I am a settler originally from Tennessee’s Cumberland Plateau, Cherokee Territory, and now residing in N’dakina, the unceded homeland territory of the western Abenaki tribes. My personal and professional interests reflect an abiding fascination with the genius loci—the spirit of place—wherever that happens to be. Such themes have guided my research and teaching as a folklorist and environmental anthropologist interested in the intersections of food and foodways, subsistence technologies, and the socio-ecological systems in which these are embedded. While teaching and advising primarily in the Sustainable Food Systems program at Sterling, I also lead courses in the general and core curricula, the global field studies program, and participates in the coordination of classes offered through the School of the New American Farmstead.
Profile
| Award | Institution |
|---|---|
| PhD Cultural Anthropology | University of Tennessee |
| MA Folk Studies | Western Kentucky University |
| Presentations |
|---|
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2021). “Story Maps and Digital Humanities as Tools for Anthropological Education, Communication, and Effective Collaboration." Society for Applied Anthropology annual conference, Norfolk, VA |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2021). “Farm Based Education in Every City and Town” Panel Presentation. International Workshop on Agritourism Virtual Series |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2020). “Cultures of/and Culturing: Traditional Fermentation and Food Enhancement." Northeast Organic Farming Association, Vermont Chapter winter conference, Burlington, VT |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2019). “Colonization by Kale: Reclaiming “Healthy” Food Through Indigenous Food & Seed Sovereignty Education” - Universities Fighting World Hunger Summit Portland, ME |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2017). “From Tanka Bars to Ted’s Montana Grill: Conservation, Revitalization, and Neoliberal Nostalgia in the Contemporary Bison Ranching Industry." Society for Applied Anthropology annual conference, Santa Fe, NM |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2017). “Fire, Fences, and Fragmentation: Woody Encroachment, and the Ethnography of Community Composition on the Prairie-Plains.” Society for Applied Anthropology annual conference, Santa Fe, NM |
| VanWinkle, Tony & Micheal Stanton. (2016). “Precipitation Envy & Irrigation Frontiers: Negotiating Water Scarcity and Abundance in the Great Plains Border Zone.” Annual Meeting of the Association of American Geographers, San Francisco, CA |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2015). “Ethnographic Research in the Upper Washita Watershed: Community Resource Relations & Climate Vulnerability.” Oklahoma NSF/EPSCoR Annual State Conference, Norman, Oklahoma |
| Friedman, Jack R., Jennifer Koch, Duncan Wilson, and Tony VanWinkle. (2015). “Modeling Qualitative Social Data: Collaborative Approaches for and Continuing Challenges to Crossing the Qualitative-Quantitative Divide.” Annual Meeting of the Ecological Society of America, Baltimore, MD |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2015). “Nostalgia and Remembrance in the Cultural Economy of Southern Appalachian Urban Food Movements” Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference, Pittsburgh, PA |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2013). “Utopian Entrepreneurialism: Artisanal Politics, Sustainability, and the Moral Economies of Alternative Food-Related Businesses." Annual conference of the Society for the Anthropology of North America, Durham, NC |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2009). “Eco-political Performance and the Life Cycle of Coal: Mobilizations, Demonstrations, & Tensions Following the TVA-Kingston Coal Fly-ash Disaster.” Annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association, Philadelphia, PA |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2009). “A History of Resistance to Surface Coal Mining in Southern Appalachia.” Guest presentation for Mountain Justice Spring Break, Roane County, TN |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2009). “The Politics of Knowledge in the Southern Coalfields: Mountaintop Removal, The NEPA Process, and Technocratic Discourse." Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Conference, Santa Fe, NM |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2002). “It’s a Long Way to Harlan!:’ Coal Mining and Music and the Western Kentucky Coalfields”Annual International Country Music Conference, Nashville, TN |
| Publications |
|---|
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2021). “Weeds and/as Ancestors: Coevolution, Cultural Memory, and the Ambivalence of Garden Maintenance.” In Greenhorns (Ed.), The New Farmer’s Almanac, Volume 5: The Grand Land Plan. Greenhorns/Chelsea Green. |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2020). “Who, What, and How Much is Essential?” Food First Blog. Retrieved from: https://foodfirst.org/who-what-and-how-much-is-essential/ |
| VanWinkle, T.N & J.R. Friedman. (2019). “Between Drought and Disparity: American Indian Farmers, Resource Bureaucracy and Socio-Environmental Vulnerability in Southwestern Oklahoma.” The Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development. |
| VanWinkle, T.N. & J.R. Friedman. (2018). "American Indian Landowners, Leasemen, and Bureaucrats: Property, Paper, and the Poli-Technics of Dispossession in Southwestern Oklahoma." American Indian Quarterly 42 (2). |
| VanWinkle, Tony. (2018). "Weeds, Herbicides, Bodies: Emerging Entanglements in Toxic Agricultural Landscapes." Engagement [Peer-Reviewed Blog Post]. Retrieved from https://aesengagement.wordpress.com/2018/03/08/weeds-herbicides-and-bodies-emerging-entanglements-in-toxic-agricultural-landscapes/. |
| VanWinkle, T.N & J.R. Friedman. (2017) “What’s Good for the Soil is Good for the Soul: Scientific Farming, Environmental Subjectivities, and the Ethics of Stewardship in Southwestern Oklahoma.” Agriculture & Human Values 34 (3): 607-618 |
| VanWinkle, Tony N. (2017) “Savor the Earth to Save it!”: The Pedagogy of Sustainable Pleasure and Relational Ecology in a Place-Based Culinary Culture.” Food & Foodways 25 (1): 40-57 |
| Pezzoni, Daniel J. (ed.), Tony N. VanWinkle, Deborah J. Thompson, & Elizabeth C. Stevens. (2009). The Architectural History of Watauga County, North Carolina. Watauga County Historical Society: Boone, NC |
| VanWinkle, Tony. “The Woman Who Planted Trees: Community Forestry and the Bowie Legacy in Fairview, TN.” The Tennessee Conservationist, October 2008 |
Accomplishments
Post-doctoral Research Fellow in Socio-Ecological Systems & Climate Variability, Center for Applied Social Research, University of Oklahoma, 2015-2017
Sterling College, Sustainable Food Systems Program, 2017-present
University of Tennessee, Department of Anthropology, American Studies Program, 2008-2015
Tony's Recent Blog Posts
Pod: Traditional Ecological Knowledge & Technologies
Through these complementary courses, students will explore “kin-centric” relationships between humans, plants, and the natural world, particularly as these are expressed through indigenous and/or traditional subsistence knowledges, technologies, and histories….
Enrollment Requirements and Options: Students in this pod may enroll in online coursework. Students may enroll in two of courses in this pod. This pod includes the following courses: Introduction…
Pod: Agroecology and Sustainable Food Systems
 This pod will use an agroecological lens to introduce students to the foundations of ecology, agriculture, and food systems. Enrollment Requirements and Options: Students are strongly encouraged though not required…
Field School in Sustainable Agriculture and Food Systems
Organized around the triad, Production, Protection, and Provisioning, the summer Field School in Sustainable Agriculture & Food Systems provides students with field-tested skills and knowledge necessary to engage in ecologically…
Being necessary to our basic biological survival, food is a human universal. Indeed, the paired technological revolutions of fire and cooking are central features of a common human experience reaching…