Sandra Cate

Professor Emeritus

Expertise:
Material and expressive culture, narratives, contemporary Buddhist art, textiles, tourism

Clark Hall 469
408-924-5710
sandra.cate@sjsu.edu

Sandra Cate, Lecturer Emerita, retired from San José State in the Spring of 2015, having taught in the Anthropology Department since 1998. Dr. Cate taught a broad range of cultural anthropology classes, including Emerging Global Cultures, Human Sexuality, Culture and Conflict, the Anthropology of Southeast Asia, and Kinship and Social Organization.

Her research interests explore the material and expressive culture of Southeast Asia and in the Southeast Asian diaspora. She has written scholarly articles and lectured on Buddhist temple murals, narrative scrolls, contemporary art, tourism and textiles, Mien/Yao embroidery, and Bangkok traffic jams.

Dr. Cate’s books include Making Merit, Making Art: A Thai Temple in Wimbledon (2003), Buddhist Storytelling in Thailand and Laos: The Vessantara Jataka Scroll at the Asian Civilisations Museum (2013, with Leedom Lefferts) and Converging Interests: Traders, Travellers and Tourists in Southeast Asia (1999, with Jill Forshee and Christina Fink). She has also contributed chapters to recent books on contemporary Southeast Asian Art and Buddhist narratives.