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Draft:Sarah Lamb

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  • Comment: The subject is certainly a notable professor for Wikipedia. However I would still prefer some independent sources cited rather than the current set of references, most of which are closely linked to her. Therefore, I will defer to the next reviewer to accept this. Astra Travasso (talk) 16:56, 26 June 2025 (UTC)

Sarah Lamb (born 6 February 1960) is an American cultural anthropologist known for her writings on aging. She is Professor of Anthropology and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Barbara Mandel Professor of Humanistic Social Sciences at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.[1]

She studies the ways people construct their social-cultural worlds and identities, particularly surrounding age, gender, the body, family, religion, and nation.

Lamb is the author of several books, including White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender, and Body in North India (UC Press),[2] Aging and the Indian Diaspora: Cosmopolitan Families in India and Abroad (Indiana U Press),[3] Being Single in India: Stories of Gender, Exclusion, and Possibility (UC Press),[4] and editor of Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession: Global Perspectives (Rutgers U Press)[5] and Everyday Life in South Asia (Indiana U Press, in two editions)[6]

Early Life and Education

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Lamb was born and grew up in Berkeley, California to Sharon Rowell and distinguished American linguist Sydney Lamb. She completed her BA in Religious Studies with honors at Brown University in 1982.[7] Then, she completed her MA (1985) and PhD (1993) in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Her dissertation, titled "Growing in the Net of Maya: Persons, Gender and Life Processes in a Bengali Society," received the Seller Prize that is awarded each year to the most outstanding dissertation in the social sciences at the University of Chicago.[8]

Career

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Research Interests

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Lamb has authored numerous books and articles based on ethnographic research in both India and the United States. Her work examines aging,[9] gender,[2] families,[10] ethical strivings,[11] and understandings of personhood.[12] Through participant-observation, fieldwork and interviewing, Lamb probes the ways people construct their social-cultural worlds and identities, with particular attention to aging, gender, body, family, and moral life. She critically analyzes everyday life practices and experiences, medical and legal discourses, and taken-for-granted assumptions to understand how subjectivities and social-cultural worlds are produced. Lamb's current Carnegie-funded project examines "successful aging" as a contemporary obsession and cultural-biopolitical project, prevailing in North America and with diverse instantiations around the globe.[13] She explores how the successful aging movement exports a deeply American cultural discomfort with oldness and human conditions of frailty, (inter)dependence, vulnerability, and transience—in ways that both undermine other cultural paradigms of aging and obscure social inequalities.

Graduate and postgraduate work

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As a graduate student, Lamb conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in India. She spent a year collecting narratives and life histories of Bengali widows in 1985 and returned to  West Bengal in 1989 for her dissertation fieldwork on aging, gender, and the making and unmaking of persons. Her early research was primarily based in a large Bengali village, with other work in Kolkata (then Calcutta) and places of pilgrimage. Lamb also pursued advanced language studies at the American Institute of Indian Studies, Kolkata. Her first book, White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender and Body in North India, was based on this work.[7]

Between 1993 and 2004, Lamb conducted field research in San Francisco and Boston,[14] examining the experiences of older immigrants from India and their families as they think about aging practices and creatively combine and rework the ideas, values, images, and lifeways comprising what they perceive to be "India" and "America." In 2003 and 2006, Lamb returned to India to conduct fieldwork in Kolkata and New Delhi on aging and understandings of modernity in cosmopolitan India, including the surge of old age homes, increasing numbers of elderly living alone, and the transnational dispersal of families. This work led to her next book, Aging and the Indian Diaspora: Cosmopolitan Families in India and Abroad (Indiana U Press).

Starting in 2013, Lamb worked on two main projects, one located in India and one in the United States. In India, she explored the narratives and experiences of never-married single women. Through this work, she contributed to studies of personhood and social transformations, and published her third book, Being Single in India: Stories of Gender, Exclusion, and Possibility (UC Press).[15] In the United States, she conducted fieldwork investigating the narratives of healthy and successful aging, analyzig public health, medical, and popular media, and conducted interviews with Americans in Massachusetts, California, and the US South.[14] This project was complemented by her comparative fieldwork in India.

Academic roles and appointments

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Lamb held a postdoctoral fellowship from 1993 to 1995 in sociocultural gerontology at the University of California, San Francisco Medical Anthropology Program following her PhD. She transitioned to Brandeis University as an Assistant Professor of Anthropology in 1995. At Brandeis, she served as the Head of Division of Social Sciences (2013–2018), Chair of the Anthropology Department (July 2007 – June 2011; July 2022 – June 2024), and Chair of Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies (2019–2020). She is currently Professor of Anthropology and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, and Barbara Mandel Professor of Humanistic Social Sciences at Brandeis University[16]

At Brandeis University, Lamb mentors both undergraduate and graduate students, and teaches both undergraduate and graduate courses that focus on Personhood, Gender, Aging, Transnationalism, South Asian cultures, Modernity, Medical Anthropology, and related topics.

Ideas, Contributions, and Influences

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Sarah Lamb's work as a cultural anthropologist examines age, aging, and the life course in India and the United States. She uses aging as a lens to explore how people understand personhood, envision proper relations among individuals, genders, families, markets, and states, and grapple with enduring questions about how best to live. Her research also sheds light on broader processes of social change, especially in India. Through the study of aging, Lamb reveals how cultural narratives about old age reflect moral values, medical ideals, biopolitical governance, and existential views of life. A central aim of her work is to expose taken-for-granted assumptions and deepen both analytic and cross-cultural understanding.

