Professor Mueggler is a cultural anthropologist and historian who works with indigenous, Tibeto-Burman-speaking peoples in Southwest China. He has written widely on ritual and politics, histories of natural history, and histories of death. His books include The Age of Wild Ghosts: Memory, Violence and Place in Southwest China (University of California Press, 2001); The Paper Road: Archive and Experience in the Botanical Exploration of West China and Tibet (University of California Press, 2010); and Songs for Dead Parents: Corpse, Text, and World in Southwest China (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Professor Mueggler is a recipient of the MacArthur Foundation Fellowship. His current project on literacy, sovereignty, and slavery in a chiefly realm in Qing-dynasty southwest China is supported by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Guggenheim Foundation.