Visiting Lecture Series
The annual Visiting Lecture Series brings prominent scholars from across the country and around the world to campus, either in person or virtually, who share diverse theoretical and methodological perspectives relating to a topic of interest in contemporary anthropology. The series is designed for undergraduate and graduate students to have the opportunity to engage deeply with a topic, and to meet a variety of leaders in their discipline.
2024 Visiting Lecture Series — Technology
We are living in a world of rapid technological advancements, and with this in mind, the theme of our 50th year of the Visiting Lecture Series is technology. We will visit a range of topics with technology as a central throughline, looking at how technological developments shape human life from an anthropological perspective. These topics include explorations of how people have developed and incorporated new technologies in the past and present, focusing on how technology has a role in transforming lifeways and social interactions. We also will examine how technological advances have changed how anthropologists carry out research, allowing us to delve into new areas of inquiry.
Wed., Sept. 4
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Amy Non [Virtual]
Anthropology, UC San Diego
“In between nature and nurture: Epigenetics technologies open new areas of anthropological inquiry”
Thur., Sept. 5
102 Mossman
9:45 – 11:00am
Dr. Amy Non [Virtual]
Anthropology, UC San Diego
“Introduction to epigenetics for anthropology”
Wed., Sept. 11
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Hyunwoo Jung
Anthropology, UC Davis
“Deciphering the evolutionary history of human and primate skeletal morphology”
Thurs., Sept. 12
102 Mossman
9:45 – 11:00am
Dr. Hyunwoo Jung
Anthropology, UC Davis
“Deciphering the evolutionary history of human and primate skeletal morphology”
Wed., Sept. 18
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Tiffany Fracchia
Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
“Moving beyond you are what you eat: Advances in isotope analysis for anthropology”
Thurs., Sept. 19
102 Mossman
9:45 – 11:00am
Dr. Tiffany Fracchia
Anthropology, Vanderbilt University
“Moving beyond you are what you eat: Advances in isotope analysis for anthropology”
Wed., Oct. 2
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Winifred Poster
International Affairs Program, Washington University, St. Louis
“Scams, bots, and digital workers: Deception in online platform economies”
Thurs., Oct. 3
102 Mossman
9:45- 11:00am
Dr. Winifred Poster
International Affairs Program, Washington University, St. Louis
“Scams, bots, and digital workers: Deception in online platform economies”
Wed., Oct. 16
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Hannah Lau
Anthropology, Hamilton College
“Feeding the living, feeding the dead: Food production, land use, and placemaking in the Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age South Caucuses”
Thurs., Oct. 17
102 Mossman
9:45 – 11:00am
Dr. Hannah Lau
Anthropology, Hamilton College
“Feeding the living, feeding the dead: Food production, land use, and placemaking in the Middle Bronze to Early Iron Age South Caucuses”
Weds., Oct. 23
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Shawn Bender
East Asian Studies, Dickinson College
“Care as Iterative Engagement: HAL in Germany”
Thurs., Oct. 24
102 Mossman
9:45 – 11:00am
Dr. Shawn Bender
East Asian Studies, Dickinson College
“Caring with robots in aging Japan”
Weds., Oct. 30
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Eric Kansa [Virtual]
Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley
“So Much Data, So Little Time: Lessons from 18 Years of Publishing Data with Open Context”
Thurs., Oct. 31
102 Mossman
9:45 – 11:00am
Dr. Eric Kansa [Virtual]
Archaeological Research Facility, UC Berkeley
“So Much Data, So Little Time: Lessons from 18 Years of Publishing Data with Open Context”
Weds., Nov. 13
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Gabriel Sanchez
American Indian & Religious Studies, Michigan State University
“Archaeological Geophysics in Collaborative Archaeology”
Thurs., Nov. 314
102 Mossman
9:45 – 11:00am
Dr. Gabriel Sanchez
American Indian & Religious Studies, Michigan State University
“Archaeological Geophysics in Collaborative Archaeology”
Weds., Nov. 20
M309 Walters Academic Building
4:10-6:35pm
Dr. Liam Frink [Virtual]
Anthropology, University of Nevada – Las Vegas
“Alaskan Native Food Technologies & Community Engaged Science”
Thurs., Nov. 21
102 Mossman
9:45-11:00am
Dr. Liam Frink [Virtual]
Anthropology, University of Nevada – Las Vegas
“Alaskan Native Food Technologies & Community Engaged Science”
2023 Visiting Lecture Series — Mobility
Wed., Sept. 6
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Helina Woldekiros
Washington University in St. Louis
“Lost Routes, Found Stories: Traversing the Ethnoarchaeological Landscapes of Ancient Caravans in the Horn of Africa”
Tues., Sept. 12
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Kandace Hollenbach
Anthropology
“Gathering & Mobility Strategies of Early Foragers in the Southeast”
Wed., Sept. 13
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Bertin M. Louis, Jr.
