Cultural Anthropology
RESPONSE-ABILITY: Anthropology and Activism A conversation with faculty and graduate students on political commit/meants Cultural Anthropology professors Christine Folch, Anne-Maria Makhulu, and Ralph Litzinger, and graduate students, Naledi Yaziyo, Joe Hiller, and Hannah Borenstein In person Monday, November 8, 2021 1:30pm Friedl Building, Room 225 And Join Zoom Meeting Registration Required https://duke.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0tduyoqDksH904p_8XLIBekuNLXRjBIfcT "Response-ability is about both absence and presence,… read more about Response-Ability: Anthropology and Activism »
Ethnomusicology Lecture Yana Stainova (McMaster University)"Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela" Friday, November 54 pm — Online. Register in advance for this meeting: https://duke.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJAude6orzIpE9KRHWM3laMe1jT-UbW-z32D After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the meeting. Yana Stainova, Assistant Professor of Anthropology at McMaster University, is interested in art, urban poverty, social inequality, migration, and the lived… read more about Yana Stainova "Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela" »
A new faculty-led Trinity College project, which examines the politics and histories of intercollegiate athletics and athletes, will include a Cultural Anthropology course this Spring. “Race and the Business of College Sports” (CULANTH 290) is part of the new “Black in Blue: The Sports and Race Project” – a project that includes classes, public events, workshops and podcasts as it critically studies race and sports at Duke, within its geographic placement, and beyond. “Race and the… read more about Course on Race and College Sports Offered this Spring »
This summer a coalition of seventeen media organizations published a series of articles indicting the NSO Group, an Israeli cyberespionage company. The consortium of journalists, working in conjunction with civil society organizations like Amnesty International, alleged that thousands of dissidents, human rights workers, and opposition politicians around the world had been targeted by the NSO’s Pegasus spyware. Outrage over what a U.S. White House spokesperson condemned as “extrajudicial surveillance” echoed worldwide.… read more about Sophia Goodfriend: "Cyberespionage with Benefits" »
Rebecca L. Stein Oct 20, 2021 Screen Shots State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS 2021 In the last two decades, amid the global spread of smartphones, state killings of civilians have increasingly been captured on the cameras of both bystanders and police. Screen Shots: State Violence on Camera in Israel and Palestine (Stanford UP, 2021) studies this phenomenon from the vantage point of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. Here, cameras have proliferated as… read more about Rebecca Stein's new book "Screen Shots" featured on New Book Network »
Charlie Thompson’s Rock Castle Home Documentary Film Screening and Discussion Thursday, November 11, 2021 - 7:00pm to 9:00pm Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University Duke Professor Charlie Thompson’s new film, Rock Castle Home, is a documentary about people who lived in a farm community known as Rock Castle, now subsumed by the Blue Ridge Parkway. In the film, descendants from this 1930s Virginia mountain community return to their homes in seemingly pristine woodlands preserved… read more about Charlie Thompson’s Rock Castle Home Documentary Film Screening and Discussion »
An unconventional National Hispanic Heritage Month panel held Oct. 12 at Duke unpacked and thoroughly discussed many complexities found within the Latinx identity, particularly for those living in the U.S. South. Its organizers aimed to shine a light on growing academic expertise on Latinx issues in the Triangle, while also urging Duke and surrounding institutions to reinvest in regional histories that provide an architecture for understanding the challenges and opportunities we face today. “To me this feels like the best… read more about Latinx in the U.S. South: Scholars from Duke, UNC Discuss the Complexity of Identity, History and Language »
From PhD to Book: How Ethnography is an Important Step Registration Link: https://bit.ly/BookEvent101521 October 15, 2021 :: 12:00-1:00PM EDT Books are often viewed as an expected next step for PhD students upon graduation. But, we are rarely taught exactly how to move from conducting fieldwork to writing a book. How does one approach writing when it comes to working on a book? What is it like to work with an editor? What are the strategies to keep in mind when navigating academic and trade presses… read more about From Ph.D. to Book: How Ethnography is an Important Step »
More than 50 people gathered in a Duke classroom both in-person and remotely this September to consider whether “Truth is a Linguistic Question” – a prompt provided by faculty leading the ongoing Sawyer Seminar Series on language discrimination in fragile and precarious communities. Funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the series launched in spring 2020 and continued throughout the pandemic thanks to a combination of perseverance and the power of Zoom. This latest seminar kicked off a slate of events for this fall.… read more about ‘Truth is a Linguistic Question’ Talks by Five Trinity Scholars Relaunch Series on Language Discrimination »
The Graduate School held two hooding ceremonies at Duke Chapel on Saturday, September 25, 2021, for 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 Ph.D. graduates, whose hooding ceremonies had to be canceled at the time of their graduation due to the pandemic. Congratulations to Kelly Alexander, Joella Bitter, Yidong Gong, Carla Hung, and Matthew Sebastian! read more about Congratulations to our 2020 Ph.D. Graduates! »
Earlier this year Joe Hiller won first place in the graduate division of the Duke library’s Prize for Book Collecting for his collection titled "Como un detective salvaje: Gathering Small Press, Experimental, and Untranslated Latin American Literature." This catapulted him into the Antiquarian Booksellers Association of America (ABAA) National Collegiate Book Collecting Contest, for which he has been awarded the prize for "the most outstanding essay and annotated bibliography submitted." The ABAA is proud to… read more about Graduate student Joe Hiller wins national essay award! »
