Kin and Connection: bodies and relations in archaeology and ancient genetics
Seminar
Kin and Connection: bodies and relations in archaeology and ancient genetics In conjunction with more precise absolute dating, biomolecular data (ie, aDNA, stable isotopes) have fundamentally changed the practice of archaeology, the questions archaeologists ask, and the possibilities for…
Human-alloprimate coexistence? Current debates and considerations
Seminar
Facilitating co-existence, defined here as sustainable sympatry, between humans and alloprimates requires careful thought and attention to an array of realities - from the material/ecological to the social/perceptual. Anthropology, sometimes seen to be at the nexus for tensions between interpretive…
Monsters and Crises
Seminar
This paper has two aims: (1) to introduce the broader project of Monster Anthropology that my colleague Geir Presterudstuen and I have been working on for over a decade now; and (2) to illustrate how an anthropological focus on monsters can add new perspectives on the ways in which we live with, in…
The white man in the desert: Aboriginal whiteness and settler belonging
Seminar
In the dry season of 1889 on the remote northwest coast of Australia, a station manager with a violent past went in search of a white man rumoured to be living deep in the desert. This episode is the starting point for an exploration into the strange history of Indigenous whiteness, from the…
Vietnam’s Role in Understanding Settlement and Social Change in Mainland Southeast Asia from c. 5000 – 3500 BP.
Seminar
Vietnam’s Role in Understanding Settlement and Social Change in Mainland Southeast Asia from c. 5000 – 3500 BP. Vietnam possesses some of the best-preserved early 5th to mid- 3rd millennium BP archaeological sites anywhere in Southeast Asia. They are often deeply stratified open air settlements…
The Challenge of Sorcery
Seminar
In many small world, pre-state societies it is believed that many misfortunes are the result of malicious human agency, using occult techniques. Shit does not just happen. The aim of this paper is to persuade the audience that this is a puzzle for the human evolutionary sciences, that the standard…
How shopping centres and other modern public spaces transform human consciousness
Seminar
The study of shopping centres, or “malls”, is now an established subfield in anthropology and urban studies. Yet strangely, few (if any) of these studies have reflected on the etymology of the term shopping mall. Its origin appears to be related to the use of the term National Mall to refer to the…