University of Kentucky
“Anti-Haitianism, Statelessness, & Religious Practice in the Bahamas”
Tues., Sept. 19
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Alison Damick
McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture
Outreach
Wed., Sept. 27
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Jeannie Bailey
UC San Francisco
“From Bones to Mobile Phones: How to Better Understand & Predict Risk for Low Back Pain”
Tues., Oct. 3
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Elizabeth Webster
College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences
“Examining the Relationship between Fundamental Motor Skills and Positive Health-Related Outcomes”
Wed., Oct. 4
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Jeremy DeSilva
Dartmouth College
“Old Footprints, New Questions”
Wed., Oct. 11
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Rashmi Sadana
George Mason University
“The Moving City: Urban Transport, Social Mobilities, & Spatial Transformation in Delhi”
Tues., Oct. 17
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Aleydis Van de Moortel
Classics
“Shipbuilding, Seafaring, & Human Mobility in the Stone and Bronze Ages”
Wed., Oct. 18
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Christine Harper
Cooper Medical School
“Functional Adaptations in the Gorilla Hindfoot”
Tues., Oct. 24
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Tatiana Sánchez-Parra
Anthropology
“Gendered places: Confinement, Reproduction, & War in Colombia”
Tues., Oct. 25
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Susanna Fioratta
Bryn Mawr College
“Welcome to the one percent”: Specialty coffee, craft beer, & mobility through taste in Colombia
Tues., Oct. 31
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Sierra Bow
Anthropology
“Colors of the Past: Reconstructing Mississippian Paints through Experimental and Analytical Investigation”
Tues., Nov. 7
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Stephen Collins-Elliott
Classics
“Between Archaeology and Historiography: Mobility and Group Identities in Roman and Late Roman North Africa”
Wed., Nov. 8
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. K. Brandon Barker
Indiana University
“From Genealogy to Folk Art: John Baker, Jr. & The Washingtons of Wessyngton Plantation”
Tues., Nov. 14
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. Karim Alizadeh
Anthropology
“GIS & the Landscape of Movement”
Wed., Nov. 15
Strong Hall B1
4:10-6:30pm
Dr. Michael Perez
University of Memphis
“On Becoming Other: Statelessness as Alienation among Gaza Refugees in Jordan”
Tues., Nov. 21
Mossman 202
8:10-9:25am
Dr. De Ann Pendry
Anthropology
“Mobility Within & Beyond Latin America: Nicaraguan Miskitu Migration”
2022 Visiting Lecture Series — Global Treatment of Death
“Death is universally inevitable” (Hoy 2013:13) – this shared fate may be the one commonality that unites every living person, their ancestors, and their future kin. However, the ways that humans experience, understand, and cope with death is not universal. How have humans ritualized the process of dealing with their dead? From a critical and cross-cultural perspective, this course explores what death means throughout the world and through time, by examining different cultures’ ideas about death, funerary practices, and treatment of the dead.
