The Warburg Institute is pleased to announce a day-long workshop with renowned anthropologist Carlo Severi (Ecole de Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales, LAS/Collège de France). Professor Severi will give a public lecture at the Warburg at 7:00 p.m. on Friday, June 7th. The next day, Saturday, June 8th from 11:00 to 17:00, he will lead a closed-session workshop. We invite PhD students, post-docs, and early career scholars to participate.

Entitled “Geographies of Cultural Memory,” the workshop will address methodological and historical problems in the study of global visual and aesthetic traditions. Drawing upon Severi’s foundational work on cultural memory and indigenous arts, discussions will place particular emphasis on the role of images and visual arts within anthropology and ethnography. How has anthropology dealt with the formal variety and geographical diffusion of aesthetic objects in the past, and what new modes of investigation offer themselves to us today? In this connection, we will also have occasion to revisit long-dormant anthropological aspects of Aby Warburg’s cultural science, and to consider its ramifications for a global study of culture in both the past and the present. 

Under Severi’s direction, the workshop will consist of group discussions of key texts and a limited number of research presentations by participants. Please note that space for the workshop is very limited. To apply, please send a brief description of your research in relevant areas (150-200 wds) and a brief CV (2 page max) to John.Tresch@sas.ac.uk and vollgraff@bilderfahrzeuge.org

Applications from London-area postgraduate students and early-career scholars working at the crossroads of art history, anthropology, geography, and/or the history of the human sciences are especially welcome.