Category: updates and publications

Call for papers

Life and Death: A Conversation

When: May 10-13, 2012
Where: Providence Biltmore Hotel, Providence, RI
Deadline for submissions: January 15, 2012

At the 2012 Society for Cultural Anthropology Conference we encourage discussion about matters of life and death, as perceived through anthropological and ethnographic inquiry. We explicitly call for conversations in the spirit of exchange and engagement rather than isolated analysis, and encourage participants to experiment with format and topic, cross boundaries and seek unexpected connections.

Our conference invites papers, films, photo essays, and multimedia installations that track, propose, or otherwise reveal and interrogate issues related to existence, nonexistence and relatedness in a manner that invites conversation. We are as interested in topics ‘traditional’ to anthropology (rites of passage or remembrance for example) as we are in thematic newcomers and related topics — such as biopolitics — that now fill the disciplinary horizon. Multi-disciplinary presentations and contributions by non-anthropologists are likewise welcome.

See website for more information or submit a proposal.

Call for nominations: R.L. Shep Ethnic Textile Book Award

Deadline: March 1, 2012

The Textile Society of America is pleased to solicit nominations for the R. L. Shep Ethnic Textile Book Award for books published in 2011. Given annually, the award is meant to encourage the study and understanding of ethnic textile traditions by recognizing exceptional scholarship in the field. The award consists of a cash prize, funded by an endowment established by R. L. Shep in 2000. The Textile Society of America administers the endowment through an independent committee appointed by the Board of Directors. Current TSA Board members are ineligible to apply.

For further information, visit the website.

New anthropology review: Issue 2

The second issue of Anthropology of this Century – a new online journal – has just been published, with articles by Yunxiang Yan, Alfred Gell, Janet Carsten, Andrew Beatty, Stephan Feuchtwang, Dena Freeman and Charles Stafford.

Visit the second issue here.

Note that on the archives page you will still find issue one, with articles by Chris Fuller, Sherry Ortner, Maurice Bloch and others.

Finnish anthropology conference 2011

Dynamic Anthropology: Tensions between Theory and Practice

When: October 5-7, 2011
Where: University of Helsinki

This conference invites participants to look beyond conventional divides and to explore and engage with theoretical, methodological, political and ethical questions from every perspective. Some suggested (but by no means limiting) topics include the discussion of new approaches to kinship, materialities, production and consumption or medical anthropology; discussion of new fields in anthropology such as ‘affect’, computer culture or global concerns; methodologies – from participatory action research to visual anthropology or discourse-centred perspectives on culture; exploration of concept metaphors such as nature, space, body and scale; or productive pathways to syncretizing anthropological theory and empirical data in specific research fields.

Interested in submitting a paper for the conference? See the call for papers.

See website for more details and information on how to register.

Society for Economic Anthropology book prize

The Society for Economic Anthropology Book Prize Committee is looking for the best book in economic anthropology published over the last 3 years.

The committee requests nominations for single or multi-authored non-edited volumes published between 2009 and 2011 (the prize covers the 3 year cycle) that focus on issues in economic anthropology.

For more information, click here.

Council on Anthropology and Reproduction announces web overhaul

The Council on Anthropology and Reproduction (CAR), a subgroup of the Society for Medical Anthropology and the American Anthropological Association, recently completed a website overhaul! Visit the new website here.

CAR’s mission is to build strong and active networks among practitioners, researchers, teachers, trainers, activists, policy makers, scholars and others interested in the anthropology of reproduction in its many permutations. CAR has members in countries across the globe and in professions at the center of and well beyond anthropology.

CAR’s Advocacy Committee encourages anthropologists to join with activists and to offer our skills, services, and research results to allies who work to improve reproductive health and rights around the world. CAR members speak many languages and are from and/or have worked in dozens of countries, including the United States. Our collective expertise covers issues such as mothering, childbearing, infertility, midwifery, contraception, abortion, adoption, new reproductive technologies, and the local effects of global policies.

Among other updates, they have added great new imagery to their site making it more engaging to a wider audience, added a New Publications page and expanded their Links page to include links to the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative, Raising Women’s Voices, and DONA International among many others.

Interested in becoming a member? See the Membership page for more information on how to join. Students and professionals, both within and outside of academia, are welcome!

Call for papers

Learning and Teaching: The International Journal of Higher Education in the Social Science, published by Berghahn, is currently inviting submissions for Volume 5 (2012) and Volume 6 (2013).

Aims and scope
This peer-reviewed journal uses the social sciences to reflect critically on learning and teaching in the changing context of higher education.

The journal invites students and staff to explore their education practices in the light of changes in their institutions, national higher education policies, the strategies of international agencies and developments associated with the so-called international knowledge economy.

The disciplines covered include politics and international relations, anthropology, sociology, criminology, social policy, cultural studies and educational studies.

The readership spans practitioners, researchers and students. It includes undergraduates and postgraduates interested in analysing their experience at university, newly appointed staff taking a qualification in learning and teaching, staff of learning and teaching units, experienced teachers in higher education and researchers on university reform.

Continue reading “Call for papers” →

2011 Margaret Mead Award announced

Congratulations to Frances Norwood, assistant research professor in the GW Department of Anthropology, for being selected to receive the 2011 Margaret Mead Award for her book, The Maintenance of Life: Preventing Social Death through Euthanasia Talk and End-of-Life Care – Lessons from The Netherlands,” (2009).

The Margaret Mead Award is presented to a younger scholar for a particular accomplishment such as a book, film, monograph, or service, which interprets anthropological data and principles in ways that make them meaningful and accessible to a broadly concerned public.

The Maintenance of Life is about how people in The Netherlands address social death and modern dying. It is based on long-term ethnographic study with general practitioners, end-of-life patients and their family members around the process of home death. Norwood finds that euthanasia in practice is predominantly a discussion, which only rarely culminates in a euthanasia death. In fact, “euthanasia talk” serves a palliative function, staving off social death by providing participants with a venue for processing meaning, giving voice to suffering, and reaffirming social bonds and self-identity at the end of life. Those who engage in euthanasia talk instead are more active participants in Dutch social networks at the end of life.

Norwood uses ethnographic excerpts to open each chapter and then tells the stories that make up end-of-life from the perspective of patients, families, and their physicians. She also weaves in theory from Michel Foucault and Clive Seale.

Her book illuminates concepts of discourse and social death through ethnography in a way that is accessible to scholars, policy makers, and the pubic. She also takes a critical look, from a cultural perspective, at Dutch euthanasia policy and broader end-of-life practices in comparison with policies and practices in the United States.

The Maintenance of Life offers those on any side of the end-of-life debate and those from around the world valuable lessons for maintaining life at the end of life. It was recently translated into French and is now also available as Mourir un Acte de Vie (2010).

For other coverage of Frances Norwood’s research on this blog, please see here.

Book signing with Paul Farmer

When: Monday, September 12, 9:00am – 11:00am
Where: Ronald Reagan Building & International Trade Center Amphitheater
1300 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20004

Dr. Jonathan LaPook, medical correspondent for the CBS Evening News, will interview Dr. Paul Farmer at Hooks Book.

A portion of the event’s proceeds will be donated to Partners In Health, the non-profit organization that provides a preferential option for the poor in health care. Additional copies of Haiti After the Earthquake will be available for purchase. Dr. Farmer will be signing books at the event.

Tickets available now and at the door. Click here to purchase tickets. This event is open to the public. All ticket holders must present picture ID when they enter the building. For more information, click here.