Sept. 1
Zoom
12:55pm
Dr. De Ann Pendry, Anthropology
“Días de los Muertos, Days of the Dead: An Overview of Practices in Mexico and Latin America”
Sept. 6
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Shannon O’Loughlin, Association on American Indian Affairs
“The Human Rights of Ancestors”
Sept. 7
Haslam Business Bldg, Rm 103
4:30pm
Shannon O’Loughlin, Association on American Indian Affairs
“The Human Rights of Ancestors”
Sept. 8
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Sara Ritchey, History
“Women as Caretakers of the Dead & Dying in Late Medieval European Christianity”
Sept. 13
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Megan Bryson, Religious Studies
“Gendering the Afterlife in China”
Sept. 14
Haslam Business Bldg, Rm 103
4:30pm
Dr. Leor Halevi, Vanderbilt University
“Funerals and the Afterlife from al-Jahiliyya to Islam”
Sept. 15
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Leor Halevi, Vanderbilt University
“Funerals and the Afterlife from al-Jahiliyya to Islam”
Sept. 20
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Lucia Elgerud, Anthropology
“Mortuary Care in Somaliland: Recovering the Dead After Government Atrocities”
Sept. 21
Zoom
11:30am
Dr. Asli Zengin, Rutgers University
“Caring for the Dead: Touch, Funerals, and Mourning in Contemporary Turkey”
Sept. 22
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Asli Zengin, Rutgers University
“Caring for the Dead: Touch, Funerals, and Mourning in Contemporary Turkey”
Sept. 27
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Alex Bentley, Anthropology
“The Prehistory of Kinship”
Sept. 29
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Susan Lawrence, History
“Post-mortem Privacy: Who May Tell Your Grandmother’s Story?”
Oct. 4
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Christina Torres, UC Merced
“Dying along the Way: Marking and Memorializing the Death of Travelers in Prehistoric Northern Chile”
Oct. 5
Haslam Business Bldg, Rm 103
4:30pm
Dr. Christina Torres, UC Merced
“Dying along the Way: Marking and Memorializing the Death of Travelers in Prehistoric Northern Chile”
Oct. 11
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Dimitris Xygalatas, University of Connecticut
TBA
Oct. 12
Haslam Business Bldg, Rm 103
4:30pm
Dr. Liv Nillson Stutz, Linnaeus University
“Processing Death: Placing the Cadaver at the Center of the Archaeology of Death”
Oct. 13
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Liv Nillson Stutz, Linnaeus University
“Death, Rituals, and the Body: Archaeological Approaches to Death in the Past”
Oct. 18
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Kami Fletcher, Albright College
“A Fight for Burial Rights: The Importance of Autonomous Black Burial Grounds”
Oct. 19
Haslam Business Bldg, Rm 103
4:30pm
Dr. Kami Fletcher, Albright College
“What’s in a Name? Funeral Directors, Female Undertakers and Patriarchy”
Oct. 20
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Tina Sheperdson, Religious Studies
TBA
Oct. 25
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Erin Darby, Religious Studies
TBA
Oct. 27
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Kinsey Stewart, Anthropology
“Medicolegal Death Investigation Practices in East Tennessee: An Anthropological Autopsy”
Nov. 1
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Michele Buzon, Purdue University
“Two Decades of Tombos Archaeological Mortuary Research: Successes, Challenges, and Future Goals”
Nov. 2
Haslam Business Bldg, Rm 103
4:30pm
Dr. Michele Buzon, Purdue University
“Two Decades of Tombos Archaeological Mortuary Research: Successes, Challenges, and Future Goals”
Nov. 3
TBA
TBA
Nov. 8
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Lee Jantz, Anthropology
“The Forensic Anthropology Center and All That Remains”
Nov. 9
Haslam Business Bldg, Rm 103
4:30pm
Dr. Cate Bird, ICRC
TBA
Nov. 10
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Cate Bird, ICRC
TBA
Nov. 15
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Myriam Lamrani, Harvard University
“An Aesthetic Approach of Necropolitics in Mexico”
Nov. 16
McClung Museum Rm 63
5:30pm
Dr. Myriam Lamrani, Harvard University
“An Aesthetic Approach of Necropolitics in Mexico”
Nov. 17
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Katherine Ambroziak, College of Architecture & Design
