Paul Ryer

As the director of Scholar Programs, Dr. Paul Ryer helps guide the selection of resident scholar fellowships and supports researchers during their residencies. He also oversees the J.I. Staley Prize, manages a range of on-campus scholar seminars, and serves as the primary point of contact for a growing, global network of SAR alumni. Under his leadership, the department has initiated efforts that ensure the program’s relevance to twenty-first century scholarship via an increased focus on: cross-disciplinary work; newly-developed fellowship field areas; collaboration among participating scholars; and the establishment of programs that embrace a greater awareness of new theories and emerging paradigms within anthropology and related fields.

Dr. Ryer received his PhD in cultural anthropology from the University of Chicago in 2006. With over two decades of experience in academia, professor Ryer’s specific areas of anthropological expertise include the Caribbean, migration and diaspora, historical anthropology, semiotics, cultural citizenship, and religion. Since his initial fieldwork as a Ruth Landes Fellow in the 1990s, while affiliated with the University of Havana, he has conducted long-term research on Cuba and its diasporas. Currently, Ryer is studying the contemporary Cuban Protestant revival island through the lens of an ecumenical seminary in Matanzas, Cuba—an institution which survived the atheism of the early Revolution and is now thriving. He is the author of Beyond Cuban Waters, an ethnography which not only explores the cultural life of contemporary Cuba, but examines Cubans’ understanding of the world, and Cuba’s place in it through the lens of revolutionary-era Cuban-African educational exchanges. Prior to coming to SAR, Professor Ryer taught at the University of Chicago, Williams College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of California, Riverside.