Pamela L. Geller is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Miami. Though a bioarchaeologist by training, her research bridges anthropology, history, gender studies, bioethics, and critical social theory. Connecting these fields has helped her understand how cultures make historic things—bones, buildings, objects—socially and politically meaningful. Over the years, Pamela has conducted fieldwork in Hawai’i, Belize, Honduras, Perú, and Haiti. She has also undertaken research at museums and archives.

More recently, Pamela has turned her attention to small plastic things forgotten. The single-use dental floss pick initially inspired much of this work. She finds this 21st-century plastic artifact everywhere—thrown on the street, at the beach, in airport baggage terminals, next to playground slides. Why, she wonders? In the archaeology of plastics section of her projects & teaching pages, you can find more information about her efforts to answer this question.

In her writing, teaching, and talks, Pamela communicates several lessons learned about things. The stories we tell about ancient people are often informed by modern assumptions. For certain cultures, some things, like bone, are not things at all but vibrant ancestors. Beliefs and practices are the outcome of history, not built-in human nature. Common sense is a creation and not an inevitability. While there have always been many different ways to be human, culturally speaking, toxic things like plastics are changing our species.

Based on her research, Pamela authors books and articles for academic and general audiences. Her most recent, scholarly books are Becoming Object and The Routledge Handbook of Feminist Anthropology. Her essays have been published in news sources, such as Slate, Miami Herald, The New York Times, and The Conversation. Regardless of whom she writes for, she is ambivalent about third-person point of view and fond of ellipses, hyphens, and parentheses. You can find more information about her writing at books & edited volumes and essays, and you can download her CV here, which lists all her publications.

To support other scholars’ writing, Pamela was Series Editor for “Archaeology of Gender and Sexuality,” a book series with Routledge Press. She currently serves as the Specialty Chief Editor of Human Bioarchaeology & Paleopathology for the open-access journal Frontiers in Environmental Archaeology. If you have questions about submitting publications to the journal, send her a message.

Pamela lives in Miami Beach with her daughter Teddy and two cats, Smith and Mapplethorpe. In her copious spare time, she likes to find flow—whether on a yoga mat, in a kitchen cooking, or behind a pottery wheel. She is a committed practitioner going on 25+ years of the first, decent at the second, and always humbled by the third (i.e., meh). Hands down this is her favorite video on the internet.

***Feel free to email Pamela your photos of plastic dental floss picks at p.geller (at) miami.edu.***