TBA
Nov. 22
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Monica Black, History
“Death after Mass Death: How Two World Wars Reshaped German Burial Cultures”
Nov. 29
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Elizabeth Strand, School of Veterinary Medicine
TBA
Dec. 1
Walters Academic Bldg, Rm M307
12:55pm
Dr. Jennifer Perion, School of Public Health
“Ego Integrity and Positive Death Attitudes among Older Adults”
2021 Visiting Lecture Series — Decolonization, Anti-Racism, Abolition
Sept. 8
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Chip Colwell (Sapiens) and Stewart Koyiyumptewa (Hopi Cultural Preservation Office)
(speakers will join us remotely)
“Twisting Strings: Hopi Ancestors and Ancient DNA”
Sept. 14
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Rick Smith (George Mason University)
“The Human Rights of Ancestors”
Sept. 15
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Rick Smith (George Mason University)
“Aftercare: Up/ending Sex, Nature, and Science”
Sept. 28
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Michael Blakey (William & Mary)
(speaker will join us remotely)
“Racist Anthropology and its Alternatives”
Sept. 29
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Michael Blakey (William & Mary)
(speaker will join us remotely)
“Public Engagement with Descendant Communities and the Democratization of Knowledge”
Oct. 13
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Eshe Lewis (Sapiens)
“Unthinkable Abuse: Understanding the Silences around Afro-Peruvian Women’s Experiences with Intimate Partner Violence”
Oct. 14
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Eshe Lewis (Sapiens)
“Storytelling as Activism: Bearing Witness, Creating Records”
Oct. 19
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Deborah Boehm (University of Nevada, Reno)
#FreeThemAll: U.S. Immigration Detention and the Movement to End It”
Oct. 20
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Deborah Boehm (University of Nevada, Reno)
“A Study of Unseen Spaces: Anthropology, Activism, and Abolition”
Oct. 27
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Ajantha Subramanian (Harvard University)
(speaker will join us remotely)
“Meritocracy and Democracy: The Social Life of Caste in India””
Oct. 28
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Ajantha Subramanian (Harvard University)
(speaker will join us remotely)
“Merit and Privilege”
Nov. 2
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez (Northern Arizona University)
“Decolonizing Archaeology the Navajo Way: Lessons from the Navajo Nation”
Nov. 3
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Ora Marek-Martinez (Northern Arizona University)
“Indigenous Archaeology and the Refusal of Colonialism in Archaeology”
Nov. 9
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Rachel Watkins (American University)
TBA
Nov. 10
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Rachel Watkins (American University)
TBA
Nov. 17
Strong Hall B1
4:30pm
Dr. Lindsay Montgomery (University of Arizona)
“You Have Harmed Us’: Stories of Violence, Resistance, and Survivance from the U.S. Indian Education System”
Nov. 18
Stokely Management Center G2
4:30pm
Dr. Lindsay Montgomery (University of Arizona)
“Naming the Dead: Reclaiming Sites of Historical Trauma at Carlisle”
2020 Visiting Lecture Series — Climate Change and Human Response
Aug. 25
Lindsey Cochran, University of Georgia
“Predictive Modeling to Create a Timeline of Climate Impacts to Cultural Resources on the Coastline of Georgia, USA”
Aug. 26
Shane Miller, Mississippi State University
“Getting from the Pleistocene to the Present in the American Southeast: What Is and What Still Could Be”
Aug. 27
Steven Goldstein Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History
“Fisher-forager Responses to Climate Change in Holocene Eastern Africa: Contrasting Records of Innovation and Resilience from the Lake Turkana and Lake Victoria Regions”
Sept. 1
Jade Sasser, Associate Professor, Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside
“Navigating Tradition and Modernity in Gendered Cooking Technology”
Sept. 2
Eric J. Bartelink, Professor of Anthropology, California State University, Chico
“Patterns of Interpersonal Violence in the Prehistoric San Francisco Bay Area”
