Fran Markowitz

Fran Markowitz was born and raised in New York City, where she attended Hunter College High School during the 1960s. In the 1970s she studied at Binghamton University and completed a BA in the social sciences. After living several years in Atlanta, Fran went back north as a graduate student to the University of Michigan and in 1987 earned the PhD in Anthropology. She has been teaching anthropology at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheva, Israel since 1992.

Fran has conducted ethnographic fieldwork in the U.S. (New York and Chicago), Israel, Russia and Bosnia-Herzegovina, thanks to grants from the National Institutes of Mental Health, the Wenner Gren Foundation, the Bi-National US-Israel Science Foundation, and IREX. Her books combine full-bodied ethnography with story-telling and pithy analyses.

In her spare time Fran trims the bougainvillea in her garden, goes for long walks with her little dog Fistuki, watches crime dramas, and cooks up a storm.