2019
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Tuesday, October 8, 2019
Dr. Geoff Bil, Visiting Assistant Professor History, University of Delaware
Reem-Kayden Center Laszlo Z. Bito '60 Auditorium 4:30 pm – 6:30 pm From the Enlightenment era forward, the Pacific has served as a crucial touchstone for European speculation on differences between indigenous and Western cultures. My paper examines the role played by botanists in these considerations, with particular reference to social factors that shaped observations by European naturalists in Tahiti. Following a preliminary discussion of European-Tahitian botanical interactions over the course of James Cook’s Endeavour voyage (1768–71), I proceed to examine the heightened attention to epistemological contrasts between Tahitian and European environmental worldviews given in published accounts authored by Johann (1729–1798) and Georg Forster (1754–1794), who served aboard James Cook’s HMS Resolution (1772–75). I attribute this shift to the Forsters’ relative lack of acquaintance with Tahitian cultures and te reo Tahiti (the Tahitian language), owing largely to the more itinerant nature of the Resolution voyage. The second part of this presentation turns to HMS Bounty expedition’s (1787-1790) unprecedented length of stay at Tahiti to collect breadfruit trees en route to the Caribbean, which encouraged cross-cultural intimacies palpably—even dangerously—at odds with Forsterian dichotomizing. In bringing these case studies together, I reflect on a paradox: namely, that while some grasp of indigenous knowledge was fundamental to global botanical endeavors, it could also prove their ruination. Dr. Bil received his PhD in history from the University of British Columbia in 2018. He was an Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow at the Humanities Institute, LuEsther T. Mertz Library, New York Botanical Garden from 2018 to 2019. He has published most recently in the British Journal for the History of Science, and his manuscript. Indexing the Indigenous: Plants, Peoples and Empire is under contract with John Hopkins University Press. |
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Wednesday, September 18, 2019 and a discussion in the Stevenson Library, first floor, 4-5pm Campus Center and Stevenson Library What does justice look like in a curriculum? In an effort to recognize more than a century's worth of writing by people who were not white or male and whose work is important for general anthropological knowledge, the Anthropology Program is featuring some of these authors in a campus-wide book fair. Join faculty from Anthropology as we hold a book fair in the Campus Center (9am-3pm) to read excerpts and informally discuss some of the classic readings. We would like to feature some of these readings in our introductory courses in efforts to decolonize our syllabi, and we welcome student responses. Help us think more deeply about the texts and the introductory curriculum through a discussion in the library, first floor, 4-5pm. |
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Thursday, April 25, 2019
The Man Who Would Be King
Directed by John Huston, 1975 Preston Theater 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Based on Rudyard Kipling’s story of the same name, this film follows two rogue ex-soldiers, former non-commissioned officers in the British Army, who set off from late 19th-century British India in search of adventure and end up in faraway Kafiristan, where one is taken for a god and made their king. |
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Wednesday, April 24, 2019 Olin, Room 102 6:00 pm – 7:15 pm In the 1990s, the well-known tactic of "broken-windows policing" targeted homeless people by removing them from core areas of New York City and other global mega-cities. Yet today, with a progressive administration and softer policing in place, homeless New Yorkers still find themselves unable to exist comfortably in public space. How should we understand this shift? In this presentation, I argue that the regime of anti-homelessness in New York has shifted to what I call "ecological development," and present evidence from an ethnographic study to show how green spaces, linear parks, and urban plaza areas have taken up the mantle of anti-homelessness, and how homeless activists resist these nefarious tools of urban planning and development. |
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Wednesday, April 24, 2019 Olin, Room 102 4:45 pm – 6:00 pm In the US and Brazil alike, the housing crisis sweeps millions into its grasp each year, producing homelessness, destroying public space, and forcing people to migrate long distances. But homeless activists have powerfully resisted this trend through community organizing, collective action, and legislative change. Landless activists have occupied plantations, successfully resettling hundreds of thousands of people on land that used to be controlled by big agriculture. Come hear from housing organizers in New York City and landless organizers in Brazil. Learn more about how we can create new models of land and public space so that all have a right to a home. |