Sept. 3
Eric J. Bartelink, Professor of Anthropology, California State University, Chico
“Earth, Wind, and Fire: Forensic Anthropology and Wildfire Mass Fatality Incidents in California”
Sept. 8
Dr. Claire Jantz, Professor, Department of Geography-Earth Science, Shippensburg University
“Accounting for the Synergistic Effects of Land Use Change and Climate Change using Scenarios of the Future”
Sept. 10
Maria Fadiman, Department of Geosciences Florida Atlantic University
“The Personal Relationships between People and Plants: Cultural Resilience in Relation to the Environment”
Sept. 22
Dr. Sally Horn, Professor Department of Geography, University of Tennessee
“Sediment Records of Prehistoric Human Activity and Environmental Change”
Sept. 23
Christopher S. Jazwa, Department of Anthropology, University of Nevada, Reno
“Climate Change, Cultural Adaptations, and Settlement Patterns on California’s Northern Channel Islands”
Sept. 29
José E. Martínez-Reyes, Associate Professor, Department of Anthropology and School for the Environment (Affiliate), University of Massachusetts Boston
“Mahogany Forestry, Climate Change, and Gibson Guitars”
Sept. 30
Victor Thompson, Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia
“Examining the Historical Ecology of Climate Change and Collective Action in Two Coastal Southeastern U.S. Case Studies”
Oct. 1
Kenneth E. Sassaman, Hyatt and Cici Brown Professor of Florida Archaeology, Department of Anthropology, University of Florida
“Hurricane Fetishism and the Vulnerability of Social Memory”
Oct. 6
Samantha Yaussy, Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Anthropology, Utah State .University
“Disaster, Disease, and Death: Bioarchaeology of the Nexus of Famines, Pandemics, and Mass Mortality”
Oct. 7
Sarah Miller, Florida Public Archaeology Network
“Participatory Site Stewardship Programs to Address Heritage at Risk”
Oct. 8
Jason Cons, Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin
“Ecologies of Capture: Predation and Conservation on a Climate Frontier”
Oct. 13
Mona Bhan, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University
“Jinn, Floods, and Climate Anxieties in Occupied Kashmir”
Oct. 14
Mona Bhan, Department of Anthropology, Syracuse University
“Dust, Renewability, and Hydropower in Occupied Kashmir”
Oct. 15
Marcy Rockman, ICOMOS-IPCC Scientific Coordinator Climate Change and Heritage Working Group International Council on Monuments and Sites
“Archaeological Stories and Answers to Climate Questions”
Oct. 20
Karen Y. Smith, Heritage Trust Archaeologist, Land, Water and Conservation Division S.C. Department of Natural Resources
“What is Found is Lost: Rapid Investigation of Pockoy Island Shell Ring 1 and Related Sites in Charleston County, South Carolina”
Oct. 21
Meg Gaillard Heritage Trust Archaeologist, Land, Water and Conservation Division S.C. Department of Natural Resources
“Community Archaeology on a Heritage at Risk Site, Pockoy Island Shell Rings on Botany Bay Plantation Heritage Preserve, Charleston County, South Carolina”
Oct. 22
Meg Gaillard Heritage Trust Archaeologist, Land, Water and Conservation Division S.C. Department of Natural Resources
“Disaster Preparedness and Recovery: The South Carolina Archaeological Archive Flood Recovery Project as a Case Study”
Oct. 27
Jeff T. Larsen, Ph.D. Professor of Psychology & Experimental Psychology Program Director University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“Psychological Barriers to Dealing with Climate Change”
Nov. 3
Professor Stephan Lewandowsky FAcSS, University of Bristol
“Climate Science and the ‘Post-truth’ World”
Nov. 4
Dr. Ryan Harp, Northwestern University
“Links Between Climate and Human Health”
Nov. 5
Dr. Javier L. Arnaut, Assistant Professor of Economics, Institute of Social Science, Economics, and Journalism University of Greenland
“The Greenlandic Dilemma: Decolonization and Climate Change in the Arctic”
Nov. 10
John Krigbaum, University of Florida
“Revisiting Old Teeth: Isotopic Perspectives on Space and Time in a Holocene Tropical C3 World in Island Southeast Asia”
Nov. 11
Simone Athayde, Associate Professor, Department of Global and Sociocultural Studies, Kimberly Green Latin American and Caribbean Center, Florida International University
