Rose Taylor, PhD Candidate, UCL Anthropology Over the course of four weeks between June and July 2019 I participated in the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History’s Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA) in Washington D.C. SIMA is an intensive residential course designed to train and immerse the next generationContinue Reading
Haidy Geismar, UCL Anthropology and Chair of the R.A.I Photo Committee On December 8, 2016, the Photography Committee of the Royal Anthropological Institute convened its first Photo Salon. A meeting of minds for those interested in the intersections of anthropology and photography, a group of photographers and researchers (and photographer-researchers,Continue Reading
Hannah Knox, Department of Anthropology, UCL Last year, someone made the observation at a workshop I was attending, that no single person knows how a contemporary computer works. The rapid development of computing over the past 70 years, the interconnectivity of the internet, and the layers of programming needed toContinue Reading
Haidy Geismar, UCL As I’m sure you are all aware, last week Vanuatu was devastated by Cyclone Pam, battering the country with winds of over 270 mph. The storm knocked out the country’s telecommunications and transport infrastructure and now, just a few days later, it is estimated that more then 70%Continue Reading
Since its formation in 1994, the Material Culture Caucus of the American Studies Association (ASA) has bridged the gap between university-based and museum-based scholars to promote the study of material culture in American Studies programs. To celebrate its twentieth birthday, the Caucus sponsored a workshop on Friday November 7, 2014, duringContinue Reading
Theodoros Kyriakides (a doctoral candidate in the anthropology of illness at the University of Manchester) provides a blog review for Savage Minds of the recent 13th Biennial EASA conference, held at Tallinn University in Estonia from 31 July to 3 August. Over at the Allegra site, one can find someContinue Reading
Since its inception, Material World has treated museums and archives not only as repositories of material culture, but as material culture–that is, material products as well as producers of culture and social memory. As institutions, they are sites of collection and exhibition, acts that have their own material and materializingContinue Reading
In March, Gabriella Coleman gave a talk at the UCL Centre for Digital Anthropology drawing on her research with the activist (non)collective Anonymous. Her talk, entitled Anonymous and the Craftiness of Craft and the Trickiness of Trickery, linked Anonymous activists to the anthropological archetype of the trickster, and developed theContinue Reading
The University of Tartu has recently hosted its XI annual Maailma World Festival of Documentary Film (March 15-22). The event opened with a session to honour the career of the Siberian filmmaker, reindeer herder and environmentalist Yuri Vella [1948-2013] In memoriam: Filming and Being Filmed. The festival session dedicated toContinue Reading
At the end of January ’14, the Estonian Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts hosted its fourth international Winter School at Tallinn University. The event, entitled Absence, Presence, Distance: Ways of Seeing the Past, featured such prominent speakers as Zymunt Bauman (Leeds), Mieke Bal (Amsterdam), Victor Buchli (UCL), FrancoisContinue Reading
American Anthropological Association Meetings 2013 Chicago, Illinois USA Sunday, November 24th, 10 am – 1 pm Crucial infrastructures in North America have begun to reach the ends of their lifespan, with malfunctions and their effects increasingly commanding public and political attention. Our installation draws on a burgeoning conversation in anthropologyContinue Reading