Heading to the AAAs? Here are some curated sessions and events of interest related to the history of anthropology!
Want us to include your session? Send us an email–We’d love to hear from you: news@histanthro.org.
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The History of Anthropology Review (HAR) seeks applications for Associate Editors to join its editorial team. Formerly the History of Anthropology Newsletter, HAR has been a venue for publication and conversation on the many histories of the discipline of anthropology since 1973. We became an open access web publication in 2016, and regularly publish essays, reviews, bibliographies, news, and other content related to the histories of the field.
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The Forum for the History of the Human Sciences is putting together a special issue of the Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences in honor of historian John Burnham on the topic of “Living Well: Histories of Emotions, Wellness & Human Flourishing.”
As guest editor Mark Solovey notes: “Though the CFP doesn’t mention the history of anthropology specifically, we’d love to have a contribution from this area. Anthropologists have often considered what it means to live well. What can historians today tell us about the nature and significance of anthropological work in this area?”
The submission deadline is November 1, 2018. Read on for application instructions and additional details.
The American Philosophical Society Library in Philadelphia, PA invites applications for predoctoral, postdoctoral, and short-term research fellowships from scholars at all stages of their careers, especially Native American scholars in training, tribal college and university faculty members, and other scholars working closely with Native communities on projects in Native American and Indigenous Studies and related fields and disciplines. These funding opportunities are supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Native American Scholars Initiative (NASI). Fellows will be associated with the APS’s Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR), which promotes greater collaboration among scholars, archives, and indigenous communities.
Tony Bennett, Fiona Cameron, Nélia Dias, Ben Dibley, Rodney Harrison, Ira Jacknis, and Conal McCarthy. Collecting, Ordering, Governing: Anthropology, Museums, and Liberal Government. 360 pp., 46 illus., notes, refs., index. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2017. $94.95 (cloth), $26.95 (paper)
Histories of museum anthropology often have been constrained by the particularities of the institutions in which anthropological and archaeological objects have been gathered and displayed. Furthermore, these institutional narratives have tended to neglect the broader political implications of curatorial practices. In Collecting, Ordering, Governing, seven scholars specializing in the history of anthropology and museum studies have begun to subvert these accounts through a thoughtfully-crafted book that relies as much on the careful application of theory as it does on recounting the histories of specific museums. Focusing on case studies of museum displays and collecting projects organized in settler-colonial states (the United States, Australia, New Zealand) and in former imperial powers (Great Britain and France), the authors highlight both the explicit and implicit connections between developments in museum anthropology and the establishment of government policies. Yet the authors are careful to note that the book is not meant to serve as a “comparative analysis” of anthropological museums as established in different national and/or regional political contexts; rather, it concentrates on using these cases to trace the complex networks of influence and authority that enabled transactions of particular things and ideas across both physical and conceptual spaces (2). By focusing on these processes of exchange during what is typically regarded as the height of anthropology’s “museum era” (Sturtevant 1969; Stocking 1985), the authors shift away from scholarship that positions the museum as the central organizing force in the collection of anthropological objects and data and instead look to a variety of sites and actors that supported the management of populations as well as the dissemination of scientific and cultural knowledge.
In celebration of the second anniversary of the online relaunch of the Newsletter, HAN will be hosting a public lecture by Professor Alice Conklin (Ohio State University). Her lecture, “‘Nothing is Less Universal than the Idea of Race’: Anti-Racism and Social Science at UNESCO, 1950-1962,” will be held on Monday, October 30 from 3:30-5:00pm as part of the Department of History and Sociology of Science workshop series and will take place in Room 337, Claudia Cohen Hall, University of Pennsylvania. See poster for abstract and additional details.
In 1973, the first issue of the History of Anthropology Newsletter opened with a statement of purpose from the editorial committee, called “Prospects and Problems,” by George Stocking. The editors were self-consciously defining and claiming a field. 
They let loose with territorial metaphors: occupation, soil, furrows, forays. Now, as we continue our relaunch of HAN, we return to this 40-year-old manifesto as a starting point for thinking about the past, present, and future of the field.