“Cumulative Impacts of Climate Change and Infrastructure Development in Amazonian Indigenous Lands: Theoretical and Methodological Insights”
Nov. 12
Daniel H. Sandweiss, University of Maine
“New Flavors and Old Responses: El Niño, Disaster, and Resilience on the Coast of Peru”
Nov. 17
Chie Sakakibara, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College and Conservatory
“Singing for the Whales: Climate Change and Cultural Resilience among Iñupiat of Arctic Alaska”
Nov. 18
Chie Sakakibara, Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, Oberlin College and Conservatory
“Whale and Well-being: Climate Change in Arctic Alaska”
Nov. 19
Frances Roberts-Gregory, Northeastern University
“Women of Color and Climate Justice in Gulf Coast Louisiana: Reflections on Feminist Fieldwork”
2019 Visiting Lecture Series — Anthropology Outside of Academia
Aug. 21 / Undergrad
Dawnie Steadman
Introduction to the course: Components of a good question!
Aug. 26 / Undergrad
Dawnie Steadman
Science communication
Aug. 28 / Grad
Ryan Thoreson, Human Rights Watch / Yale Law School
“Putting Anthropology into Practice: Human Rights Documentation as Public Anthropology”
Aug. 28 / Undergrad
Ryan Thoreson, Human Rights Watch / Yale Law School
“Anthropology and the Rise of Sexual Rights Worldwide”
Sept. 4 / Grad
Palma Buttles, Director of Special Programs at SEI (Software Engineering Institute)
“Perspectives on Anthropology in Business and Research”
Sept. 4 / Undergrad
Palma Buttles, Director of Special Programs at SEI (Software Engineering Institute)
“Perspectives on Anthropology in Business and Research”
Sept. 9 / Undergrad
Susan Mazur-Stommen, CEO of Indieia Consulting
“Practicing Anthropology”
Sept. 11 / Undergrad
Amy Mundorff
“Anthropology during a Mass Disaster”
Sept. 16 / Undergrad
Luke Matthews, RAND Corporation
“Developing An Applied Career With Methods And Theory From Anthropology”
Sept. 18 / Undergrad
Brian Spatola, Curator, Anatomical Division, National Museum of Health and Medicine
“Forging a Career in Morgues and Museums”
Sept. 23 / Undergrad
Hobart Akin, Cultural Resources and Exhibits Specialist, Tennessee State Parks (Nashville)
“Public Archaeology and Outdoor Recreation: Interpretation and Preservation inside of Tennessee State Parks”
Sept. 25 / Undergrad
Dawnie Steadman
Job Searching in Anthropology; Preparing a CV and Resume
Sept. 30 / Undergrad
Jamie Marks, Program Manager, Tribal Historic Preservation Program, National Park Service (D.C.):
“Centering Your Strengths and Values to Navigate an Alt-Academic Career”
Oct. 2 / Grad
Emilio Dirlikov, Center for Disease Control; works on Zika, TB, Guillain-Barré Syndrome
“Of Mongeese, Aedes, and Leper Colonies : Anthropology as Epidemic Intelligence”
Oct. 2 / Undergrad
Emilio Dirlikov, Center for Disease Control; works on Zika, TB, Guillain-Barré Syndrome
“Of Mongeese, Aedes, and Leper Colonies : Anthropology as Epidemic Intelligence”
Oct. 7 / Undergrad
Jennifer Love, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, Washington, D.C:
“The Path to a Career in a Medical Examiner Office and the Value of a Degree in Anthropology”
Oct. 9 / Grad
Beatrix Arendt, Metascience Program Manager for Systemizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence, Center for Open Science (COS)
“Open Science and Anthropology”
Oct. 9 / Undergrad
Beatrix Arendt, Metascience Program Manager for Systemizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence, Center for Open Science (COS)
“Archaeology Out of the Field”
Oct. 9 / Undergrad
Beatrix Arendt, Metascience Program Manager for Systemizing Confidence in Open Research and Evidence, Center for Open Science (COS)
“Archaeology Out of the Field”
Oct. 14 / Grad
Adam Russell, Program Manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
TBA
Oct. 14 / Undergrad
Adam Russell, Program Manager, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
TBA
Oct. 16 / Undergrad
Tim Baumann, Curator of Archaeology, McClung Museum
“Why I Became a Museum Curator”
Oct. 21 / Undergrad
Franklin Damann, Lab Director, DPAA-OFFUTT (Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency)
TBA
Oct. 23 / Grad
Laura Regan, USAF Col; Senior Military Advisor to the Director OSD, Office of Net Assessment
“An Unconventional Anthropologist (i.e. What the Heck Do You Do with an Air Force Unicorn?)”
