FOUNDER
FPR Founder Robert Lemelson, PhD
The FPR was founded in December 1999 with a gift from Robert Lemelson, PhD, FPR President, a psychological anthropologist and documentary filmmaker, to support and advance interdisciplinary research bridging anthropology, psychology, psychiatry, and the neurosciences. A graduate of Hampshire College, Dr. Lemelson received his MA in anthropology from the University of Chicago with additional training in clinical psychology and his PhD from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). His area of interest is Southeast Asian studies, psychological and visual anthropology, and transcultural psychiatry.
Dr. Lemelson is an adjunct professor of anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and a research anthropologist in the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA. He is also an adjunct lecturer in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. A former Fulbright scholar, he has been conducting psychological and visual anthropological research in Indonesia, on the islands of Bali and Java, yearly for the past 20 years. His work has appeared in such journals as Culture, Medicine and Psychiatry, Ethos, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and Transcultural Psychiatry. He is also the co-editor of three volumes with Cambridge University Press: Understanding Trauma: Integrating Biological, Clinical, and Cultural Perspectives (Kirmayer, Lemelson, & Barad, 2007), Re-Visioning Psychiatry: Cultural Phenomenology, Critical Neuroscience, and Global Mental Health (Kirmayer, Lemelson, & Cummings, 2015), and Culture, Mind, Brain: Emerging Concepts, Models, Applications (Kirmayer, Worthman, Kitayama, Lemelson, & Cummings, 2020).
In 2007 he founded Elemental Productions, an ethnographic documentary film production company. He has produced and directed over a dozen ethnographic films on subjects ranging from genocide, the sex trade, mental illness, kinship, ritual and related topics. Dr. Lemelson and colleagues frequently blog about their experiences making films at psychoculturalcinema.com. His ethnographic work has culminated in a book that Dr. Lemelson co-authored with Dr. Anne Tucker, Afflictions: Steps Toward a Visual Psychological Anthropology (2017), published by Palgrave Macmillan.
Dr. Lemelson was the 2017 recipient of the Creative Scholarship Award from the Society for the Study of Psychiatry and Culture for his significant creative contribution to the field of cultural psychiatry. The award was presented at SSPC’s annual meeting, held on April 27-29.
Dr. Lemelson serves as a director and vice-president of the Lemelson Foundation, a family foundation whose mission is to promote innovation and invention in American society and the developing world. He is also the founding director and president of the Robert Lemelson Foundation, which was established in 2010 to promote global mental health and well-being. Additionally, he supports the Indonesian Studies Program and the Lemelson Anthropological Honors Program at UCLA, as well as the Lemelson/Society for Psychological Anthropology Student Fellowship Program.
NEWS
American Anthropological Association: 2018 AAA Executive Director’s Award recipient
RECENT EVENTS
Wednesday, May 11, 2022, 3:00 p.m. – 5:00 p.m. @ UCLA Haines 352.
A book celebration with Dr. Robert Lemelson for his new book, Widening the Frame with Visual Psychological Anthropology: Perspectives on Trauma, Gendered Violence, and Stigma in Indonesia.
March 19, 2022: USC PAM Curator Dr. Rebecca Hall and psychological anthropologist and filmmaker Dr. Robert Lemelson gave an intimate look at PAM’s new exhibition.
Exhibition at USC Pacific Asia Museum, Bali: Agency and Power in Southeast Asia, March 18-June 12, 2022, featuring original Balinese paintings from Dr. Lemelson’s collection.
This exhibition centers on paintings collected in Bali by cultural anthropologists Gregory Bateson (1904-1980) and Margaret Mead (1901-1978) during their fieldwork on the island from 1936 until 1939. Utilizing the paintings as a foundation for exploring the stories, beliefs, and daily lives of Balinese people, Bali: Agency and Power in Southeast Asia will guide visitors to a greater understanding of this often romanticized but frequently misunderstood island and examine the role that painters, tourists, and anthropologists had in shaping new art styles for communicating detailed aspects of Balinese society and beliefs.
Mental Illness in Indonesia: Outcome and Recovery in a Cultural Context (2016, March 4). Paper presented at the Annual Interpersonal Neurobiology Conference, University of California, Los Angeles.
SELECTED PUBLICATIONS
Kirmayer, L. J., Lemelson, R., & Barad, M. (Eds.). (2007). Understanding trauma: Integrating biological, clinical, and cultural perspectives. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511500008
Kirmayer, L. J., Lemelson, R., Cummings, C. A. (Eds.). (2015). Re-visioning psychiatry: Cultural phenomenology, critical neuroscience, and global mental health. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139424745
Kirmayer, L. J., Worthman, C. M., Kitayama, S., Lemelson, R., & Cummings, C. A. (Eds.). (2020). Culture, mind, and brain: Emerging concepts, models, and applications. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108695374
Lemelson, R. (2014). “The spirits enter me to force me to be a communist”: Political embodiment, idioms of distress, spirit possession, and thought disorder in Bali. In D. E. Hinton & A. L. Hinton (Eds.), Genocide and mass violence: Memory, symptom, and recovery (pp. 175-194). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781107706859.011
Lemelson, R., & Tucker, A. (2015). Afflictions: Psychopathology and recovery in cultural context. In L. J. Kirmayer, R. Lemelson, & C. A. Cummings (Eds.), Re-visioning psychiatry: Cultural phenomenology, critical neuroscience, and global mental health (pp. 483-514). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139424745.022
Lemelson, R., & Tucker, A. (2015). Steps toward an integration of psychological and visual anthropology: Issues raised in the production of the film series Afflictions: Culture and Mental Illness in Indonesia. Ethos, 43(1), 6–39. https://doi.org/10.1111/etho.12070
Lemelson, R. & Tucker, A. (2017). Afflictions: Steps toward a visual psychological anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-59984-7
Lemelson, R. & Tucker, A. (2021). Widening the frame with visual psychological anthropology. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79883-3