Cynthia Keppley Mahmood was born in Reading, Pennsylvania to a family of mixed German and Hungarian ancestry. Her mother and father were active in labor and union causes, and she grew up in an environment alive to social conscience. Travel to the Netherlands as a high school exchange student brought an international dimension to Dr. Mahmood’s early education, otherwise restricted by family circumstance to a narrower area. Neither her mother nor her father had finished secondary school, or traveled beyond the U.S. northeast.
Cynthia Mahmood learned Dutch, French and German while studying in Holland, and acquired a taste for independent study. She chose an experimental college for her bachelor’s degree, New College in Sarasota, Florida – which she attended as a fully-funded National Merit Scholar. This intense, highly intellectual experience in which each student was viewed as responsible for his or her own education and learning regarded as its own reward, shaped Dr. Mahmood’s lifelong perspective on pedagogy.
Cynthia’s bachelor’s research at New College consisted of an ethnographic field study in the village of Oostermeer (Eastermar) in the province of Friesland, the Netherlands. She learned the Frisian language in order to complete this case study of linguistic nationalism, which was later published by Waveland Press under the title Frisian and Free: Study of an Ethnic Minority of the Netherlands. She received the B.A. in Anthropology and Psychology in 1977.
Cynthia Mahmood’s own research has now expanded from Punjab to the neighboring conflict in Kashmir, including wider interests in the Islamic world since September 11, 2001. She has made several research trips to Cyprus for comparative purposes. Mahmood was appointed a Core Faculty Member at Notre Dame’s Center for Asian Studies in 2004, and is a Faculty Associate in Gender Studies. She remains fascinated by religious motivations for militancy and the issues religious and ethnic collectivities face in an unequal world.
Cynthia currently lives in Mishawaka, Indiana with her daughter, Naintara, divorced from Khalid Mahmood since 2003. She continues to work as an “engaged scholar,” a committed teacher, and a dedicated writer. Dr. Mahmood is a Fellow of the American Anthropological Association and a member of the American Civil Liberties Union.
Courtesy of University of Notre Dame