Oct. 23 / Undergrad
Laura Regan, USAF Col; Senior Military Advisor to the Director OSD, Office of Net Assessment
“An Unconventional Anthropologist (i.e. What the Heck Do You Do with an Air Force Unicorn?)”
Oct. 28 / Undergrad
Angi Christensen, Forensic Anthropologist, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Laboratory
“Forensic Anthropology at the FBI Laboratory”
Oct. 30 / Grad
Heather Thew, FBI SSA, Evidence Response Team Unit
FBI – Laboratory Division
“How Does an Anthropologist Become an FBI Agent?”
Oct. 30 / Undergrad
Heather Thew, FBI SSA, Evidence Response Team Unit
FBI – Laboratory Division
“How Does an Anthropologist Become an FBI Agent?”
Nov. 6 / Grad
Debra Budiani-Saberi, Coalition for Organ Failure Solutions (COFS)
“Two Decades of Following Illicit Organ Removals”
Nov. 6 / Undergrad
Debra Budiani-Saberi, Coalition for Organ Failure Solutions (COFS)
“Two Decades of Following Illicit Organ Removals”
Nov. 11 / Undergrad
Daniel Robinson, Hanover Research (marketing research)
“Persistence and Career Change as a Post-Academic Anthropologist”
Nov. 13 / Grad
Sara Ayers-Rigby, Southwest Region Director, Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN)
“Washing Into the Sea: Cultural Heritage at Risk in the Anthropocene”
Nov. 13 / Undergrad
Sara Ayers-Rigby, Southwest Region Director, Florida Public Archaeology Network (FPAN)
“Washing Into the Sea: Cultural Heritage at Risk in the Anthropocene”
Nov. 18 / Undergrad
Kelly Sauerwein, National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Biomaterials Group
“Not Your Standard Anthropologist: Biological Anthropology at NIST”
Nov. 20 / Undergrad
Paul Sledzik, National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB)
“Forensic Anthropology, Disaster Response and Federal Service”
Nov. 25 / Undergrad
Mike Angst, Tennessee Valley Authority
TBA
Dec. 2 / Undergrad
Marie Christine Dusault, Regional Forensic Specialist, International Committee of the Red Cross
“Humanitarian Forensic Action in Africa”
2018 Visiting Lecture Series — Memory
Memory is intensely personal and inherently social; rooted in the body, the mind, and the material world that we inhabit. Memory is the link that binds the present to the past, and—through the events and relationships we elect to remember or forget—ties the present to the future. Anthropologists and other social scientists approach memory from a variety of perspectives ranging from epigenetics—which studies the ways in which individual bodies encode lived experiences and pass them on to our progeny through heritable chemical changes in our DNA—to acts of social memory expressed in ritual, civic life, and the construction, maintenance, or erasure of commemorative objects and places. Acts of memorializing can be celebratory and inclusive, or exclusionary and violent.