On successful aging paradigms: In recent decades, North American societies have promoted an inspirational vision of "successful aging," encouraging individuals to overcome the declines, dependencies, and vulnerabilities traditionally associated with old age through medical intervention and personal effort.[14] On the face of it, this bold new vision of successful, healthy, and active aging is highly appealing. But Lamb's research reveals how the globally circulating successful aging movement also reflects a deeper cultural unease with aging and oldness itself.

On singlehood: Globally, marriage rates are declining, with significant implications for gender and social life. In her work on singlehood, Lamb examines the experiences of never-married women in India, exploring both the expanding possibilities and persistent challenges of living outside marriage. Drawing on the life stories of women ranging from age 35 to 92—across caste, class, urban and rural settings, and including both heterosexual and lesbian individuals—Lamb highlights how single women's lives shed light on broader cultural values surrounding gender, sexuality, kinship, freedom, and belonging in contemporary India.[15]

Editorships

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Lamb is the founding editor of the Rutgers University Press series Global Perspectives on Aging, publishing ethnographically vivid and theoretically rich books that will deepen and expand our understanding of age, aging and late life in the United States and beyond. Lamb also serves on the editorial boards of several journals, including Aging & Anthropology, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and Journal of the Indian Anthropological Society.

Awards and honors

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  • 1982: First Prize Bishop McVickar Essay Contest for Honors Thesis, Brown University
  • 1989: Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Fellowship, to support field research in West Bengal, India
  • 1989: Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research, Predoctoral Grant
  • 1993: Saller Dissertation Prize for most outstanding dissertation, University of Chicago
  • 1998: Michael L. Walzer '56 Award for Excellence in Teaching, Brandeis University
  • 2004: CIES Fulbright Research Fellowship to support field research in India
  • 2006: Fulbright-Hays Faculty Research Abroad Fellowship
  • 2016: Lerman-Neubauer '69 Prize for Excellence in Teaching and Mentoring
  • 2019: Andrew Carnegie Fellowship
  • 2022: School of Arts & Sciences Faculty Service Award, Brandeis University
  • 2022: 58th Lewis Henry Morgan Lecture, Department of Anthropology, University of Rochester: "Successful Aging's Global Moment: Visions and Dilemmas of Aging Well."[17][18]

Publications

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Books

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  • White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: Aging, Gender and Body in North India. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000
  • Everyday Life in South Asia. Diane P. Mines and Sarah Lamb, eds. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002 (1st edition) and 2010 (2nd edition)
  • Aging and the Indian Diaspora: Cosmopolitan Families in India and Abroad. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2009
  • Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession: Global Perspectives, edited by Sarah Lamb. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2017
  • Being Single in India: Stories of Gender, Exclusion, and Possibility. University of California Press, 2022.

Selected Articles

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References

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  1. ^ Kavedzija, Iza; Lamb, Sarah (2020-12-14). "PORTFOLIO: "Ends of Life": An Interview with Sarah Lamb". Anthropology & Aging. 41 (2): 110–125. doi:10.5195/aa.2020.302. ISSN 2374-2267.
  2. ^ a b Lamb, Sarah (2019-07-24). White Saris and Sweet Mangoes. University of California Press. ISBN 978-0-520-93526-6.
  3. ^ "Aging and the Indian Diaspora". Indiana University Press. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  4. ^ "Being Single in India by Sarah Lamb - Paper". University of California Press. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  5. ^ "Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession". Rutgers University Press. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  6. ^ "Everyday Life in South Asia, Second Edition". Indiana University Press. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  7. ^ a b "Sarah Lamb Resume/CV | Brandeis University, Anthropology, Faculty Member". brandeis.academia.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  8. ^ "Saller Prize | Department of History". history.uchicago.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  9. ^ "White Saris and Sweet Mangoes by Sarah Lamb - Paper". University of California Press. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  10. ^ Lamb, Sarah (2009). Aging and the Indian Diaspora. Indiana University Press. ISBN 978-0-253-35343-6.
  11. ^ Lamb, Sarah (2005-06-18). "Cultural and Moral Values Surrounding Care and (In)Dependence in Late Life: Reflections From India in an Era of Global Modernity". Care Management Journals. 6 (2): 80–89. doi:10.1891/cmaj.6.2.80. ISSN 1521-0987.
  12. ^ Lamb, Sarah (2014-04-15). "Permanent personhood or meaningful decline? Toward a critical anthropology of successful aging". Journal of Aging Studies. 29: 41–52. doi:10.1016/j.jaging.2013.12.006. ISSN 0890-4065.
  13. ^ Carnegie Corporation of New York. "Sarah Lamb | Carnegie Corporation of New York". Carnegie Corporation of New York. Archived from the original on 2021-09-23. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  14. ^ a b c "Sarah Lamb, "Successful Aging as a Contemporary Obsession" (Rutgers UP, 2017)". New Books Network. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  15. ^ a b "Sarah Lamb, "Being Single in India: Stories of Gender, Exclusion, and Possibility" (U California Press, 2022)". New Books Network. Retrieved 2025-06-25.
  16. ^ "Research Portal". scholarworks.brandeis.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  17. ^ "About the Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures". www.sas.rochester.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
  18. ^ "Past Lewis Henry Morgan Lectures". www.sas.rochester.edu. Retrieved 2025-06-26.
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