Dear NET members and ethnographic theory aficionados,
We are happy to report that the NET-organised workshop “Fakery, Insincerity and the Anthropology of Humbuggery” has successfully taken place in Capri, Italy, on 7-10 September. The workshop comprised of sixteen thought-provoking papers focusing on themes such as fakery, deception, lying, conspiracy theory, deceit and bullshit. Over the next few weeks we will be posting interviews with participants of the workshop, talking about the workshop themes as well as their work. We would once again like to thank The Wenner-Gren Foundation, the European Association of Social Anthropologists, the University of Manchester, and the Society for Ethnographic Theory for funding and hence making possible this workshop.
We are also happy to provide you with another version of our digest, which rounds up the best ethnographic-theory related material from the anthro-internets.
- HAU has had a busy couple of months, full of activities and releases. On Friday, October 13th it organised the Inaugural Levi-Strauss Lecture in collaboration with Revue l’Homme. The first speaker of this series was Aparecida Vilaça and her lecture was entitled “The devil and the secret life of numbers. Transformations and translations in the Amazon.” A video of the lecture can be found on HAU’s Facebook page. HAU Books has also released two more volumes of its Malinowski Monographs Series: Andrew Irving’s The Art of Life and Death, and Matthew Carrey’s Mistrust.
- History and Anthropology Newsletter (HAN) continues its resurrection with an open-access special section entitled “Fields, Furrows and Landmarks in the History of Anthropology,” which includes contributions by the likes of Marilyn Strathern and James Clifford.
- Moreover, the latest issue of History and Anthropology has an important debate on Jonathan Parry’s seminal article “The Indian Gift.” The debate is free to access and includes Andrew Sanchez, James Carrier, Chris Gregory, James Laidlaw, Marilyn Strathern, Yunxiang Yan and Jonathan Parry.
- Anthropology of This Century has released another quality issue full of interesting book reviews and a featured article.
- DID YOU KNOW: The University of Helsinki department of anthropology makes recording of its visiting seminar series available online. Here’s Birgit Meyer’s lecture from last May, entitled “Image Wars in Past and Present.”