Gelya Frank
- Professor in the Chan Division of Occupational Science and Occupational Therapy
- Joint appointment with the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology
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Expertise Summary
Expert in Jews, multiculturalism and Boasian anthropology
Expertise
- anthropological perspectives on culture and disability
- ethnicity and attitudes toward patient autonomy and end-of-life decision making
- anthropological approaches to life history - empathy and biographical interpretation
- independent living environments for the disabled
- self-empowerment of persons with special needs
- self-image in persons with disabilities
- women's spirituality and Jewish tradition
- Jews, multiculturalism and Boasian anthropology
- story telling and narration among elderly Jews
- politics of race and culture in modern anthropology - the African and Jewish diasporas
- ethnographic films of Barbara Meyerhoff
- ethnographic methods applied to occupational therapy practice
Additional Information
- Author of Venus on Wheels: Two Decades of Dialogue on Disability, Biography (2000) and Being Female in America (2000)
- Co-author of Lives: An Anthropological Approach to Biography (1981)
- Producer of ethnographic films, including Thisabled Lives: The Twenty-Year Collaboration of Diane DeVries and Gelya Frank (1995)
- Past President, Society for Humanistic Anthropology Board Member, American Anthropological Association and Westside Center for Independent Living