The 1973 essay noted a sense of disciplinary crisis as a spur to growth; it asked whether this history should be done by anthropologists, intellectual historians on “one-book forays,” by “anthropologists manqué,” or by a new generation of interdisciplinarians; it announced the need for “landmarks” including lists of archival holdings, bibliographic aids, research in progress, recent publications—which HAN would provide. It ended with a call for participation from readers.
Seeking to continue HAN’s role as a site for debating the field’s present state and shaping its future, in late 2016 we invited a series of scholars from various fields to respond to this manifesto. In February 2017, eight distinguished authors responded with generosity, insight, experience, good humor—and impressive speed. Continuing our reappraisal of Stocking’s inaugural editorial statement, in August 2017 we added nine additional surveys of the field’s potential terrain. These contributions covered new ground, unearthed skepticisms, and sowed a set of new questions. Now, in October 2017, we close the series with a third set of reflections from an impressive group of early career scholars. They imply a rich future for the study of anthropology’s past.
We encourage HAN readers and subscribers to make use of the comments section to respond to individual pieces, or to the section as a whole. Dig in and leave a mark.
This editorial was originally published on February 1, 2017. It was updated on August 15, 2017 and on October 21, 2017.
TWO FHHS PRIZE ANNOUNCEMENTS : 30 June 2017 deadline
1. FHHS/JHBS John C. Burnham Early Career Award: Send manuscript and
curriculum vitae (PDF format) by June 30, 2017 to eherman@uoregon.edu.
The Forum for History of Human Science (FHHS) and the Journal of the History
of the Behavioral Science (JHBS) encourage researchers in their early careers
to submit unpublished manuscripts for the annual John C. Burnham Early Career
Award, named in honor of this prominent historian of the human sciences and
past-editor of JHBS. The publisher provides the author of the paper an
honorarium of US $500. (see details below). Continue reading
The 2017 edition of the festival “FACA – Festa de Antropologia Cinema e Arte” [Festival of Anthropology, Cinema and Art] will take place at the National Ethnological Museum in Lisbon, from March 9 to 10, and at the National Film Library (Cinemateca de Lisboa) on March 11. Performances, lectures, and papers will be presented on the first two days; the last day will consist of an anthropological film festival.
The history of anthropology will be represented during the key note lecture “Remediating Ethnographic collections: Video Art and the Postcolonial Museum,” (Steffen Köhn, Freie Universität Berlin), focused on the history of ethnographic collecting. Several papers touch on similar subjects.
One of the film sessions of the last day (starting at 18:30) will be dedicated to ethnographic archives and feature a film by Inês Ponte about the late Angolan anthropologist Rui Duarte de Carvalho.
The program of the FACA festival and information about the film sessions are available.
Richard Warms (Texas State University) and Jon McGee (Texas State University) are looking for contributors to a AAA panel on “Friendship and Other Connections in American Anthropology, 1890s–1920s.” They seek papers about “connections of family, friendship, enmity, and patronage among anthropologists, people particularly interested in anthropology, and others.” The full panel abstract is reproduced below: Continue reading
Droit & Anthropologie: Archéologie d’un savoir et enjeux contemporains
27-28 Février 2017
Ethnopôle GARAE
Institut de Recherche Montesquieu – Centre Aquitain d’Histoire du Droit – Université de Bordeaux
École de droit de Sciences Po
ANR VISA-La vie savante
Colloque coordonné par Frédéric Audren et Laetitia Guerlain Continue reading
The American Philosophical Society Library announces three new fellowships supported by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation for scholars at various stages of their careers, especially Native American scholars in training, tribal college and university faculty members, and other scholars working closely with Native communities on projects. Each fellowship provides a stipend and travel funds. The application deadline for all is March 1, 2017 and all applications should be submitted online. More information can be found at the links below. Continue reading
The American Philosophical Society Receives Award from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to Support Native American Scholars Initiative
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – January 24, 2017 – The American Philosophical Society (APS) is pleased to announce a $949,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to support research in the field of Native American studies. Through the Native American Scholars Initiative (NASI), the American Philosophical Society with its Center for Native American and Indigenous Research (CNAIR) will use the funds to support undergraduate students, Native American scholars, Tribal College faculty members, and researchers who work closely with archives and Native communities in efforts to revitalize endangered languages and to strengthen and honor cultural traditions through the use of new technologies.
