Dr. Edward Fischer is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Center for Latin American and Iberian Studies at Vanderbilt University. He earned his bachelor's degree from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and his master's and doctoral degrees in anthropology from Tulane University. Professor Fischer has received grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, the Alexander von Humbolt Foundation, the Inter-American Foundation, and the Wener-Grenn Foundation, among others. He is the recipient of the Jeffrey Nordhaus Award for Excellence in Teaching and the Ellen Gregg Ingalls Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching. Much of his research focuses on the modern Maya peoples of highland Guatemala and the ways they have revitalized their culture as they have become integrated into the global economy. He has also conducted fieldwork in Germany, and his recent work looks at the ways moral values affect economic rationalities. Professor Fischer has an impressive list of scholarly articles and has written or edited seven books, including Cultural Logics and Global Economies: Maya Identity in Thought and Practice, which was named Outstanding Academic Title for 2002 by Choice magazine, and Broccoli and Desire: Global Connections and Maya Struggles in Postwar Guatemala.