The annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association will be held online and in-person in Baltimore, MD, on November 17-21, 2021. The theme of this year’s meeting is “Truth and Responsibility”; a full schedule and additional details may be found on the Association’s website.

The News Editors at HAR are pleased to highlight several panels of interest to our readers. Event times are listed in Eastern Time (U.S.) and registration is required to attend in-person and online. Our thanks to Grant Arndt, co-director of the History of Anthropology Interest Group, for sharing news of these and other events related to the history of anthropology.

Thursday, November 18 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM ET

Session (2-1620) Anthropology at St. Louis and
Before

Location: In-Person, Baltimore, Convention Center 341

Sean O’Neill, “An Unfair Hearing for Global Cultural
Diversity: The Saint Louis World’s Fair as a Sounding Board for Primitivism, Racism, and Colonialism”

Christopher Lowman, “Imagining Asia Beyond the Exhibition”

Richard Warms, “Picture this: Boas, Photography and the Popular Presentation of Science”

Robert Launay, “Genealogies of the Secular and Sovereign State”

Discussant: Jon McGee

Thursday, November 18 2:00 – 3:45 PM ET

(2-1460) Entangled Histories and Bundles of Relations: Contemporary Ethnographic Work In and Around Collections

Location: In-Person, Baltimore, Convention Center 330

Panelists:

Catherine Nichols, Diana Marsh, Kristin Otto, Christopher Berk, Howard Morphy

Thursday, November 18 6:30 – 8:15 PM ET

Session (2-1621) Anthropology and Activism

Location: In-Person, Baltimore

Panelists:

Martin Schoenhals, Carol Mukhopadhyay, Yolanda Moses, Kathleen Fine-Dare, Linda Seligmann, Raymond Schwartz, Jeanne Simonelli

Session (2-0740) The World-Builders

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:

Andrew Foster, Mariel Gruszko, Llerena Searle, Keith Murphy, Lee Cabatingan, Britt Van Paepeghem, Matthew C. Watson

Session (2-1190) Making Historical Truth: Material Engagements with the Past and the Politics of Responsibility after Mass Violence

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:

Hilary Leathem, Chris Green, Dominic Bryan, Damani Partridge, Jonathan Evershed, Sultan Doughan, Michal Ran-Rubin, Jonah Rubin

Friday, November 19 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM ET

Session (3-2520) Alfred L. Kroeber: The Man, His Work and His Legacy

Location: In-Person, Baltimore, Convention Center 331

Herbert S. Lewis, “Alfred L. Kroeber: The Man, His Times, and His Work”

Stanley Brandes, “Alfred Kroeber and the Forging of a Discipline”

Paul Shankman, “Kroeber, Mead, and the Perils of Public Anthropology”

James Stanlaw, “Alfred Kroeber and the Development of Linguistic Anthropology”

Jack Glazier, “The Kroeber-Ishi Story: Cinematic Versions”

Nicholas Barron, “Anthros, Agents, and Federal (Un)Acknowledgment in Native California”

Nancy Scheper-Hughes, “Goodbye Kroeber, Kroeber Hall, and the Man Called Ishi”

Session (3-2330) Enduring Legacies of Ethnographic Field Schools, Part 1

Location: In-Person, Baltimore

Panelists:

Natalie Bourdon, Linda Easley, A Katherine Lambert-Pennington, Suzanne Kent, Keri Brondo, Tim Wallace, Quetzil Castaneda, Douglas Hume

(3-2122) Native Americans and Museums: International Perspectives and Collaborative Prospects.

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:

Robert Collins, Justin Richland, Alaka Wali, Markus Lindner

Friday, November 19 2:00 PM – 3:45 PM ET

Session (3-2320) Enduring Legacies of Ethnographic Field Schools, Part 2

Location: In-Person, Baltimore

Panelists:

Tim Wallace, Keri Brondo, Bill Roberts, Walter Adams, James McDonald, Sharon Gmelch

Friday, November 19 4:15 PM – 6:00 PM ET

Session (3-1750) Vindication, Imagination, and Decolonization: African Americans and the Experience of Anthropology (The George W. Stocking, Jr. Symposium)

Location: Livestreamed and In-Person, Baltimore, Holiday Ballroom

Abstract: As we commemorate 50 years of the Association of Black Anthropologists, it is incumbent to recognize that African Americans have been bearing witness, taking action, and holding scholars accountable to the truth since the very beginning of anthropology in North America. Frederick Douglass, for example, wrote a critical response to Josiah Nott’s Types of Mankind in 1854. During every twist and turn in the history of anthropology, African American scholars have taken on the responsibility to insist that anthropology be a holistic social science that combats racism and oppression and leads to a more responsive and inclusive understanding of what it means to be human. At the same time, anthropologists throughout the African Diaspora have described and analyzed how violence, power, and oppression lead to atrocities and the worst forms of inhumanity. In this panel, we take a look at a sample of African American intellectuals who were leaders in the vindication struggle, were creative and imaginative describing culture, and worked hard towards achieving a decolonized anthropology.

Panelists:

Deborah Johnson-Simon, Whitney Battle-Baptiste, Lee D. Baker, Riché Barnes, Irma McClaurin, Rachel Watkins, Tracie Canada, Michael Blakey

Saturday, November 20 4:15 PM – 6:00PM ET

(4-3290) Clinical Encounters Across Difference: (Ac)countability and the Politics of Representation

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:
Molly Fitzpatrick, Allison Odger, Adrienne Strong, Margaret MacDonald, Hatice Nilay Erten, Thandeka Cochrane, Cal Biruk

Sunday, November 21 10:15 AM – 12:00 PM ET

(5-0010) Historical Consciousness and Historicist Reckonings with the Anthropological Present

Location: Live virtual session

Panelists:
David Dinwoodie, Jim Weil, Kathryn Kozaitis, Nicholas Barron, Grant Arndt, Olga Glinskii, Paul Mitchell