March 19–23, 2000
The Archaeology of Colonization in Cross-Cultural Perspective
Gil J. Stein, Chair
Department of Anthropology
Northwestern University
This seminar examined colonization from a cross-cultural perspective. Participants prepared and circulated papers prior to the meeting on topics ranging from European colonial expansion and early Old World colonization efforts (Mesopotamia, Phoenicia, Greece, and Rome) to the establishment of foreign enclaves by indigenous New World states, such as Teotihuacan, Wari, Tiwanaku, and Inka …
April 30–May 4, 2000
Animation and Cessation: Anthropological Perspectives on Changing Definitions of Life and Death in the Context of Biomedicine
Sarah Franklin, Co-Chair
Department of Sociology
Cartmel College
Lancaster University
Margaret Lock, Co-Chair
Department of Social Studies of Medicine
McGill University
This seminar approached the question of life and death as a theoretical and methodological problem, questioning the borders between medical anthropology and other fields of knowledge, such as science studies, cultural studies, and critical theory …
October 22–26, 2000
Culture Theory and Cross-Cultural Comparison: Maya Culture and History in a Multicultural World
Edward F. Fischer, Co-Chair
Department of Anthropology
Vanderbilt University
John M. Watanabe, Co-Chair
Department of Anthropology
Dartmouth College
Participants in the seminar included four scholars of Guatemala, including a prominent Maya scholar-activist, three specialists on Chiapas, and two on the Yucatan. Together they spanned anthropological inquiry in the region from the 1950s to the present. With expertise ranging from Maya linguistics, ritual, and religion, to economics, politics, and history, all participants were fully grounded in long-term, linguistically-informed ethnographic research.