Department of Anthropology

Education:

Ph.D. 2020 University of Nevada, Las Vegas
M.A. 2014 University of Nevada, Las Vegas
B.A. 2009 University of Minnesota, Twin Cities

Areas of Research:

Psychological anthropology, gender and sexuality, anthropology of love and intimacy, sex work and human trafficking, marriage and courtship, socio-legal studies; Korea, East Asia, United States

Teaching:

Understanding Culture; Gender, Race and Class; Cultural Anthropology; Anthropology of Crime and Criminalization; Complicating Human Trafficking 

Background:

Dr. Nelson is a socio-cultural anthropologist whose research explores transformations in intimate relationships, particularly South Koreans' shifting expectations and experiences of marriage and courtship, and how the internet and public policy shape the entrepreneurial strategies of independent sex workers in the direct and virtual sectors of the commercial sex industry. He conducted extensive ethnographic fieldwork in South Korea exploring Koreans' evolving understandings of love and gender in the context of romantic relationships. He is also a researcher on the Erotic Entrepreneurs Project, an interdisciplinary study of the business strategies of independent online female escorts in the U.S. His most recent project explores racial inequality and ethno-erotic economies in the adult webcam modeling industry. He is also currently co-editing a volume, Love "Apocalypse": New Intimacies and the Decline in Marriage and Fertility, on how transformations in intimacy are contributing to declining marriage and fertility rates in diverse ethnographic contexts.

Personal Website: www.alexjnelson.com

EE Project Website: www.eroticentrepreneurs.com

Representative Publications:

Jankowiak, W., & Nelson, A. In Press. Archeology of love: A review of the ethnographic exploration of love around the world. In D. Buss (Ed.), Handbook of Human Mating. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Nelson, A. 2021. Sacrifice and the agapic love gender gap in South Korean romantic relationships. In C. Mayer & E. Vanderheiden (Eds.), International Handbook of Love: Transcultural and Transdisciplinary Perspectives (pp. 1013-1027). Cham, CH: Springer.