RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Anthropology, UNESCO and the destruction of World Heritage: Controlling the Conversation Dr Charlotte Joy, Goldsmiths Monday 1 June at 5.30 pm In this paper, I will be looking at the recent destructions of cultural heritage in Mali from the point of view of UNESCO’s long-term work […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE What did Ted Hughes learn from anthropology? Professor Bob Layton, Durham University Wednesday 10 June at 5.30 pm During the second year of his undergraduate career in Cambridge, Ted Hughes found that study in the English Department was stifling his creativity, and he transferred to Anthropology. […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE 'Museum ethnography and the origins of anthropology in the mid-19th century'? Dr Jonathan King, Von Hügel Fellow, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge Wednesday 7 October at 5.30 pm ‘Thinking is always the negation of what we have immediately before us’ (Hegel). During the mid-nineteenth century […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Musical Bodies: Orchestrating personhood, self and place among shamanic nomadic peoples of the Altai-Sayan Mountains of southern Siberia Dr Carole Pegg, University of Cambridge Wednesday 21 October at 5.30 pm In the face of recent aggressive Russification policies, the shamanic semi-nomadic peoples of the republics of […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Touching and being touched – how we shape the world Professor Christina Toren, University of St Andrews Wednesday 28 October at 5.30 pm Skin, hands, and touch – we cannot separate them from one another, neither does it make sense (at least, from an ethnographic perspective) […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Fürer-Haimendorf's early academic career: A case study in exploring methodologies for the history of anthropology Professor Andre Gingrich, University of Vienna Wednesday 4 November at 5.30 pm This seminar will discuss various methods in elaborating the history of anthropology, such as genealogies of ideas, network analysis, […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Why Music Matters. Social Aesthetics and Cultural Transmission. Dr Jerome Lewis, UCL Wednesday 18 November at 5.30 pm All social groups have their own music. Why should this be? This talk will argue that attending to musical activity provides great insight into a group’s core values […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Musical Instruments and Material Culture Professor Kevin Dawe, University of Kent Wednesday 25 November at 5.30 pm The seminal Handbook of Material Culture (2006) provides a broad introduction to its field of study and demonstrates how well material culture studies is embedded and established within anthropology. […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Soundscapes and Ethnomusicology Dr Rachel Harris, SOAS Wednesday 2 December at 5.30 pm This seminar considers the burgeoning interest in soundscapes within the discipline of ethnomusicology. Drawing on diverse strands from urban geography to sound art and acoustic ecology, Rachel Harris asks what fresh insights a […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Festive Tales of the Fitzroys: evolutionary stories from the past Dr Simon Underdown, Oxford Brookes University Wednesday 16 December at 5.30 pm The cabin and conversations shared by a young Charles Darwin and Captain Robert Ftizroy onboard the HMS Beagle produced one of the most well […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE The Choreographing Brain: Cognition, Emotion, and Dance Dr Judith Lynne Hanna, Affiliate Research Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Maryland, USA Wednesday 10 February at 5.30 pm Recent technological advances in neuroscience are unraveling secrets about the cognitive, emotional, and exercise power of dance. Hidden from […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARJoint seminar with the Folklore Society SEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE The Texts of Charms, the Contexts of Charming Dr Jonathan Roper (Estonia) Wednesday 17 February at 5.30 pm Complementing the work of Social Anthropologists and Linguistic Anthropologists, Folklorists have centred their attention on traditional verbal genres. Although pride of place […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE “Play Music Without Dancers and It’s a Waste of Music”: Sounding Movements, Changing Contexts, and the Sean Nós Dancer Dr Catherine Foley, University of Limerick Wednesday 16 March at 5.30 pm This seminar ethnochoreologically examines sean nós dancing, a solo, vernacular semi-improvisatory percussive dance practice performed […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Listening to the ‘voice of the body’: revisiting the concept of embodied ethnography in the anthropology of dance Dr Ann R David, Head of Dance, Reader in Dance Studies, University of Roehampton Wednesday 23 March at 5.30 pm Whilst Radcliffe-Brown, Malinowski, Mead and other early eminent […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Scale, Cohesion and Complexity: Understanding Fali community chiefdoms of the Mandara Mountains James H. Wade Wednesday 20 April at 5.30 pm A combination of dispersed powers and ego-centred networks generated within the trajectory of the Fali of the southern Mandaras is shown to achieve a high […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE The complex origins and evolution of our species Professor Robert Foley, Leverhulme Centre for Human Evolutionary Studies, University of Cambridge Wednesday 27 April at 5.30 pm Nearly thirty years ago the idea that Homo sapiens evolved recently in Africa and dispersed rapidly from there took hold, […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Dance, morality and self in urban Senegal Dr Hélène Neveu Kringelbach, University College London Wednesday 18 May at 5.30 pm In Dakar, in predominantly Muslim Senegal, dance is tabloid matter on a daily basis. Indeed, dance is regarded as morally ambiguous: on the one hand, certain […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Ethnographic Wax Cylinder Recordings, Technology and Archival Issues Dr Adrian Poole, University College London Wednesday 15 June at 5.30 pm Phonographic wax cylinder equipment was the principal means by which late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century anthropologists, comparative musicologists and linguistics recorded and played back the sounds […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Revitalising the Nubian Endangered Languages and Living Heritage Dr Kirsty Rowan, Department of Linguistics, SOAS University of London Wednesday 5 October at 5.30 pm For many millennia, the Nubian peoples have lived along a stretch of the Nile comprising northern Sudan to southern Egypt. However, during […]
RAI RESEARCH SEMINARSEMINAR SERIES AT THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE Political Design and Cultural Creativity: Changing Dance Performances in Post-Genocide Rwanda Dr Carine Plancke, University of Roehampton Wednesday 26 October at 5.30 pm Since it took power by putting an end to the 1994 genocide, the Rwandan Patriotic Front has initiated the project of building a […]