For more information, please contact Jessica Frankenfield, Media Contact, American Philosophical Society, or view the full press release.
We are organizing a panel exploring the many contributions of Victor and Edith Turner to anthropology for the 2017 Meeting of the American Anthropological Association, to be held November 29 through December 3 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel in Washington, D.C. Papers are sought on any of the major areas to which they have contributed, including the history of anthropology, pilgrimage, the study of the paranormal, liminality, humanistic anthropology, dramaturgy and anthropology or any of the other areas of their work. Their influence has been great and has continued into the present. Please, contact either Frank A. Salamone (fsalamone@iona.edu) or Marjorie Snipes (msnipes@westga.edu) for further information or with an abstract for the panel. Cambridge Scholars Press is interested in publishing the papers from the session.
Our conference seeks to confront the discourse of affective mobilization propagating anti-EU and anti-immigration policies in many European countries, with its opponent, the discourse of civic ethos and cosmopolitanism. How did it happen that xenophobia and anti-European sentiment have become a vocal presence in public discourse? We hope that the conference will shed some light on how a refurbished nationalism has become central to the new visions of what has become a functioning oxymoron in Central Europe: the non-liberal democracy.
We would like to invite contributions from the fields of history, political science, social and cultural anthropology, literary studies, sociology and linguistics.
23rd German-Russian Encounters at the Francke Foundations in connection with the 10th Anniversary Conference of the International Georg Wilhelm Steller Society
Halle (Saale), Germany | 11–15 October 2017 | Venue: Franckesche Stiftungen zu Halle
Organizers: Dr. Anna-Elisabeth Hintzsche, Friederike Lippold M.A., Dr. Han F. Vermeulen, Prof. Dr. Holger Zaunstöck
Abstract:
On the occasion of the 500th anniversary of Martin Luther’s Reformation, the 23rd German-Russian Encounters in Halle (Germany) addresses the issue of how Lutherans were active in eighteenth-century Russia and Siberia. Of central concern will be the expeditions to Siberia dispatched by the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg and the participation of Pietists from Halle in these research travels. The conference focuses on the tensions between piety, scholarship, and culture. Special attention will be given to the learning and application of the Russian language during the early eighteenth century. Continue reading
The Royal Anthropological Institute will be hosting its third conference on the History of Anthropology and the RAI on December 13-14, 2016. The conference will take place at the RAI’s rooms at 50 Fitzroy Street, London. There is no conference fee, and refreshments will be provided. To book your place, please register here.
The annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association will take place November 16–20 in Minneapolis, MN. Here is a list of sessions and events relevant to the history of anthropology: Continue reading
The Royal Anthropological Institute is hosting a day-long conference on the history of anthropology in Austria, covering both early and more recent contributions to the field. The event will take place on Tuesday, November 8, 2016 starting at 9:00 am in the Wolfson Room of the British Academy in London. Scheduled speakers include HE Martin Eichtinger (Ambassador of the Federal Republic of Austria to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland), Heinz Fassmann (Deputy Rector of the University of Vienna & Chair of the Austrian Academy of Sciences Academy Council), and scholars including Andre Gingrich, Ayşe Çağlar, Peter Schweitzer, Eva-Maria Knoll, Chris Hann, Thomas Fillitz, Stephan Kloos, Maria Six-Mohenbalken, and João de Pina-Cabral. Paper abstracts, registration information, and a complete schedule of the conference can be found on the event website.
