Backdoor Broadcasting Company

Event Date: 3 October 2011

Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Clore Education Centre, British Museum


Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG

Royal Anthropological Institute , London

THE CURL LECTURE 2011

Dr Graeme Were (Lecturer in Museum Studies, University of Queensland)

“On the Materials of Mats: thinking through design in a Pacific society”
 



This paper examines the selective use of plant materials in design in the Pacific. It explores – through an analysis of pandanus leaf mats in New Ireland, Papua New Guinea – how makers select fibres on the basis of their capacity to articulate social relations to varying temporalities before their natural decay. J. J. Gibson’s theory of affordance and Donald Norman’s concept of mapping are critically applied for this purpose. This approach emphasizes how social and temporal relations are condensed into objects, refocusing anthropological attention towards the design process as the dynamic locus of agency [entangled in both cultural and natural processes], rather than on objects as stable entities.

Introduction by Professor Roy Ellen  .

Lecture

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Royal Anthropological Institute , London

Event Date: 4 February 2011
Stevenson Lecture TheatreClore Education Centre

The Huxley Memorial Lecture

Professor Johannes Fabian (University of Amsterdam) – Cultural Anthropology and the Question of Knowledge

Abstract:
Although it helps to be aware of what philosophers think about knowledge anthropologists can neither simply relegate their epistemological problems to, nor find solutions in, philosophy. In anthropology knowing what and how we know is a practical, not just a theoretical problem, one we face in all phases of our work, from field research to writing (and teaching). Historical recollections of debates since the nineteen-sixties are followed by giving attention to two aspects of the knowledge-question in our discipline: Knowledge of what? and Whose knowledge? Guided by reflections on knowledge and survival, the lecture will end with an attempt to assess the present and future state of the question.

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Introduction .

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talk:

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Johannes Fabian’s publications here.

Royal Anthropological Institute , London

Event Date: 23 September 2010
Stevenson Lecture Theatre
Clore Education Centre, British Museum
Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG

2010 Henry Myers Lecture

Professor Sir Geoffrey Lloyd: ‘Humanity between Gods and Beasts? Ontologies in question’

Abstract

Wherein lies the humanity of human beings? Many conflicting answers have been attempted in ancient and in modern times, with many focussing on the triadic relationship between humans, gods and beasts. This lecture will review a wide range of suggestions, from those of ancient Greeks and Chinese, to recent anthropological proposals (by Viveiros de Castro and Descola in particular) of alternative ontologies. We have every reason to take rival human understandings seriously, but that should not be thought to lead to radical relativism, let alone to a breakdown of mutual intelligibility. Rather, they offer resources for exploring the substantive questions and for reflecting on the propensity of human beings to entertain or presuppose strong views on, precisely, what makes humans human. While evolutionary biology, ethology, cognitive science and anthropology itself have all contributed to an increased recognition of the complexities of the question, we need the input not just of those disciplines, but also of philosophy and of history, to evaluate potential answers. In that spirit the lecture offers an interdisciplinary commentary on the problems.

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Introduction:

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Lecture:

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Response and Questions:

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