Matthew Hull
- Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology
Information
- Email: hullm@umich.edu
- Phone: 734.763.5382
- Office: 224-A West Hall, 1085 S. University Ave., Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1107
- Ph.D. 2003, University of Chicago
Research Interests
Topical/Theoretical
- Semiotics
- Bureaucracy and governance
- Corporations
- Urban planning
- Material culture
- Science and technology
Geographical
- South Asia
Research Projects
Research Description
Matthew Hull's research focuses on the nexus of representation, technology, and institutions. His book, Government of Paper: The Materiality of Bureaucracy in Urban Pakistan (University of California Press, May 2012), examines governance as a semiotic and material practice through an account of the role of writing and written artifacts in the operations of city government in Islamabad. He is also working on the deployment of American technologies of democracy in urban planning and community development projects led by the Ford Foundation in Delhi in the late 1950s and early 1960s.
In the Department of Anthropology he is associated with both the Social-Cultural and the Linguistic Anthropology subfields. His other affiliations include the Interdisciplinary Program in Anthropology and History, the Program in Science, Technology and Society, and the Center for South Asian Studies.
Hull was a Fellow of the Michigan Society of Fellows from 2003-04 and taught for several years at the University of North Carolina before returning to the University of Michigan. He teaches courses on corporations, technology and materiality, language, South Asia, and social theory.