Scholars characterize “memory work” as the “social practices that create memories, including recalling, reshaping, forgetting, inventing, coordinating and transmitting,” and as the scholarly analysis and understanding of these social practices (Mills and Walker 2008:4).
The speakers in this lecture series explore memory across the globe, from the ancient world to World War II, and at scales ranging from the molecular to the monumental. This year we will host nine speakers, including academics, museum professionals, and experts in traditional practices.
Sept. 12
Christy Coleman
How shall we remember?
Oct. 3
Charles Cobb & James E. Lockwood, Jr.
Science communication
Oct. 8
Sarah Wagner
National Memory, Local Belonging: Accounting for U.S. Missing in Action of the Vietnam War
Oct. 10
Roger and Shawna Cain
Cultural Memory, Native Voice and Representation
Oct. 24
Lindsey Freeman
This Atom Bomb in Me: Memory, Mimesis, and Poetics
Oct. 31
Lawrence Cohen
Nov. 13
Meg Conkey
Homes for Hunters? Exploring Upper Paleolithic Landscapes of Attachment, Connection, Familiarity, and Belongingness
Nov. 28
Zaneta Thayer
Biological Pathways for “Memory”: A Focus on Epigenetics
2017 Visiting Lecture Series — Violence
Violence as a phenomenon has long been viewed as an aberration to the pursuit of a normal, peaceful and unthreatened life. Humans in all societies share explicit and implicit understandings of violence, its prevalence, its regulation, its threatening qualities, its manifestation in relations between members or groups in society, and as a marker of exceptional power typically associated with states. Yet we also do know that violence as a phenomenon is not reducible to specific marked and visible acts, but can also take the form of deep rooted structural practices, often legitimated under the rubric of culture, religious sanction, social practice, and so on. In the modern era these structures include the ubiquitous logic of the nation state, and the globally conflict-ridden interstate system, but also derive from the historic legacies of exploitative and violent long-term historical relationships forged in slavery and colonialism. In recent decades the systemic crises of global capitalism combined with the political and ecological costs of rampant resource extraction have combined to produce armed and low intensity conflicts spanning the globe.
Violence presents complex new questions to anthropologists who for decades have tended to focus on studying social worlds characterized by relative peace and calm, and if they did study violence, it was often with the intention of trying to understand the roots of violence in the realm of the social, its regulation and normalization via social institutions, and its relationship to the symbolic ideas and practices governing social relations, from the intimate domain of the household to the sovereign power of the state.
This course will explore the topic of violence through a series of lectures by visiting and UTK-based scholars that cover a broad range of research in anthropology and related social sciences. These lectures will cover war and its effects on combatants and non-combatants, on the constitution of the ordinary, and everyday life for many, the relationship between violence and the state, as it manifests in the overt and tacit exercise of power, and the relationship between violence and various forms of social inequality such as those built around social identities such as race, class, gender and sexuality. Lectures will highlight global issues of war and human rights, power and social inequality, and bring into sharp focus the ethical and moral implications of violence as well as the problems inherent in conventional understandings of its causes and effects.
Aug. 30
Ather Zia
Of Traitors and Collaborators: Exploring the State of Occupation in Indian administered Kashmir
Sept. 25
Jodi Skipper
Touring Violence: History and Memory in Mississippi
Oct. 4
Tamar Shirinian
Queering Violence: Militarization, Imperialism, and Homonationalism
Oct. 11
Biju Mathew
Dalits and the nation: Gandhi, Ambedkar, and Hindu nationalism in contemporary India
Oct. 18
Can Aciksoz
The Generativity of Violence: The Body and Politics in the Wake of War
Oct. 25
Gilberto Rosas
Necro-subjection: On Making Dead to Let Live
Nov. 1
Sarah Ihmoud
Severed Intimacies: Women, Gender, and Policing the Family in Occupied East Jerusalem
Nov. 8
Mohan Ambikaipaker
Racialized State Violence, Racial Violence and Doing Activist Anthropology
Nov. 27
Damien Sojoyner
The Root Cause of Racial Violence
Events
