March 9–13, 2008
Between Politics and Ethics: The Anthropology of Global Humanitarianism
Erica Bornstein, Co-Chair
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee
Peter Redfield, Co-Chair
Associate Professor
Department of Anthropology
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Four themes guided this seminar – anthropology’s engagement with humanitarianism, religious and secular cosmologies, political limits, and stakes of intervention – with a special focus on the relationship between humanitarianism and war and the emotional and physical dimensions of humanitarianism.
May 4–8, 2008
Images without Borders
Patricia Spyer, Co-Chair
Professor
Department of Anthropology
Leiden University
Mary M. Steedly, Co-Chair
Professor
Department of Anthropology
Harvard University
This advanced seminar examined the relation between images and publics in the fluid and deeply saturated ‘mediascapes’ of contemporary global society.
September 27–October 3, 2008
Colonial and Postcolonial Change in Mesoamerica: Archaeology as Historical Anthropology
Rani T. Alexander, Co-Chair
Associate Professor
Department of Sociology and Anthropology
New Mexico State University
Susan Kepecs, Co-Chair
Honorary Fellow
Department of Anthropology
University of Wisconsin, Madison
Scholars of this advanced seminar examined the transition of pre-Hispanic Mesoamerica into modern-day Mexico and Central America by utilizing archaeological evidence that sheds light onto aspects of Native society that remain otherwise obscure when viewed solely through a traditional historic lens.