Phillip McArthur

Phillip H. McArthur is an American folklorist and anthropologist. His work in the Marshall Islands closely examines social power and indigenous epistemologies with special attention to the tumultuous relationship with the United States. McArthur has spent much of his career documenting and analyzing Marshall Islander narratives, mythology, songs, and performances.

Education
McArthur studied under the renowned folklorists and scholars Richard Bauman and Beverly J. Stoeltje. McArthur is currently a professor at BYU-Hawaii. He obtained an associate degree in psychology from Ricks College, a bachelor's degree from Brigham Young University in anthropoloy, and both master's and Ph.D. degrees in folklore studies from Indiana University.

Research
McArthur's research emphasizes social theoretical and semiotic approaches to traditional narrative (i.e. myth, oral history), cultural performance (ritual, ceremony, festival, spectacle), history, cosmology, and local cultures within the contexts of decolonization, nationalism and globalization. This includes a deepening attention to political and economic forces, and their relationship to social power and practice. With a geographical specialization in Oceania, he additionally includes comparative studies on cultures of Asia, Native America, Africa and the Classical world. He also integrates deep interests in comparative philosophy, the history of ideas, dialogic ethnography, and traditional arts.

His teaching represents a wide range of topics centered in theory, cultural studies, and expressive culture. Students have noted that in each course he seeks to fuse anthropological perspectives with humanistic inquiry. While Oceania provides one geographical focus, his research and teaching philosophy seeks to bring to bear a comparative perspective into the classroom through exposure to a range of cross-cultural materials. He continues to develop curriculum in Anthropology and Cultural Sustainability, Pacific Islands Studies, and Integrated Humanities that engages students to think about culture in critical and thought-provoking ways. In this way, students learn to develop culture sensitivity and insight to function productively within academics, the private sector, government, and the community.

Associations

 * Professor, Anthropology and Cultural Sustainability; and Integrated Humanities
 * Affiliated Faculty, History; Pacific Studies
 * Editor-in-Chief, Pacific Studies and Napela Center Publications

Publications
Representative Publications:
 * Dialogues with a Trickster: On the Margins of Myth and Ethnography in the Marshall Islands. 2024 book manuscript in production.  University of Hawai'i Press.
 * "The Church in the Marshall Islands: A Cultural History". In "Battlefields to Temple Grounds: Latter-day Saints in Guam and Micronesia" 2023. R. Devan Jensen and Rosalind Ram, eds. Religious Studies Center, BYU. pp. 67-100.
 * "Oceania." In A Companion to Folklore 2012.  Regina Bendix and Galit Hasan-Rokem, eds.  Wiley-Blackwell Press.  pp. 248–264.
 * "Ambivalent Fantasies: Local Prehistories and Global Dramas in the Marshall Islands" 2008. Journal of Folklore Research 45(3): 263-298.
 * "Modernism and Pacific Ways at Knowing: An Uneasy Dialogue in Micronesia." 2007. Pacific Rim Studies 1(1):7-24
 * Introductory Note "Folklore, Nationalism, and the Challenge of the Future", in The Marrow of Human Experience: Essays in Folklore, William Wilson. Ed. Jill Terry Rudy. Logan: Utah State University Press. 2006
 * "Narrative, Cosmos, and Nation: Intertextuality and Power in the Marshall Islands". 2004. Journal of American Folklore 462: 1.
 * "Oceania: An Overview". In CultureGrams: World Addition, Vol. IV (Asia and Oceania). 2002. Lindon: Axiom Press.
 * "Narrating to the Center of Power in the Marshall Islands". 2000. In We are a People: Narrative and Multiplicity in the Construction of Ethnic Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press. Paul Spickard and W. Jeffrey Burroughs, eds.
 * "More Than Meets the Ear: A Marshallese Example of Folklore Method and Study for Pacific Collections". 1997. PIALA: Identifying, Using and Sharing Local Resources. pp. 49–71. University of Guam.