The Department of Africana Studies (Barnard College), English Department (Barnard College), the Heyman Center for the Humanities (Columbia University), Institute for Research in African American Studies (Columbia University, the Office of the Provost (Barnard College), and the joint Barnard College/Columbia University Department of Anthropology will be holding a conference honoring Zora Neale Hurston on Friday, October 28. The event will take place at 10:00AM EST at the Event Oval, The Diana Center, 3009 Broadway, New York, NY 10027. Scheduled speakers include Alex Alston, John L. Jackson, Jr., Adriana Garriga-Lopez, Tami Navarro, Mariel Rodney, Patricia Stuelke, Deborah Thomas, Sarah E. Vaughn, Bianca Williams, and Autumn Womack. A full conference schedule and registration information can be found on the conference webpage.
The National Anthropological Archives (NAA) at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History (NMNH), Department of Anthropology is offering a 3-year postdoctoral fellowship that focuses on research with the NAA to establish methods, standards, and criteria for enhancing the discoverability of cultural anthropology data and materials within its holdings.
Candidates should hold (or have plans to defend) a Ph.D. in anthropology, information or archival studies, or other relevant field. The successful candidate will have a strong research background, proven information and project management skills, demonstrated excellence in communication skills, a record of publication and public presentation, and strong interest in advancing archival practice and research through education, engagement, and collaboration. The successful candidate will have an understanding and demonstrated competency in any of the following areas of research in anthropological archives: ethnographic research methods, the history of anthropology, visual anthropology, archival theory and practice, historical and ethno-historical research methods.
Interested candidates should send a CV, a statement (2 pages maximum) of interest in this position and how it relates to their personal goals, and a list of 3 references and their contact information to the project PI, Gabriela Pérez Báez at perezbaezg@si.edu, and CC Joshua A. Bell bellja@si.edu and Gina Rappaport rappaportg@si.edu. Review of applications will begin on October 17, 2016. Selected applicant will be notified no later than November 7, 2017.
For further details, see full announcement here.
Royal Anthropological Institute
Third conference on the History of Anthropology and the RAI 1918-1945
FIRST CALL FOR PAPERS
13th-14th December 2016 at the Royal Anthropological Institute
The third of our ‘history days’ at the RAI covers the period 1918-1945. A tumultuous period for the discipline, it marked the emergence of functionalist ethnography, anthropology’s division into sub-disciplines, and the decisive establishment of anthropology within the universities. Nevertheless, the RAI was at the heart of these developments in many ways, through its journals, lectures, committees, and growing Fellowship. This period also marked the expansion of our library, the launch of the IUAES and various attempts to seek a role for anthropology as an applied discipline.
Accordingly, we would seek now papers that cover any aspect of anthropology’s history at that time, but particularly as it may be relevant to the RAI’s fellows, project, committees, or publications. Without in any way wishing to restrict possible proposals for papers, possible areas of interest might be:
“Translating Across Space and Time” is an international conference hosted by the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia, PA from October 13-15, 2016 and co-sponsored by the Penn Humanities Forum. The three-day conference will bring together a range of scholars, practitioners, and community leaders to discuss the ways archival collections and scholarly fieldwork can help preserve and revitalize endangered languages and cultural practices in indigenous communities throughout North America.
Conference panels pay particular attention to the legal and ethical issues archives and scholars face when working with indigenous materials, the ways technologies have forged new forms of cross-cultural collaborations, the influence of past policies on the present, and the best practices for pedagogy. Brief papers will be precirculated in order to encourage conversation and dialogue during the conference. The full schedule can be found at: https://amphilsoc.org/conference/translatingconference/schedule
Registration is now open for no cost to attendees on the conference website.
The 14th Biennial Meeting of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) will take place July 20-23, 2016, in Milan, Italy, and will include two panels on the history of anthropology. On Wednesday, July 20, a panel on “Themes in the history of anthropology” [PO20] will convene at 14:30 in room 9. On Thursday, July 21, the panel “Themes in the history of anthropology and ethnology in Europe [Europeanist network]” [PO60] will meet at 9:00 in room 9. More information on the EASA and a listing of other sessions can be found here.
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The History of Anthropology Review (formerly the History of Anthropology Newsletter) has been a venue for publication and conversation on the many histories of the discipline of anthropology since 1973. We became an open access web publication in 2016; please subscribe to our emails below to receive updates as we publish new essays, reviews, and bibliographies.
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