C. Jason Throop

C. Jason Throop

Professor

Office: 388 Haines Hall

Biography

My research and teaching interests are clearly situated at the intersection of the fields of medical and psychological anthropology. Broadly configured, my research agenda sets out to examine human existence as articulated in its cultural, moral, and practical dimensions. Committed to furthering a phenomenological anthropological approach to understanding our distinctly human ways of being-in-the world, my contributions to medical and psychological anthropology span a fairly broad spectrum of theoretical and practical concerns. These include: theoretical and ethnographic work on empathy and intersubjectivity; investigations into the problems of experience in contemporary anthropological theory; explorations of the cultural patterning of pain, sensation, emotion, and mood; analyses of social suffering and illness experience; studies of agency and will in cultural context; as well as ongoing research on the existential and cultural processes underlying the formation of ethical modes of being. My regional specialization is Oceania where I have conducted over 20 months of research on experiences of pain, suffering, illness, and morality on the island of Yap (Waqab), Federated States of Micronesia.

I have authored one book, Suffering and Sentiment: Exploring the Vicissitudes of Experience and Pain in Yap (2010, University of California Press), and co-edited two others, Toward an Anthropology of the Will (2010, Stanford University Press) and The Anthropology of Empathy: Experiencing the Lives of Others in Pacific Societies (2011, Berghahn Press). I am currently developing a new empirical project on aging and climate change on Vancouver Island, Canada.

Research Interests

Psychological and medical anthropology, phenomenology, sensorial anthropology, theories of experience in anthropology, self and subjective experience, empathy, pain, emotion/mood, morality, temporality, anthropology of the will, Yap (Federated States of Micronesia)

Subfield

Psychocultural and Medical Anthropology

Publications

Books
Hollan, D.W. and C.J. Throop (Eds.) 2011. The Anthropology of Empathy: Experiencing the Lives of Others in Pacific Societies. Oxford: Berghahn.

Throop, C.J. 2010. Suffering and Sentiment: Exploring the Vicissitudes of Experience and Pain in Yap. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Murphy K.M. and C.J. Throop (eds.) 2010. Toward an Anthropology of the Will. Palo Alto: Stanford University Press.

Articles/Book Chapters

Throop, C.J. 2023. “Empathy and its Limits: A Manifesto.” Pp. 27-33 in Francesca Mezzenzana and Daniela Peluso (eds.), Conversations on Empathy: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Imagination and Radical Othering. London: Routledge.

Mack, A. and C.J. Throop. “Suffering and Sympathy.” Pp. 359-388 in James Laidlaw (ed.), Cambridge Handbook of the Anthropology of Ethics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press (co-authored with Abigail Mack). (2023)

Throop, C.J. 2022. “Looming.” Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology 5(2): 67-86. (2022)

Throop. C. J. 2022. “Grace, Too: Reflections on Bergson’s Ethics.” Alessandro Duranti (ed.), Rethinking Politeness with Henri Bergson. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 141-154

Throop, C.J. and C.S. Stephan. 2022. “Husserlian Horizons: Moods in Yap.” Thomas Schwarz-Wentzer and Nils Bubandt (eds.), Philosophy on Fieldwork.” London: Routledge. Pg. 284-301.

Throop, C.J. 2020. “Meteorological Moods and Atmospheric Attunements.” In Victoria Browne, Doerthe Rosenow and Jason Danely (eds), Vulnerability and the Politics of Care. Proceedings of the British Academy Publication. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 235, 60-70

Throop, C.J. and D. Zahavi. 2020 “Dark and Bright Empathy: Phenomenological and Anthropological Reflections,” Current Anthropology 61, no. 3: 283-303.

Mattingly, C.J. and C.J. Throop. 2018. “The Anthropology of Ethics and Morality.” (co-authored with Cheryl Mattingly), Annual Review of Anthropology. 47: 475-492.

Throop, C.J. 2018. “Being Open to the World” HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 8(1/2): 197-210.

Flaherty, D. and C.J. Throop. 2018. “Facing Death: On Mourning, Empathy, and Finitude.” (co-authored with Devin Flaherty). In Antonio Robben (ed.), A Companion to the Anthropology of Death. Maiden, MA: Wiley Blackwell.

Throop, C.J. 2017 “Pain and Otherness, the Otherness of Pain.” In Bernhard Leistle (ed.), Anthropology and Alterity: Responding to the Other. London: Routledge. Pg. 185-206.

Throop, C.J. 2014. “Moral Moods.” Ethos 42(1): 65-83.

Throop, C.J. 2012 “On the Varieties of Empathic Experience: Tactility, Mental Opacity, and Pain in Yap. Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 26(3): 408-430.

Desjarlais, R. and C.J. Throop. 2011. “Phenomenological Approaches in Anthropology.” Annual Review of Anthropology. 40: 87-102.

Throop, C.J. 2010. “Latitudes of Loss: On the Vicissitudes of Empathy.” American Ethnologist 37(4): 771-782.

Throop, C.J. 2009. “Intermediary Varieties of Experience.” Ethnos 74(4): 535-558..

Throop, C.J. 2008. “From Pain to Virtue: Dysphoric Sensations and Moral Sensibilities in Yap (Waqab), Federated States of Micronesia.” Journal of Transcultural Psychiatry 45(2): 253-286.

Hollan, D. and C.J. Throop. 2008. “Whatever Happened to Empathy?” Ethos. 36(4): 385-401.

Throop, C. J. 2003. “Articulating Experience.” Anthropological Theory 3(2). 219-241.

Throop, C. J. and K.M. Murphy. 2002. “Bourdieu and Phenomenology: A critical assessment.” Anthropological Theory 2(2):185-207.