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PhD, Department of Anthropology • Current Position, Assistant Professor • Department of Anthropology, Bowdoin College

Willi Lempert's dissertation, Palya Futures: The Social Life of Kimberley Aboriginal Media, is based on 26 months of ethnographic research in the Kimberley region of Northwestern Australia since 2006. He followed the social lifecycles of dozens of film projects through daily collaboration within production teams to understand the stakes of Aboriginal self-representation embedded within the process of filmmaking. His research interrogates the paradoxical relationship between the production of films that vividly imagine hopeful and diverse Indigenous futures, and the current widespread defunding of Aboriginal communities and organizations. He collaborated on several films featuring the use of Kukatja sign language through visual dictionary, documentary, and comedy projects. He will be starting as Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Bowdoin College in the fall of 2018.