Charles Klein is an applied health, urban and educational anthropologist with over 25 years of research experience in Brazil, the United States, the Philippines, and mostly recently, Antwerp, Belgium. Dr. Klein has been part of the faculty at PSU since 2012 and served as Chair from 2020-2025. In his time at PSU, he has received grants from the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Oregon Council on Problem Gambling, and the University of Antwerp. His current research focuses on (1) first-generational university students in different global settings (e.g., US, Brazil, Belgium, South Africa), and (2) bar-based electronic machine gambling in Oregon. Uniting his work is a commitment to supporting healthy communities through community-engaged research and understanding the complex interactions between public policy, politics and everyday life.
Selected Works:
Urban and Political Anthropology
- Klein, Charles H., Alessandra Tavares, and Milena Mateuzi Carmo. 2020. “Between ‘Us’ and ‘Them’: Political Subjectivities in the Shadows of the 2018 Brazilian Election.” Revista de Antropologia 63(2), 1-26. Published simultaneously in Portuguese at the same journal. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27007279
- Klein, Charles H. 2019. “Flipping the City: Space and Subjectivity in the São Paulo Periphery.” City & Society 31(2): 142-163. https://doi.org/10.1111/ciso.12207
- Klein, Charles H., Benjamin Junge, & Mitchell, Sean. 2018. “Naming Brazil’s Previously Poor: The 'New Brazilian Middle Class' as an Economic, Political, and Experiential Category." Economic Anthropology 5: 83-95. Sérgio Buarque de Holanda Best Article in Social Sciences, Latin America Studies Association (LASA) Brazil Section 2018 Prize. https://doi.org/10.1002/sea2.12104.
Higher Education
- Carmo, Milena Mateuzi, Moutinho, Laura and Charles H. Klein. 2023. “Periferias nas Universidades: Ecos Femininos das Políticas de Ações Afirmativas" [Peripheries in Universities: Female Echoes of Affirmative Action Policies], Revista Brasileira de Sociologia, 10(26), 124-152. https://www.redalyc.org/journal/5957/595774415006/595774415006.pdf
- Klein, Charles H. and Milena Mateuzi Carmo. 2019. “I Never Thought This Could Be For Me”: Aspirations, Identities, and Political Engagement among First-Generation College Students in São Paulo.”. International Studies in Sociology of Education 28(3-4): 259-278. https://doi.org/10.1080/09620214.2019.1626261
- Klein, Charles H. 2017. “Opening Up the Echo Chamber: Teaching Cultural Competence in Contentious Times.” Teaching Anthropology 7(1): 54-61; https://doi.org/10.22582/ta.v7i1.466
Health
- Klein, Charles H. 2022. “Voyages in Applied and Activist Anthropology.” General Anthropology 29(1), 7-10. https://tinyurl.com/5n6w5jes
- Bone, Carlton, Munger, Kaelas, Klein, Charles H., & Strongin, Roberts. 2022. New Kinds of [Hash]tags: An Interdisciplinary Examination of Semi-Synthetic Cannabinoids. Journal of Student Research, 11(2). https://doi.org/10.47611/jsr.v11i2.1751
- Klein, Charles H. 2021. “Epigenetics and Applied Anthropology.” In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Anthropology. Oxford University Press, 2017. Article published December 22, 2021; https://doi.org/10.1093/acrefore/9780190854584.013.537
- Sun Cristina J., Anderson Kirsten M., Mayer Liat, Kuhn Tamara, & Klein, Charles H. 2019. Findings from formative research to develop a strength-based HIV prevention and sexual health promotion mHealth intervention for transgender women, Transgender Health 4:1, 350–358. https://doi.org/10.1089/trgh.2019.0032
- Klein, Charles H., Tamara Kuhn, Danielle Huxley, Jamie Kennel, Elizabeth Withers & Carmela Lomonaco. 2017. “Real Talk: Promoting Sexual Health among Black MSM through a Harm Reduction e-Health Program.” JMIR Public Health and Surveillance. https://doi.org/10.2196/publichealth.7933
Courses Taught:
- Anth 103 Introduction to Social/Cultural Anthropology
- Anth 300U The Modern World in Anthropological Perspective: Science, Technology & Society
- Anth 304 Identity and Society
- Anth 311U Peoples and Cultures of Latin America
- Anth 325U Culture, Health, and Healing
- Anth 333U Anthropology of Food
- Anth 345 Practicing Anthropology
- Anth 415/515 Applied Anthropology
- Anth 416/516 Urban Anthropology
- Anth 425/525 Topics in Medical Anthropology
- Anth 431/531 Topics in Latin American in Ethnography
- Anth 511 Core Seminar in Social and Cultural Anthropology