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Phyllis Fast
Professor EmeritaDepartment of Anthropology and Alaska Native Studies
In Memoriam, 1946-2019
Education
- Ph.D., Anthropology, Harvard University, 1998
Biography

Dr. Fast retired Professor Emerita in 2014 after 10 years in the Departments of Anthropology
and Liberal Studies and many years at UAF in the Alaska Native Studies program. She
received a BA in English from the University of Alaska Fairbanks, an interdisciplinary
M.A. in Anthropology and English on Alaska Native Literary Forms from the University
of Alaska Anchorage, and a PhD in Social Anthropology from Harvard University. After
receiving her first degree at UAF, Dr. Fast studied both Western and Alaska Native
art, and developed a career as a gallery artist in Anchorage. Her research interests
related to Alaska Native peoples, literary, visual and performative arts, as well
as areas of transnational political and social economy as it related to Indigenous
peoples, particularly in the area of gender relations. Among her favorite courses
taught were Alaska Native Cultures, Anthropology of Art, and Native North Americans.
She was the author of Northern Athabascan Survival: Women, Community and the Future. In 2009, Dr. Fast was part of a research team investigating Native perspectives
on Alaska’s statehood for Sealaska Heritage Institute. Dr. Fast, a Koyukon Athabascan,
conducted research among Athabascan elders for the project. After retirement, she
completed two children’s books and four Native American novels. She passed away in
January 2019 but will be forever remembered as a kind, wise, and witty colleague and
mentor. She is memorialized in Beatrice McDonald Hall with her original watercolor “Healy”
that she donated to the Department of Anthropology.
Research Interests
- Social anthropology
- Gender
- Alaska Native art
- North America.