Martha Kaplan


Martha Kaplan is a cultural anthropologist who has written a number of articles and books from her research conducted in Fiji, India, and Singapore. Dr. Kaplan is currently a professor of anthropology at Vassar College in New York.

Personal and professional life

Martha Kaplan was born in 1957. Ms. Kaplan earned her AB from Bryn Mawr College in 1979, where she graduated magna cum laude. She went on to the University of Chicago where, as a student of Marshall Sahlins, she earned her Master of Arts degree in 1981 and PhD in 1988.
After beginning her career at NYU, Martha Kaplan moved to Vassar College in 1990, where she is currently Professor of Anthropology and member of the Asian Studies department steering committee. She specializes in the study of ritual, globalization, colonial and post-colonial societies, and the anthropology of water. She has pursued research in Fiji, Singapore, and India. Martha Kaplan has taught a variety of different courses including “Introduction to Cultural Anthropology”, “Anthropological Approaches to Myth, Ritual and Symbol” and “Imagining Asia”.
She has carried out much of her research with her husband John D. Kelly, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. They have co-authored a number of books and articles, most significantly a damning critique of Benedict Anderson's Imagined Communities thesis entitled Represented Communities: Fiji and World Decolonization. They have both done research in Fiji and India and used their research as the basis for their books. Martha Kaplan is also the author of Neither Cargo nor Cult: Ritual Politics and the Colonial Imagination in Fiji.
Her research has been supported by Fulbright, National Science Foundation, Charlotte Newcombe Foundation, American Institute of Indian Studies and the Wenner Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
Martha and John reside in Poughkeepsie, NY, with their two children and much loved pets.

Selected publications