Teaching philosophy and research interests

In my view, teaching in part involves sharing one’s knowledge with students and giving them the opportunity to ask questions and to engage in discussion. Based on the teaching I have done both in-person and on-line, I firmly believe that by far the better way to achieve this is through face-to-face instruction. Because of this, I encourage students to take courses in which they are in the classroom. Not only is engagement with the material and discussion more comprehensive, but the prospects of getting to know the professor and one’s ocolleagues are also greater.

For more than two decades, I have had a research interest in Romania. My doctoral research in sociocultural anthropology involved studying the social and material impact of Romania’s transformation from communism to neoliberal capitalism on working-class, retired people in Galați, a city in the east of the country. I have also explored anthropologically the effects of labor migration on families in that city. More recently, my research has more broadly examined how Romania’s healthcare system and the overall health of the population have been affected by prolonged austerity. I am currently working on a paper that addresses healthcare-related protests in Romania during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Education

• Ph.D. in Anthropology, CUNY Graduate Center, 2009
• M.A. in Anthropology, SUNY Binghamton, 1993
• B.A. in International Studies with a minor in German, Towson State University, 1988

Courses taught at BCC

• Introduction to Anthropology (ANT 11)
• Introduction to Sociology (SOC 11)
• Urban Sociology (SOC 32)
• Social Deviance (SOC 34)
• Social Inequality (SOC 37)

Selected publications

• Weber, G. A. and Stan S. (2024). “Healthcare and Citizenship in Romania since 1989” in Post-Communist Progress and Stagnation at 35: The Case of Romania.
• Weber, G. A. (2022). “Implicațiile materiale, sociale și politice ale muncii în și dincolo de Galați”/“Material, social and political implications of work in and beyond Galați, Romania” in AnthroArt at theanthro.art
• Weber, G. A. (2021). “Christmas in Spain, alone: Industrial restructuring, fiscal retrenchment and labour migration in neoliberal Romania. Proceedings of the Third Annual Between the Worlds: Migrants, Margins, and Social Environment Conference, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with the Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and the Balkan Ethnology Department, Sofia, Bulgaria
• Weber, G. A. (2020). Aging after Socialism: Global Capitalism, Social Transformation, and Retirement in Romania. in The Cultural Context of Aging:\ Worldwide Perspectives.