Lauren Wells Hasten - Digital Anthropologist

I earned my Master’s degree in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1999. Ten years prior to that, I could be found playing keyboards and singing backup for an all-girl band called Belle of the Ball whose lone claim to fame was opening for Cheap Trick at a nightclub in New York City.

I spent the intervening years as a professional recording engineer, beginning in 1986 with a series of Miller Light commercials featuring Bob Uecker and Joe Piscopo and eventually moving on to a position at CBS Records. In 1988 CBS became Sony Music, where I remained for about eight years. Working one-on-one with clients like Mariah Carey and Gloria Estefan, I also cultivated a specialty in remastering and digital restoration which yielded new CD’s of previously unreleased material by artists like Duke Ellington, The Beatles, and Eric Clapton. My CD mastering credits include Duke Ellington’s “Reminiscing in Tempo” (Columbia/Legacy), Stan Getz’s “Essence of Jazz” (Columbia/Legacy), and a series of early blues releases from the defunct UK label, Immediate Records, featuring the likes of Mick Jagger and Small Faces; I also hold the distinction of having mastered one of the best-selling television-marketed CDs in history, “The Seventies Preservation Society Presents: Disco Seventies.”

Incredibly bored, I returned to school in 1995 to continue my education. Unwilling to be limited by the confines of any one discipline, I chose anthropology -- which claims a toehold in nearly all of them. I finished my undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College and was thrilled to be admitted to Columbia's MA program in 1997. My graduate thesis, a fieldwork-based ethnography detailing a group of drag kings (women who perform dressed as men), won several honors including the 1999 SOLGA/AAA Kenneth Payne Prize.

Upon earning my MA, I had every intention of pursuing a Ph.D. on the west coast. These plans were shelved when my father died in 1999, two months before my graduation from Columbia. Unwilling to leave my family, I instead accepted a unique position as a Senior Producer and Consulting Anthropologist for the now defunct Across Frontiers International. The firm, dedicated to providing interactive cross-cultural education, relied on a small team including myself to produce a series of CD-ROMs featuring navigable, narrated slides and video about various countries. Offering an exceptional opportunity to combine two seemingly disparate spheres of interest (cultural anthropology and computers), it proved an excellent entry into the business of New Media Management. Unfortunately, that business was about to fall into the abyss.

I wanted to teach, but there were no opportunities for me in New York. So, like many others, I skipped from bubble to bubble at a series of dotcoms that are now history, doubling my salary at every move. In the end it turned out to be the most money I ever made to do the least work. At one point I was making $85K a year and doing nothing but writing emails and surfing the web. I went from managing a videogame website for a company called Fortune City (they hired me because I told them I thought playing videogames was a waste of time) to a staff position at Shooting Gallery, which used to be a pretty good indie film house but went broke trying to do web production as well. I managed multimillion dollar projects which everyone knew were never going to happen and finally refused to attend meetings where I had to lie to a client's face and say, "Yeah, we can do that." I knew it would come to an end; how could it last? In November they held a big meeting and guaranteed us that the company interested in buying us was paying for the talent (i.e., the people), not the property; in January they fired everyone in the web division. As for me, it was time for a change.

I moved to the Bay area in 2001 and immediately lucked into the two greatest miracles of my life so far: I met my wife, Tess, and I began teaching anthropology at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Having focused on cultural anthropology as a graduate student, I found myself teaching that, plus physical anthropology and archaeology. This forced me to stretch, a fact for which I am grateful. I can honestly say that I have learned far more about anthropology through teaching it than I ever did as a student.

My academic focus has necessarily widened to include evolutionary and archaeological approaches to the study of humanity. My current research addresses educational anthropology, but previously I was studying working women who labor in the gray and black market economies (i.e., exotic dancers). I am also interested in cyberspace and hypertext, neo-pagan spiritual movements, art and aesthetics, gender, prejudice, and war.

In January of 2004, I accepted a full-time position as a Professor of Anthropology at Las Positas College in Livermore, CA. It is, without doubt, the most important and wonderful thing I have ever done. I love teaching, and I love my students. You are all so full of promise; I feel honored to be a part of your lives. While there may still be a Ph.D. in my future, I intend to continue teaching at community college because I believe strongly in the mission and the students. I don't think that earning a Ph.D. it will make me a better teacher or a better person -- just a little more well-read.

Thanks for reading.

