The Department of Africa, Oceania and the Americas cordially invite to to:
The Annual William Fagg Lecture 2026
Wednesday 25 November 2026 at 6pm
Prof. Marsha Pearce of the British Academy Global Professor, The Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge.
will be presenting: From Field to House: Ethnographic Sensibilities and the Museum as Dwelling
This lecture invokes the notion of the “field” as an anthropological space of studying human life and artefacts, and as the colonial sugarcane field. Both connotations are implicated in the histories of many of today’s museums. Drawing on artworks and objects from the Caribbean, the discussion reframes a visuality, or way of seeing the field, in terms of belonging and agency.
Marsha Pearce is British Academy Global Professor at the Fitzwilliam Museum, University of Cambridge, and a visual culture scholar at The University of the West Indies, St. Augustine Campus. She is leading the four-year research project (2025-2029) titled Trembling Abode: Reimagining the Museum as Home for Global Majority Artists.
