family in the hills facing Palestine (1880-1940)”, in Beshara Doumani (ed.), Family history in the Middle East: Household, property, and gender, New York: SUNY Press, pp. 119-150.

Saumarez Smith, Richard, 2000, “Between local tax and global statistic: The Census as local record”, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 34(1): 1-35.

Saumarez Smith, Richard, 1996, Rule by records:  Land registration and village custom in early British Panjab, Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Saumarez Smith, Richard, 1985, “Rule-by-records and rule-by-reports: Complementary aspects of the British Imperial rule of law,” Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 19(1): 153-176.

Courses taught

SOAN-210      Research Methods

SOAN-212      Social Anthropology

SOAN-214      Arab Culture and Society

SOAN-222      Family and Kinship

SOAN-300      Graduate Research Methods

SOAN-310      Seminar in Anthropological Theory

General lectures in the Civilization Sequence Program on Homer’s Odyssey, Aristotle’s ethics, Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke’s epistemology, Locke’s political philosophy, Enlightenment-II (David Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham), Darwin, and Foucault.

Curriculum vitae — Richard Saumarez Smith

A. Personal experience

Education

1989 Ph.D., University of Cambridge (Department of Social Anthropology).

1971 M.Litt. (with distinction), Delhi University (Department of Sociology, Delhi School of Economics).

1968 B.A., University of Cambridge: Social Anthropology Tripos Pt.2, class 2.2.

1967 B.A., University of Cambridge: Mathematics Tripos, class senior optime (Pt.1A 1st, Pt.1B 2nd, Pt.2 2nd).

1964 Matriculated in University of Cambridge as scholar at King's College.

University and teaching employment

2006 to date Professor, 2/3 Civilization Sequence Program, 1/3 Social and Behavioral Sciences, American University of Beirut.

2000-2006 Associate Professor, 2/3 Civilization Sequence Program, 1/3 Social and Behavioral Sciences, American University of Beirut.

1998-2000 Assistant Professor, 2/3 Civilization Sequence Program, 1/3 Social and Behavioral Sciences, American University of Beirut.

1993-8 Assistant Professor, Civilization Sequence Program, American University of Beirut.

B. Research

Publications

2007 (with Martha Mundy) Governing property, making the modern state: Law, administration and production in Ottoman Syria, London: I.B. Tauris.

2004 “Mapping landed property: A necessary technology of imperial rule?”, in Huricihan Islamoglu (ed.), Constituting modernity: Private property in East and West, London: I.B. Tauris for the European Science Foundation, pp. 149-179.

2003a “The historiography of Indian society”, in Veena Das (ed.), The Oxford India Companion to Sociology and Social Anthropology, Vol. 1, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 99-113.

2003b (with Martha Mundy) “’Al-mahr zaituna’: Property and family in the hills facing Palestine (1880-1940)”, in Beshara Doumani (ed.), Family history in the Middle East: Household, property and gender, New York: SUNY Press, pp. 119-150.

2000 “Between local tax and global statistic: The census as local record”, Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 34(1): 1-35.

1996 Rule by records:  Land registration and village custom in early British Panjab, Delhi: Oxford University Press, 451pp.

1985 “Rule-by-records and rule-by-reports: Complementary aspects of the British Imperial rule of law,” Contributions to Indian Sociology (n.s.) 19(1): 153-176.  Republished in Veena Das (ed.), The Word and the World: Fantasy, symbol and record, New Delhi/London/Beverly Hills: SAGE publications, 1986: 153-176.  Republished again with minor corrections in Martha Mundy (ed.), 2002, Law and Anthropology, Aldershot, U.K.: Ashgate Press, pp. 635-658.

C. Teaching

University lectures and courses taught at A.U.B. (2006-09)

2009, Spring      CVSP-201, SOAN-103 (Reading other cultures)

2008, Fall          CVSP-201, SOAN-212 (Social Anthropology)

2008, Spring      CVSP-202, SOAN-310 (Seminar in Anthropological Theory)

2007, Fall          CVSP-201, SOAN-212 (Social Anthropology)

2007, Spring      CVSP-201, CVSP-203, SOAN-310 (Seminar in Anthropological Theory)

2006, Fall          CVSP-201, CVSP-203, SOAN-222 (Family and Kinship)

1994-2009 General Lectures to the Civilization Sequence Program on Homer’s Odyssey, Aristotle’s ethics, Machiavelli, Shakespeare’s Tempest, Hobbes, Locke’s epistemology, Locke’s political philosophy, Enlightenment-II (David Hume, Adam Smith, Bentham), Darwin, and Foucault.

D. Service

Advising, FAS

2009-10, Adviser for Special Students not working for a degree

2006 to date, Majorless student advisor, Faculty of Arts & Sciences

Committees, chair/director

2007 to date, Director CVSP

2007 to date, FAS Advisory Committee

2006 to date, University Senate, representative of FAS (Secretary from Spring semester 2007)

2007, Spring semester, Graduate Committee, FAS

2006, Fall semester, Advisory Committee, FAS

2003-2005, Curriculum Committee, FAS.

2003 Spring semester, Acting Chair, SBS Department.