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Thursday, April 18, 2019 Duke University Department of Anthropology Olin, Room 102 5:00 pm – 7:00 pm This paper studies the impact of new photographic technologies and image-sharing platforms on the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian territories. Taking its cue from Trumpian political discourse, I focus on the right-wing Jewish Israeli reckoning with the growing visual archive of Palestinian injury at Israeli state or settler hands – a reckoning that occurs through the discourse of “fake news,” or the charge that such images are fraudulent or manipulated in some regard to produce the damning portrait of Israel. I will trace the long colonial history of repudiation in the Israeli context, its modification in the digital age, and consider the ways it has become an increasingly standard right-wing response to images of state violence believed to damage Israel’s global standing. I will argue that the fraudulence charge is marshalled as a solution to the viral visibility of Israeli state violence -- a charge that works to bring these damning images back in line with dominant Israeli ideology by shifting the narrative from Palestinian injury to Israeli victimhood. The story of the “fake” image of Palestinian injury endeavors to strip the visual field of its Israeli perpetrators and Palestinian victims, thereby exonerating the state. Or such is the fantasy. |
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Thursday, April 11, 2019
1947:Earth
Directed by Deepa Mehta, 1999 Preston Theater 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Earth is set in Lahore (now the capital of Pakistani Punjab) in the time period directly before and during the partition of India in 1947 at the time of Indian independence. A young girl with polio, Lenny (Maia Sethna), narrates the story through the voice of her adult self (Shabana Azmi). She is from a wealthy Parsi family who hope to remain neutral to the rising tensions between Hindus, Sikhs, and Muslims in the area. She is adored and protected by her parents, Bunty (Kitu Gidwani) and Rustom (Arif Zakaria), and cared for by her Ayah, a beautiful Hindu woman named Shanta (Nandita Das). Both Dil Navaz, the Ice-Candy Man (Aamir Khan), and Hassan, the Masseur (Rahul Khanna) are Muslim and in love with Shanta. Shanta, Dil, and Hassan are part of a small group of friends from different faiths (some of whom work for Lenny's family) who spend their days together in the park. With partition, however, this once unified group of friends becomes divided and tragedy ensues. |
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Thursday, March 28, 2019
Ghare Baire The Home and the World
Directed Satyajit Ray, 1984 Hegeman 102 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm In 1907, Nikhil—a wealthy yet enlightened and charitable Bengali landowner—encourages his wife Bimala to emerge from the traditional female seclusion of purdah and introduces her to his old friend Sandip, a radical leader in the Swadeshi movement. Bimala is deeply affected by Sandip's revolutionary fervor and experiences a profound political awakening that draws her out of her home and into the tumultuous world of Indian nationalism. Based on the novel by Rabindranath Tagore. |
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Thursday, March 7, 2019
Charulata
Directed by Satyajit Ray, 1964 Preston Theater 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm Satyajit Ray’s exquisite story of a woman’s artistic and romantic yearning takes place in 1870s India, in the gracious home of a liberal-minded, workaholic newspaper editor and his lonely wife, Charulata (Madhabi Mukherjee). When her husband’s poet cousin (Soumitra Chatterjee) comes to stay with them, Charulata finds herself both creatively inspired and dangerously drawn to him. Based on a novella by the great Rabindranath Tagore, Charulata is a work of subtle textures, a delicate tale of a marriage in jeopardy and a woman taking the first steps toward establishing her own voice. |
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Thursday, February 28, 2019 Campus Center, Weis Cinema 5:00 pm – 6:30 pm A panel discussion will be held in connection with the Maré de Dentro exhibition Life in Rio de Janeiro’s Favelas, currently on view in the Campus Center. A reception follows. |
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Friday, February 1, 2019 – Friday, March 1, 2019 Campus Center, Gallery A panel discussion, followed by a reception, will take place in Weis Cinema on Thursday, February 28, 5:00–6:30 p.m. |