After earning her PhD, Tedlock taught at Tufts University, Princeton University, the University of Texas at Austin, and the University of British Columbia. In 1987, Tedlock joined the State University of New York, Buffalo anthropology faculty. That same year, she edited Dreaming: Anthropological and Psychological Interpretations, an anthology significant for presenting cross-cultural perspectives on dreaming. The collection featured cultural perspectives that challenge the typical Western conception of dreaming as a phenomenon existing completely separate from objective reality. Tedlock examined how linguistic conventions mediate the performance and interpretation of dream experience. She explored how communications about dreams reveal patterns and variations around how different cultures perceive the role and significance of dreaming. For example, the Kʼicheʼ Maya people use the first-person pronoun "I" to narrate dreams with the understanding that this "I" does not necessarily relate to the conscious self of the dream teller. Likewise, the use of third person pronouns, particularly in relating negative dreams, communicates distance between the dream teller and the experience of the dream self. Tedlock rejected the existence of any hard boundary between anthropologist and the peoples with whom they interact in the field. She advocated for narrative ethnography as a methodological innovation that honored and more accurately represented the intertwining, interdependent relationship between anthropologist and the subjects of their research. From 1993 to 1997, Tedlock, with collaborator and husband Dennis Tedlock, edited American Anthropologist, the American Anthropological Association's flagship journal. In 1998, she became the chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Buffalo. Tedlock serves on the Anthropology and Humanism advisory board.
Publications
Books
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Co-authored or edited books
Teachings from the American Earth: Indian Religion and Philosophy Dreaming: Anthropological and psychological interpretations.
Selected articles and book chapters
Tedlock, B.. Quiché Maya dream interpretation. Ethos, 9, 313-330. Tedlock, B.. Sound texture and metaphor in Quiche Maya ritual language. Current Anthropology, 23, 269-272. Tedlock, B.. Zuni sacred theater. American Indian Quarterly, 93-110. Tedlock, B.. The Beautiful and the Dangerous Zuni Ritual and Cosmology as an Aesthetic System. Conjunctions,, 246-265. Tedlock, B.. Hawks, meteorology and astronomy in Quiché-Maya agriculture. Archaeoastronomy, 8, 80. Tedlock, B.. Keeping the breath nearby. Anthropology and Humanism Quarterly, 11, 92-94. Tedlock, B.. An interpretive solution to the problem of humoral medicine in Latin America. Social science & medicine, 24, 1069-1083. Tedlock, B.. From participant observation to the observation of participation: The emergence of narrative ethnography. Journal of Anthropological Research, 47, 69-94. Tedlock, B.. The role of dreams and visionary narratives in Mayan cultural survival. Ethos, 20, 453-476. Tedlock, B.. Maya Astronomy: what we know and how we know it. Archaeoastronomy, 14, 39. Tedlock, B.. Sharing and interpreting dreams in Amerindian nations. In D. Schulman & G.G. Stroumsa, Dream cultures: Explorations in the comparative history of dreaming, Oxford University Press. Tedlock, B.. Divination as a way of knowing: Embodiment, visualisation, narrative, and interpretation. Folklore, 112, 189-197. Tedlock, B.. Narrative ethnography as social science discourse. Studies in Symbolic Interaction, 27, 23-32. Tedlock, B.. The poetics and spirituality of dreaming: A Native American enactive theory. Dreaming, 14, 183–189. Tedlock, B.. Toward a theory of divinatory practice. Anthropology of Consciousness, 17, 62-77. Tedlock, B.. Bicultural dreaming as an intersubjective communicative process. Dreaming, 17, 57–72. Tedlock, B.. Writing a storied life: Nomadism and double consciousness in transcultural ethnography. Etnofoor, 21, 21-38. Tedlock, B.. Braiding evocative with analytic autoethnography. In S.L. Holman Jones, T.E. Adams, & C. Ellis, Handbook of autoethnography, 358-362.
Co-authored articles
Tedlock, B., & Tedlock, D.. Text and textile: Language and technology in the arts of the Quiché Maya. Journal of Anthropological Research, 41, 121-146. Tedlock, D., & Tedlock, B.. The Sun, Moon, and Venus Among the Stars: Methods for Mapping Mayan Sidereal Space. Archaeoastronomy, 17.
