Palmié conducts ethnographic and historical research on Afro-Caribbean cultures, with an emphasis on Afro-Cuban religious formations and their relations to the history and cultures of a wider Atlantic world. His interests also include practices of historical representation and knowledge production, systems of slavery and unfree labor, constructions of race and ethnicity, conceptions of embodiment and moral personhood, medical anthropology, and the anthropology of food and cuisine. He is the author of three books, including The Cooking of History: How Not to Study Afro-Cuban Religion (University of Chicago Press, 2013), winner of the 2014 Clifford Geertz Prize from the Society for the Anthropology of Religion, and Wizards and Scientists: Explorations in Afro-Cuban Modernity and Tradition (Duke University Press, 2002), honorable mention for the Caribbean Studies Association Gordon K. and Sybil Lewis Award in 2004, as well as eleven co-authored books and edited volumes.

Palmié has served as President for the Society for the Anthropology of Religion; co-edited and authored several articles for encyclopedias, handbooks, and readers; and given numerous invited lectures, among other service to the field. He received the Quantrell Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching in 2010.

Read more about Professor Palmié here.