Buck Woodard
Sr Professorial Lecturer
Department of Anthropology
Degrees
Ph.D. Historical Anthropology, College of William & Mary; M.A. Cultural Anthropology, College of William & Mary; B.F.A. Craft and Material Studies, Virginia Commonwealth University
Bio
Buck Woodard is a cultural anthropologist specializing in historical and applied research, with interests in ethnographic and ethnohistorical writing, and ethnological study of indigenous North America. His research areas include cosmology and ritual life, heritage tourism, kinship, material culture and political economy. Currently, Dr. Woodard is continuing fieldwork among Algonquians and Iroquoians in Oklahoma, New York, and Virginia. There, research topics include kinship and matrilineality, tribal opposition to state structures, revitalization of language use and food ways, and the ways in which the preservation of heritage resources play out in issues of sovereignty and public representation. Data from this fieldwork are contributing to an interdisciplinary working group and edited volume Replanting Cultures: Community-Engaged Scholarship in Indian Country (2022). Recent work in material culture research includes a fellowship (2014) and interdisciplinary collaboration (2017) to study Algonquian objects at the Ashmolean Museum of Archaeology and Art in Oxford, UK, a visiting position (2015-17) at the Muscarelle Museum of Art, and grants with the National Park Service (2016, 2019, 2021) and the Conservation Fund (2019). Previously, Dr. Woodard directed the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation’s American Indian Initiative (2008-16) and Historic Jamestowne’s Indigenous Chesapeake (2009-14). Both museum programs were applied public anthropology, utilizing ethnographic fieldwork and civic engagement to collaborate with federally acknowledged and state-recognized American Indian communities. He is the co-author of "Building the Brafferton: The Founding, Funding, and Legacy of America’s Indian School," an illustrated volume released in 2019.
Woodard’s service work includes gubernatorial appointments to the Virginia Council on Indians as advisor to governors Mark Warner and Timothy Kaine, and under Ralph Northam and Glen Youngkin, chair of the Virginia Indian Advisory Board's State Recognition Workgroup. Other consultations include the National Park Service and the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. Applied projects as a Native liaison and historical cultural consultant include film and television productions with the History Channel, New Line Cinema, PBS, SKY 1 / NBC Universal and the Smithsonian Channel. For his work with the Smithsonian Channel’s series "America’s Hidden Stories," Buck Woodard won a News and Documentary Emmy® in 2020 for Outstanding Scenic Design.
