Dr. Sine Anahita
(and her eldest cat, Toklas)

So you're probably thinking: "who is that beautiful kitty?!" His name is Toklas, and he is the eldest of our six cats. Besides the six cats, our home is also graced by Ursa, our nine year old Lab mutt who is Frisbee-crazed, and our one-year old puppy, Borealys.

Other than scooping cat boxes, playing Frisbee with Ursa, and teaching Borealys how to fetch balls instead of cats, I do have a life. I am intensely interested in organized inequalities--those inequalities based on gender, race/ethnicity, sexuality, age, dis/ability, class, and other markers of difference--and the way societies, organizations, and the state organize them. On a regular basis, I teach courses on inequalities, including Race and Ethnic Relations and Sociology of Gender. I teach other courses in rotation with other faculty, including Global Issues, Human Sexualities, Stratification and Social Inequality, Rural Sociology, and Social Movements.

In my research, I am also interested in organized inequalities. Recent publications include an article written in collaboration with Dr. Tamara Mix about how a public form of masculinity shapes Alaska's wolf control policies. Another recent publication is about how virtual skinheads patrol the online borders of hypermasculinity and heterosexuality. I continue to do work on the lesbian land movement, also known as the landdyke movement, and have a new article on this topic that was recently accepted for publication. In the past, I have collaborated with Dr. Jackie Blount to analyze how school systems have historically controlled the gender and sexuality of teachers and students. Another long-term collaborative project with Dr. David Schweingruber and others focuses on the process couples undertake to become engaged to marry. Linked with this last work is an article that examines the issue of same-sex marriage in historical and cultural context. Currently, I am working on a research project to examine water poverty in Alaska, especially focusing on Alaska's rural areas and those neighborhoods just beyond the confines of Fairbanks' city limits. In this work, I collaborate with Dr. Nicole Grewe and Rob Prince. Other current research includes an analysis of the links between white supremacy and heterosexual supremacy; in this work, I examine the ideological spillover between these two social movements.

One of the joys of being at a university is that there are many service opportunities. I am currently the co-chair of the UAF Faculty Senate Committee on the Status of Women, where I work with others on the Committee to achieve gender equity at UAF, especially in terms of salary and tenure and promotion. I serve on the UAF Faculty Senate, and on the Blackboard Steering Committee. I am also the Faculty Advisor for UAF's chapter of Alpha Kappa Delta (AKD), the international sociological honor society. Because our department is small in terms of the number of faculty members, and because I love working at UAF, I do a lot of other service work for the Department of Sociology and for the university.

I am passionate about sociology as I believe the discipline has the potential to answer many of Life's Persistent Questions. Take a class or two with me, and I hope you, too, will come to see the promise of sociology!