Anthropology – Page 2

Joseph Weiss, assistant professor of anthropology, is the author of Shaping the Future on Haida Gwaii: Life beyond Settler Colonialism, published by the University of British Columbia Press in September 2018. Shaping the Future on Haida Gwaii shows how an indigenous nation in British Columbia not only continues to have a future but is at work building many different futures—for themselves and for their non-indigenous neighbors. The project emerges from an almost decade-long relationship between Weiss and the citizens of the Haida Nation of Haida Gwaii, a series of islands off the west coast of Canada. Weiss explores these possible futures…

William Tyner ’13 was awarded a Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellowship —one of only five of such grants awarded each year. The fellowship is made possible through a partnership between the U.S. Department of State and the National Geographic Society and is a component of the Fulbright U.S. Student Program. It provides opportunities for U.S. citizens to participate in an academic year of overseas travel and storytelling on a globally significant theme. Tyner, who majored in anthropology at Wesleyan and enjoyed courses in the College of Film and the Moving Image, will be working with Code for Romania. He’ll be creating a…

In response to an exhibit focusing on the Haitian Revolution of 1791, Gina Athena Ulysse, professor of anthropology, presented a commissioned work on March 16 at the British Museum. The exhibit, titled "A revolutionary legacy: Haiti and Toussaint Louverture," featured a selection of objects, artworks, and poetry from the 18th century to the present. Objects explored the legacy of the Haitian Revolution and its leader Toussaint Louverture. Louverture was one of the leading figures in the Haitian Revolution, which began in 1791 as an uprising of enslaved men and women in what was then a French sugar colony. It culminated with the outlawing…

J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, chair and professor of American studies, professor of anthropology, and director of the Center for the Americas, delivered one of two keynotes at a conference on “Archipelagos and Aquapelagos—Conceptualizing Islands and Marine Spaces.” The gathering, hosted by the Global South Center at The Pratt Institute on March 30—April 1, focused on the need to reinvestigate and reconceptualize the nature of the aggregations of islands commonly referred to as "archipelagos" in order to produce more sophisticated understandings of them, along with the environmental, social, and transnational issues and impacts involved. As the organizers of the conference, May Joseph, Luka…

On March 28, the Archaeology Program and the Department of Classical Studies invited Ian Roy of Brandeis University to Wesleyan to discuss ways new technologies are used to study the past. Roy is the founding head of Brandeis MakerLab and director for research technology and innovation at Brandeis University's library. Roy first visited the Archaeometry: How to Science the Heck out of Archaeology class taught by Andrew Koh, visiting assistant professor of archaeology. There, he demonstrated how to scan objects in 3-D using an Artec Space Spyder, a tool that uses structured light to capture incredibly high-resolution scans of objects. The class produced multiple models of artifacts, including a…

J. Kehaulani Kauanui, professor of American studies and anthropology, chair of American studies and director of the Center of the Americas, spent part of winter break in Qatar. She was there to present her research on “Settler Colonialism and the Politics of Occupy Wall Street: Indigeneity and the 'Other' 1%” for a panel on "Against Exceptionalism." Kauanui joined a global roster of leading scholars in American studies, Middle Eastern studies and other closely related fields who were invited to speak as part of a conference held Jan. 8–11 at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies with support from the Qatar…

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J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, professor and chair of American studies, professor of anthropology, director of the Center for the Americas, delivered three academic presentations in Victoria, Australia in September 2017. On Sept. 18, Kauanui delivered a lecture titled, “A New Tribe? Hawaiian Sovereignty and the Politics of Federal Recognition,” to the Melbourne Feminist History Group. The talk emerged from her forthcoming book, Paradoxes of Hawaiian Sovereignty, which is a critical study of statist Hawaiian nationalism and the implications of its attendant disavowal of indigeneity for the questions of land, gender, and sexual politics. The talk focused on the contestation over indigeneity in both…

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(By K Alshanetsky '17) Anthropologist Shalini Shankar ’94 has been named one of 173 recipients of the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship for 2017. Winners of the annual competition were chosen from a pool of 3,000 applicants that includes scholars, artists and scientists who are advanced professionals in their respective fields. She was chosen on the basis of prior achievement as a productive scholar who has published several works on teen and youth culture, as well as her exceptional promise to continue research in the social sciences. Shankar, who studied anthropology in Wesleyan and received her PhD in the field from New York University, is…

Wesleyan Professor of Anthropology and Feminist, Gender and Sexuality Studies Gina Athena Ulysse's newest publication, Because When God Is Too Busy: Haiti, Me, & The World, (Wesleyan University Press, April 2017), is a collection of poems, performance texts, and photographs that explores longing for a sacred and ancestral past—now entangled by Western and postcolonial inheritances. Both a lyrical and meditative work, the publisher calls it "a poetic journey through silence, rebellious rage, love, and the sacred." In it, Ulysse blurs the lines between genre and medium, as well as the personal and geopolitical. Edwidge Danticat, a former MacArthur Fellow and National…

Ákos Östör, professor of anthropology and film, emeritus, lectured and presented his latest film, In My Mother's House, at more than a dozen universities in India, Turkey and throughout Europe in 2016. On a random Thursday in 2005, Östör's wife, Lina Fruzzetti, opened a a startling email that read, “If this is your father, we are cousins.” In My Mother's House follows a decade-long quest to learn more about Fruzzetti's Italian father who died young in Italian-ruled Eritrea, and her Eritrean mother who does not dwell on the past. Above all, Fruzzetti strives to understand her far-flung African, European, and…

Weiss Pens Book on Indigenous Peoples’ Futures on Canadian Islands

Tyner ’13 Named Fulbright National Geographic Storytelling Fellow

Ulysse Commissioned to Create Work for British Museum

Kauanui Delivers Keynote Focused on U.S. Militarism and Hawaiian Decolonization

Students Learn about New Technologies Being Used to Study the Past

Kauanui Presents “Politics of Occupy Wall Street” Research in Qatar

Political Anthropologist Vine ’97 Speaks to Campus Community about Military Overseas under Trump

Kauanui Presents Lectures, Workshop in Australia on Indigenous Sovereignty

French Students Offer a Glimpse of Wesleyan’s History

Shankar ’94 Named 2017 Guggenheim Fellow

Ulysse Authors Because When God is Too Busy

Östör Debuts New Film to International Audiences