by Joshua A. Bell, Joel Kuipers, Jacqueline Hazen, Amanda Kemble, and Briel Kobak In June 2013, our collaborative George Washington University/Smithsonian Institution team–Joshua A. Bell (NMNH Anthropology), Joel Kuipers (GWU Anthropology), Briel Kobak, Amanda Kemble, and Jacqueline Hazen–hosted a Wenner-Gren funded workshop, Linguistic and Material Intimacies of Mobile Phones, atContinue Reading

This summer saw the conclusion of ‘Disturbing Pasts: Memories, Controversies and Creativity’, an international research project led by Leon Wainwright (Department of Art History, The Open University, UK) which began in December 2011. (For an overview of the project, visit: http://www.open.ac.uk/Arts/disturbing-pasts/ ) The main focus of Disturbing Pasts was aContinue Reading

Notes on the Workshop  “Objects from Abroad: The Life of Exotic Goods in France and the United States” by  Noémie Étienne  (Wissenschaftliche Assistentin, Univ. of Zurich) The interdisciplinary conference “Objects from Abroad: The Life of Exotic Goods in France and the United States”, held at the Centre for International ResearchContinue Reading

Eleanor Williams  &  Theophile Desarmeaux,  UCL  Anthropology The lanternslides exhibited in ‘From the Image to the Lecture Slide: Exercises in Anthropological Ventriloquy’ emerge from the depths of the UCL Anthropology Department’s Material Culture Room, part of UCL Museums and Collections.  From this cave of curiosities, the exhibition excavates a medleyContinue Reading

Date: 26 – 27 September 2013 Venue: University of Pardubice, Czech Republic Long-held convictions about the immoral or amoral nature of capitalism have recently lost some of their force in light of illustrations of how moral conflicts unfold in the economic realm and examples of how religious and non-religious moralityContinue Reading

Date: Thursday 13th December Time: 6-8 p.m. Place: British Academy, Reading Room, 10 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y5AH What kinds of diasporas are formed by connected migrants? Do the online networks woven by migrants scattered throughout the world, and the traces they leave on the Web, reveal traditional or novel functions of diasporas?Continue Reading

Call for Papers: Annual Sociology Conference 2013 New School for Social Research New York City Saturday, April 6, 2013 Can national and global politics be viewed through the lens of our material environments? Can the architecture of a city square incite political demonstration? How, through the use of drones, areContinue Reading

Terje Toomistu (The University of Tartu) Notes from an intensive seminar ‘Places and Non-Places: Thinking Anthropologically with Marc Augé’, 12th-13th October 2012 Estonian Institute of Humanities and the Graduate School of Culture Studies and Arts, Tallinn University. When visiting Delhi in 2010, I remember a slight cultural shock from oneContinue Reading

Amy Hinterberger, Research Fellow, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society (InSIS), School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, University of Oxford Convened by the BioProperty Research Programme, Institute for Science, Innovation and Society, 20 & 21 September 2012 Objects of property have many lives. This international conference explored the paths that scientificContinue Reading