Category: events

Rescheduled: two Haiti events at GW

NOTE: These two events have been cancelled.

Gina Athena Ulysse, Wesleyan University Associate Professor of Anthropology, African Studies, Environmental Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Inaugural Fellow in the College of the Environment will be holding two events at GW – a workshop at 3pm and a performance at 6:30pm. See below for details.

Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse
Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse

Alter(ed)natives

When: Friday, March 4, 3 pm – 4 pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse explores the border zones between ethnography and performance, and discusses as she puts it, “why we need the visceral in the structural” to participate in the decolonizing project of accessing and reclaiming a full subject.

Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti, Me and THE WORLD

When: Friday, March 4, 6:30 pm – 7:30 pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse’s training as a cultural anthropologist informs this dramatic monologue about how Haiti’s past occupies its present. She weaves history, personal narrative, theory, and statistics in spoken-word with Vodou chants to reflect and deconstruct childhood memories, social (in)justice, spirituality, and the dehumanization of Haitians. Professor Ulysse is currently working on a montage ethnography, C’est Mon Devoir (It is My Duty): Stories of Civic Engagement, Urban Degradation and the Earthquake in Haiti.

These events are sponsored by the CIGA Seminar Series, the Global Gender Initiative, and the University Seminar in Performance

Upcoming WAPA event

“Cultural Sameness” and “Cultural Otherness”: Benefits and Drawbacks in Applied Anthropological Work

When: Tuesday, March 1 at 7:00 pm
Where: Charles Sumner School
1201 17th St NW
Washington, DC

Presenters: Michael Cernea, Stan Yoder, more TBA

Throughout much of the history of anthropology, students were expected to conduct fieldwork in cultures and societies not their own. That expectation shifted somewhat several decades ago, and students are able to do fieldwork in their own culture and society as well as in others. This panel discussion, led by Michael Cernea and assisted by Stan Yoder, will consider what is gained and what is given up in working in one’s own culture and society, or in a quite different one, with an emphasis on exploring the effects of “Cultural Sameness” and “Cultural Otherness” in the professional work of applied and development anthropologists. The discussion will continue the examination of issues that were raised following the Memorial Lecture in honor of Ruth Fredman Cernea in November of 2009.Also participating in the panel will be several people who work in applied anthropology: at least one working overseas and the other working domestically. The panel will explore the situations in which the work and insights of an indigenous anthropologist would be most effective, and those in which an anthropologist from the outside would be most effective. A description of the background to the panel’s topic and its relevance may be downloaded here (pdf document).

More information: March 2011 meeting

Violence in the city: book launch and discussion

NOTE: This event has been canceled.

Understanding and Supporting Community Responses to Urban Violence
When: Thursday, February 10th, 2011 from 12pm-2pm
Where: MC 13-121
The World Bank

Chair:
Sarah Cliff, Director, World Development Report

Presenters:
Alexandre Marc : Cluster Leader, Conflict Crime and Violence Team, Social Development Department (SDV), World Bank
Alys Willman: Social Development Specialist, Conflict Crime and Violence Team, SDV, World Bank

Discussants:
Junaid Ahmad: Sector Manager, Africa – Urban & Water, World Bank
Rodrigo Serrano: Senior Social Development specialist, LAC, World Bank

For millions of people around the world, violence, or the fear of violence, is a daily reality. Much of this violence concentrates in urban centers in the developing world. Cities are now home to half the world’s population and expected to absorb almost all new population growth over the next 25 years. In many cases, the scale of urban violence can eclipse those of open warfare; some of the world’s highest homicide rates occur in countries that have not undergone a war, but that have serious epidemics of violence in urban areas. This study emerged out of a growing recognition that urban communities themselves are an integral part of understanding the causes and impacts of urban violence and of generating sustainable violence prevention initiatives.

Continue reading “Violence in the city: book launch and discussion” →

WAPA February 2011 Meeting

The Faith and Organizations Project:  Findings and Process

When: Tuesday, February 1st, 7:00 pm
Where: Charles Sumner School
2101 17th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20036

Presenters: Jo Anne Schneider, Isaac Morrison, Laura Polk

The Faith and Organizations Project is a trans-disciplinary, multi-methods ethnographic project looking at the relationship between faith based organizations and their founding communities (see faithandorganizations.umd.edu). The project just completed a Lilly Endowment-funded project comparing 81 faith communities and organizations from Catholic, Mainline Protestant, Jewish, Evangelical, Quaker and African American Christian traditions. The project model involves agency hosts and practitioners as active participants in all aspects of the project, creating products for a variety of audiences. This presentation will briefly outline key findings, talk about project process, and discuss experience working on anthropologist-led, trans-disciplinary projects in the career paths of project researchers.