The Trinity College of Arts & Sciences has announced the winners of the 2021 awards for undergraduate teaching. Given each year, the awards honor exceptionally strong educators from across the college. Teaching award recipients are selected by the Arts & Sciences Council on the basis of student evaluations, teaching statements and colleague recommendations. “These four awards are bestowed by the Arts & Sciences faculty in recognition of especially outstanding teaching,” said Arts & Sciences Council Chair… read more about Arts & Sciences Teaching Awards Celebrate Excellence Across the College »
Two South African residents in the United States are delighting book lovers with a shop full of books by black authors paired with delicious coffee and pastries. Rofhiwa Book Café was launched this year by the South African power duo Boitumelo Makhubele, who is the founder and Naledi Yaziyo, who is curator. Boitumelo is a Computer Science student at North Carolina A&T and known for their work in community organizing and activism. They have done a lot to foster safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ people of color. Naledi is a… read more about Book Café Delights Readers with Books and Coffee | Interview with Boitumelo Makhubele & Naledi Yaziyo »
Dear Faculty and Staff, We are delighted to share with you the recipients of the 2021 Trinity College of Arts & Sciences Teaching Awards, which were presented at the Arts & Sciences Council meeting on Thursday, September 9 by the Committee on Undergraduate Teaching. The council altered its submission process this year, asking for the usual nominations from academic… read more about Congratulations to former graduate student Kelly Alexander 2021 Award-Winning Teacher »
The recent events of the Israeli aggression on Gaza and Jerusalem are an important occasion that shows the importance of the image and the extent of its impact on the arena of political disputes. The policy of violence practiced by the Israeli side against the Palestinians has always been surrounded by the "image", as a means that shows the severity of the aggression against the Palestinian people, which Israel tried to combat. Always. The importance of the recent events shows the importance of the “image”, as the… read more about American anthropologist Rebecca L. Stein: This is how the Israeli military occupation has changed in the age of smartphones »
Professor Orin Starn reflects on Guzman's passing and the state of Marxist/Maoist thought in Latin America. "Maoism was a global phenomenon in the 1960s. It was fresh and exciting and promised revolution and that was a big part of its appeal to young people, who weren't interested in old-fashioned Soviet communism, which was perceived as the establishment, " says Starn. . "In the international romanticization of Mao, people either did not know or were ignorant of the atrocities that his government was… read more about Abimael Guzman: What is Maoism, the ideology in which the Shining Path leader was inspired and for which he unleashed a bloody war in Peru »
Professor Rebecca Stein is the recipient of the Howard D. Johnson Teaching Award from the Arts and Sciences Council! Recipients were selected on the basis of their equitable and inclusive teaching, their ability to spark excitement about learning, the ways they encourage a deep dive into disciplinary ways of thinking, their efforts to make connections beyond the courses they teach, and for their teaching innovations, particularly during the COVID era. Congratulations, Rebecca! read more about Rebecca Stein receives the Howard D. Johnson Teaching Award »
If you don’t think a laboratory is the ideal place to explore complex themes and methodologies like valuing care, ethnography, urbanism or games and culture, you may need to expand your definition beyond beakers and microscopes. Labs are hives of communication, cooperation and active collaboration. They are driven by a commitment to curiosity and exploration that often produces unanticipated paths and solutions. And utilizing those features for research in the humanities – a scholarly area that has traditionally focused on… read more about Innovative, Interdisciplinary Labs Reshape Humanities Research and Teaching »
Editor’s note: This is the first of two diary entries by this author addressing teaching during the pandemic. The second is available here. Before the start of our Covid year, Duke Student Government wrote a letter to The Chronicle encouraging faculty to be flexible in schedules, assignments and grading so as to help alleviate the academic and mental health stress of the pandemic. Taking their request seriously, I experimented with a new exercise and a new approach to evaluation in my fall Medical… read more about Breath Journals and Ungrading »
After Israeli police entered Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque in early May, following rising tensions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, news consumers around the globe watched in real time as conflict erupted in the region once again, and social media followed. Across Twitter, Tik Tok and other platforms, viewers shared videos of Israeli police firing rubber bullets and Palestinian protestors throwing rocks, as well as images of Palestinian rockets and Israeli airstrikes. The conflict unfolding on the ground was… read more about Rebecca Stein on War in the Smartphone Age »
After Israeli police entered Jerusalem’s Aqsa Mosque in early May, following rising tensions in the East Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah, news consumers around the globe watched in real time as conflict erupted in the region once again, and social media followed. Across Twitter, Tik Tok and other platforms, viewers shared videos of Israeli police firing rubber bullets and Palestinian protestors throwing rocks, as well as images of Palestinian rockets and Israeli airstrikes. The conflict unfolding on the ground was… read more about Rebecca Stein on War in the Smartphone Age »
Randy Matory receives American Ethnological 2020 Society Senior Book Prize. Award presentation. read more about Randy Matory receives American Ethnological Society 2020 Senior Book Prize »