Marcia Rego holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from the University of California, San Diego, and teaches anthropology-themed, writing-intensive courses at Duke University, where she is Director for Faculty Development and Assessment for the Thompson Writing Program. She is interested in the ethnography of language—written, spoken or otherwise performed—and has focused her research on the Cape Verdean Creole. This essay was inspired by research she did in Brazil for her master’s thesis, “The Nude and the Dressed: An Ethnography of Nudity at Praia do Pinho” (“O Nu e o Vestido: Uma Etnografia da Nudez na Praia do Pinho”).