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Upcoming event at GW

The lecture series Museums and Antiquities – A New World presents:

“Taking the Long View: Twenty Years of Repatriation at the National Museum of Natural History”

by William Billeck, Repatriation Office Manager, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution

When: Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 6pm
Where: Funger Hall, Room 103
2201 G St. NW
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public

Dr. Billeck has been involved in more than 500 Native American repatriations at the Smithsonian including a case, which he initiated that resulted in the return of personal effects and hair to the descendants of Sitting Bull.

For more information: contact Kym Rice, kym@gwu.edu, or Jeffrey Blomster, blomster@gwu.edu.

This lecture series is a 2010-2011 George Washington University Seminar, sponsored by The Museum Studies Program & The Anthropology Department.

Two upcoming events of interest at GW

NOTE: These two events have been rescheduled for Friday, March 4. The workshop will be at 3pm and the performance will be at 6:30pm in the same location.

Gina Athena Ulysse, Wesleyan University Associate Professor of Anthropology, African Studies, Environmental Studies, and Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies and Inaugural Fellow in the College of the Environment will be holding two events at GW – a workshop in the morning followed by a presentation in the evening. See below for details.

Because When God is Too Busy: Haiti, Me and THE WORLD

Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse
Photo courtesy of Gina Ulysse

When: Friday, January 28, 5 – 6 pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse’s training as a cultural anthropologist informs this dramatic monologue about how Haiti’s past occupies its present. She weaves history, personal narrative, theory, and statistics in spoken-word with Vodou chants to reflect and deconstruct childhood memories, social (in)justice, spirituality, and the dehumanization of Haitians. Professor Ulysse is currently working on a montage ethnography, C’est Mon Devoir (It is My Duty): Stories of Civic Engagement, Urban Degradation and the Earthquake in Haiti.

Alter(ed)natives

When: Friday, January 28, 11:00am – 12:30pm
Where: 1957 E Street NW, 6th floor, Lindner Family Commons
The Elliott School of International Affairs
The George Washington University

Free and open to the public. Please RSVP here

Professor Ulysse explores the border zones between ethnography and performance, and discusses as she puts it, “why we need the visceral in the structural” to participate in the decolonizing project of accessing and reclaiming a full subject.

Both of these events are sponsored by the CIGA Seminar Series, part of the Elliott School of International Affairs and its Institute of Global and International Studies

Upcoming event at GW

Tourism, Heritage, and Sacred Space in China

Robert J. Shepherd, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Honors and International Affairs

When: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 from 12:30 – 1:45 PM
Where: Lindner Family Commons, Room 602
1957 E Street, NW
The Elliott School of International Affairs
George Washington University

Please RSVP here

Although the Chinese government has become one of the most prominent supporters of the UNESCO-led World Heritage movement, the economic, political and bureaucratic reasons for this are often at cross-purposes with the preservationist goals of UNESCO. This presentation will examine the relationship between heritage projects, tourism, and economic development in China by focusing on the Buddhist pilgrimage destination of Mount Wutai, Shanxi Province, which was added to the UNESCO World Heritage list in 2009. Professor Shepherd’s work on tourism, cultural heritage issues, and the side effects of market changes in China has appeared in Southeast Asia Research, Consumption, Markets, and Culture, the International Journal of Cultural Studies, and the Journal of Contemporary Asia, among other publications. His book, When Culture Goes to the Market: The Politics of Space, Place and Identity in an Urban Marketplace (Peter Lang) was published in 2008.

Sponsored by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies

Upcoming event at GW

The Case of Organ Transplantation in Egypt: Reassessing Bioethics and Contemporary Islamic Thought

Sherine Hamdy, Kutayba Alghanim Assistant Professor of Social Sciences and Assistant Professor of Anthropology, Brown University; author, Our Bodies Belong to God: Bioethics, Islam, and Organ Transplantation

When: Wednesday, January 19, 2011 from 6:00 – 7:30 PM
Where: Lindner Family Commons, Room 602
1957 E Street, NW
Elliott School of International Affairs
George Washington University

Please RSVP here

Our Bodies Belong to God centers on why Egyptians were largely reluctant to accept transplant medicine. In the print news, on state television, radio, film, and in religious sermons, opinions clashed over this life-saving but death-ridden medical practice. Egypt’s organ transplant debate immediately presents a number of puzzles. Why did organ transplantation in particular, as opposed to other biotechnological practices, set off such a heated debate? Why was Egypt the pioneering Arab Muslim country in the field of transplant medicine, and yet the most resistant to passing a law?

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Summer Institute in Cultural Resource Management

June 20-26, 2011

The Summer Institute in Cultural Resource Management offers an excellent and unique opportunity for graduate and undergraduate students to explore a career in cultural resource management, and to obtain real-world experiences that can be applied to future jobs in CRM. The Introduction to CRM course provides a week-long intensive training in the skills, knowledge, and abilities needed for a successful career in CRM. A team of nationally-recognized, practicing CRM professionals will serve as instructors for the course, including Lynne Sebastian, Ph. D., RPA and Terry Klein, M.A., RPA.

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