	Who is Lauren Wells Hasten?

	I earned my Master’s degree in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1999. Ten years prior to that, I could be found playing keyboards and singing backup for an all-girl band called Belle of the Ball whose lone claim to fame was opening for Cheap Trick at a nightclub in New York City. I spent the intervening years as a professional recording engineer, beginning in 1986 with a series of Miller Light commercials featuring Bob Uecker and Joe Piscopo and eventually moving on to a position at CBS Records. In 1988 CBS became Sony Music, where I remained for about eight years. Working one-on-one with clients like Mariah Carey and Gloria Estefan, I also cultivated a specialty in remastering and digital restoration which yielded new CD’s of previously unreleased material by artists like Duke Ellington, The Beatles, and Eric Clapton. My CD mastering credits include Duke Ellington’s “Reminiscing in Tempo” (Columbia/Legacy), Stan Getz’s “Essence of Jazz” (Columbia/Legacy), and a series of early blues releases from the defunct UK label, Immediate Records, featuring the likes of Mick Jagger and Small Faces; I also hold the distinction of having mastered one of the best-selling television-marketed CDs in history, “The Seventies Preservation Society Presents: Disco Seventies.” Incredibly bored, I returned to school in 1995 to continue my education. Unwilling to be limited by the confines of any one discipline, I chose anthropology -- which claims a toehold in nearly all of them. I finished my undergraduate studies at Brooklyn College and was thrilled to be admitted to Columbia's MA program in 1997. My graduate thesis, a fieldwork-based ethnography detailing a group of drag kings (women who perform dressed as men), won several honors including the 1999 SOLGA/AAA Kenneth Payne Prize. Upon earning my MA, I had every intention of pursuing a Ph.D. on the west coast. These plans were shelved when my father died in 1999, two months before my graduation from Columbia. Unwilling to leave my family, I instead accepted a unique position as a Senior Producer and Consulting Anthropologist for the now defunct Across Frontiers International. The firm, dedicated to providing interactive cross-cultural education, relied on a small team including myself to produce a series of CD-ROMs featuring navigable, narrated slides and video about various countries. Offering an exceptional opportunity to combine two seemingly disparate spheres of interest (cultural anthropology and computers), it proved an excellent entry into the business of New Media Management. Unfortunately, that business was about to fall into the abyss. I wanted to teach, but there were no opportunities for me in New York. So, like many others, I skipped from bubble to bubble at a series of dotcoms that are now history, doubling my salary at every move. In the end it turned out to be the most money I ever made to do the least work. At one point I was making $85K a year and doing nothing but writing emails and surfing the web. I went from managing a videogame website for a company called Fortune City (they hired me because I told them I thought playing videogames was a waste of time) to a staff position at Shooting Gallery, which used to be a pretty good indie film house but went broke trying to do web production as well. I managed multimillion dollar projects which everyone knew were never going to happen and finally refused to attend meetings where I had to lie to a client's face and say, "Yeah, we can do that." I knew it would come to an end; how could it last? In November they held a big meeting and guaranteed us that the company interested in buying us was paying for the talent (i.e., the people), not the property; in January they fired everyone in the web division. As for me, it was time for a change. I moved to the Bay area in 2001 and immediately lucked into the two greatest miracles of my life so far: I met my wife, Tess, and I began teaching anthropology at Foothill College in Los Altos Hills. Having focused on cultural anthropology as a graduate student, I found myself teaching that, plus physical anthropology and archaeology. This forced me to stretch, a fact for which I am grateful. I can honestly say that I have learned far more about anthropology through teaching it than I ever did as a student. My academic focus has necessarily widened to include evolutionary and archaeological approaches to the study of humanity. My current research addresses educational anthropology, but previously I was studying working women who labor in the gray and black market economies (i.e., exotic dancers). I am also interested in cyberspace and hypertext, neo-pagan spiritual movements, art and aesthetics, gender, prejudice, and war. In January of 2004, I accepted a full-time position as a Professor of Anthropology at Las Positas College in Livermore, CA. It is, without doubt, the most important and wonderful thing I have ever done. I love teaching, and I love my students. You are all so full of promise; I feel honored to be a part of your lives. While there may still be a Ph.D. in my future, I intend to continue teaching at community college because I believe strongly in the mission and the students. I don't think that earning a Ph.D. it will make me a better teacher or a better person -- just a little more well-read. Thanks for reading.