Janet D. Spector

rdf:langString Janet D. Spector

rdf:langString Janet D. Spector (October 21, 1944 – September 13, 2011) was an American archaeologist known for her contributions to the archaeology of gender and ethnoarchaeology. An influential paper she co-wrote in 1984 entitled "Archaeology and the Study of Gender" is considered to be the beginning of feminist archaeology. She is also the author of the 1993 book What This Awl Means: Feminist Archaeology at a Wahpeton Dakota Village, which combines Spector's autobiography with the excavation of the Little Rapids site (also known as Inyan Ceyaka Otonwe) in Scott County, Minnesota and a fictional story of a young Dakota woman who lived in the village. The book was revolutionary in its attempt at a task differentiation framework and its intersectional approach to ethnography with indigenous and gendered perspectives at the forefront. She earned her bachelor's, master's, and PhD degrees at the University of Wisconsin.Her lifelong experiences in archaeological fieldwork began her second year of her undergrad and included sites in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Israel, and Canada. While completing her PHD she began her career as a professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Minnesota. In her 25 years there she helped found the women's studies program and chaired the program from 1981 to 1984. She was also awarded the Horace T Morse University of Minnesota Alumni Association Award for Outstanding Contributions to Undergraduate Education in 1986. Other noteworthy accolades from her time as a faculty member include her role as assistant provost where she chaired a Commission on Women and penned the Minnesota Plan II, as well as her hand in founding the Center for Advanced Feminist Studies. Outside of the university she served on the advisory board for the American Anthropological Association's project on "Gender and Archaeology" from 1986 to 1988 where she co-wrote an essay on "Incorporating Gender into Archaeology Courses" that was designed to bring feminist anthropology into the classroom. In 1998 she presented her essay "Reminiscence" at the "Doing Archaeology as a Feminist" seminar at the School for Advanced Research.