Anna Mansson McGinty

Education

• PhD, European Ethnology, Lund University, Sweden, 2002
• MA, European Ethnology, Lund University, 1996
• BA, European Ethnology, Lund University, 1994

Office Hours

Thursdays 1:00 - 2:00pm

Teaching Schedule

Courses Taught

• GEOG 333 (231) – Muslim Geographies: Identities and Politics
• GEOG 381 – Honors Seminar: Gendered Spaces
• GEOG 410 – Gendered Geographies
• GEOG 437/737 – Qualitative Methods in Geography
• WGS 201 – Introduction to Women's and Gender Studies
• WGS 300 – Gender and Spirituality: Women and Gender in Islam
• WGS 401 – Global Feminisms
• WGS 411 – Women’s and Gender Studies Research Methods
• WGS 500 – Advanced Social Science Seminar
• WGS 599 – Gender and Culture/Muslim Women in the West
• WGS 700 – Feminist Issues and Scholarship
• WGS 701 – Transnational Feminisms
• WGS 711 – Feminist Epistemologies and Research Practices
• Global Studies GS 550 – Globalization, Islam and Gender
• ANTHRO 102 – Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
• ANTHRO 445 – Psychological Anthropology

Research Interests

Professor Mansson McGinty's research and teaching center on Muslim geographies, feminist geography, and feminist and qualitative research methods. Her research examines the formation of Muslim identities and geographies in the West, looking at the intertwined personal, social, and political contexts. Overall, her research agenda is driven by an interest in identity processes, gender, religion and activism, and politics of representations. She is trained in ethnographic research methodologies, drawing on phenomenological and feminist approaches in understanding the complexities of personal and social worlds.

Her book Becoming Muslim: Western Women’s Conversion to Islam (Palgrave Macmillan 2006) is a person-centered ethnography on Swedish and American women who have converted to Islam with focus on their self-identity, personal life-story, and understanding of Islam. In a research project called Gender Identity and Activism among Muslim Women in the Midwest, she looked at gender identity and political, social, and religious activism of Muslim women in the Midwest. In the ethnographic project, Young, Muslim, and American: An Ethnography of Muslim Youth in Milwaukee, she examined the diverse religious, cultural, political, and personal expressions of Muslim youth cultures and identities in the greater Milwaukee area. Looking at the intricate relationship of identity, gender, faith, and activism, the project explores important questions regarding contemporary expressions of Islam in the United States and Muslim minority experiences.

She is involved in a multiyear collaborative partnership between academic researchers and Muslim community leaders, The Muslim Milwaukee Project (together with Caroline Seymour-Jorn and Kristin Sziarto), which examines the characteristics and dynamics of Muslim identities and communities in Milwaukee.  In an ongoing study, Competing Representations of Muslim Identities in the United States: Citizenship, Gender, and Religion, she examines discourses of Muslim American identities and politics in relationship to citizenship, race, and gender.

Anna Mansson McGinty is currently the Lead Faculty Advisor at the Center for 21st Century Studies.

Selected Publications