School of Antropology & Museum Ethnography: Latest News

Applications invited for DPhil studentship funded by HERA through AHRC

Fri, 17 May 2013 15:44:00 +0100

African Heritage in Brazil: DPhil Studentship in Anthropology in association with St Antony's College Applications are invited for a three-year studentship funded by HERA (Humanities European Research Area) through the AHRC, to work towards a Doctorate in Anthropology at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography of the University of Oxford under the supervision of Dr Ramon Sarró, on the anthropology of heritage and memory in Brazil (looking specifically at the Central African origins of some elements of Brazilian popular culture). The successful candidate will be affiliated with St Antony's College and will undertake fieldwork in Brazil. Dr Sarró is directing the project "A King in The Atlantic: centripetal and centrifugal forces in the making of a Kongo heritage", which is part of the wider umbrella project "Currents of Faith, Places of History: Connections, Moral Circumscriptions and World-Making in the Atlantic Space" whose PL (project leader) is Dr Ruy Blanes (institute of Social Sciences, Lisbon, and University of Bergen) and which includes projects in Brussels, Lisbon, Oxford, and Utrecht. Further details here.

Articles in Scientific America and Smithsonian.com cite research from RCC Project

Fri, 17 May 2013 09:57:00 +0100

Two articles, one in Scientific America and one at Smithsonian.com, have cited research conducted as part of the RCC project. The full articles, entitled Why Rituals Work, which cites a paper from Legare, et.al., and Why Your Lucky Underwear and Pre-Game Routine Might Actually Work, which refers to an audio interview by Harvey Whitehouse, can be read in full here and here respectivly.

Applications invited for AHRC collaborative doctoral studentship beginning in October 2013

Tue, 07 May 2013 15:01:00 +0100

The Cultural Worlds of African Palm Oil: trade, consumption and museum collecting in Britain and Nigeria, 1850-1900 Following the award of an AHRC collaborative doctoral studentship to Professor David Zeitlyn (ISCA) and Dr Heloise Finch-Boyer (National Maritime Museum) for ‘The Cultural Worlds of African Palm Oil: trade, consumption and museum collecting in Britain and Nigeria, 1850-1900', a 3-year fully funded AHRC studentship in the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, Oxford, in conjunction with Wolfson College, will be available to the best-qualified candidate. The successful candidate will be expected to carry out research for a doctorate in anthropology, supervised by Professor David Zeitlyn and Dr Heloise Finch-Boyer. The student will undertake research at the National Maritime Museum and other London museums and archives, as well as fieldwork possibly in Koko, southwest Nigeria. Candidates should be able to demonstrate an interest in the study of British maritime history or African material culture and a commitment to ethnographic fieldwork in Africa. They should have a good Master’s degree and/or first degree in Anthropology, Museum Studies or African Studies. Full details available here

Twilight Takeover at the Pitt Rivers Museum - video

Fri, 03 May 2013 10:39:00 +0100

For one night only, on 25 April, Anthropology students took over the Museum's Court and Lower Gallery for an evening of music, movement and masquerade, forming part of VERVE's commitment to attracting young adult audiences. View here a short film (3 minutes) of the Twilight Takeover event. It offers a playful and tantalising glimpse of the Museum after dark as well as a look at the newly lit mask displays. http://vimeo.com/65313090

Mary Douglas Memorial Lecture Fund

Fri, 26 Apr 2013 15:25:00 +0100

Oxford University’s School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography and UCL Anthropology have established a fund to support an annual lecture in memory of Dame Mary Douglas (1921-2007). Mary was trained at Oxford and spent most of her working life at UCL, so it is proposed that the lecture should alternate between Oxford and UCL. The topic of the lecture will be related to a field in which she was active (e.g. African ethnography, environment and technological risk, Old Testament scholarship) and outward facing from the discipline of Anthropology in keeping with her role as a public intellectual. It is anticipated that the lectures will be published in collaboration with the Royal Anthropological Institute. The first lecture will be held in 2014. A steering group to organise the lectures has been established consisting of the heads of both participating departments - Professors Marcus Banks (Oxford) and Suzanne Kuechler (UCL), the Director of the Royal Anthropological Institute - Dr David Shankland, and Professor Steve Rayner (Oxford), Dr Martin Holbraad (UCL), and Professor Perri 6 (Queen Mary, University of London). The fund has been established with initial institutional donations from both departments and from an individual donor. Additional donations from friends, colleagues and admirers are welcome to ensure that the memorial is sustainable into the future. The fund will be used to defray the travel and subsistence expenses of the lecturer, a modest reception and/or dinner in his/her honour, and expenses associated with publicity and publication. Contributions to the fund are eligible for Gift Aid and can be made online at http://www.giving.ox.ac.uk/academic_departments/social_sciences/anthropology.html. Please be sure to designate your gift to the Mary Douglas Memorial Lecture Fund.

Late Junction: Sound recordings from the Pitt Rivers Museum sound archive featured on Radio 3 this week

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 12:08:00 +0100

BBC Radio 3's Late Junction (presented by Max Reinhardt) is broadcasting three recordings from the PRM sound collections this week, two of which are field recordings by former ISCA anthropologists Edward Evans-Pritchard and Nick Allen. The third is by David Mowat in India. The show from 16 April with Nick Allen's recording of Kinnauri women singing is now available via iPlayer (at around 1hr 20mins). The episode on 17 April played a wax cylinder recording by E-P of a Zande war song, and will be available on iPlayer. These recordings are also available via the Reel to Real project website. See for instance Nick Allen's introduction page. Further information about Late Junction can be found here.

"Three wishes for the world" (online article in Social Evolution Forum)

Fri, 05 Apr 2013 14:34:00 +0100

"Three wishes for the world" (online article in Social Evolution Forum)

If you had three wishes to change the world, what would they be? Perhaps you would like to put an end to war? Reverse global warming? Or eliminate extreme poverty? Full article available here.

A study of Neanderthal brain organisation makes the news

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 13:56:00 +0000

A new study by a team that includes Eiluned Pearce, a DPhil student at the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, suggests that Neanderthals became extinct because they had larger eyes than Homo sapiens. 'As a result, more of their brains were devoted to seeing in the long, dark nights in Europe, at the expense of high-level processing.' Read the BBC report here. The study is published in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

A Sleeper Awakes? Scientific Connoisseurs and other Intermediaries

Fri, 01 Mar 2013 12:38:00 +0000

A workshop held under the ESRC’s Science in Society Programme in March 2004 was written up by Peter Healey as Scientific Connoisseurs and other Intermediaries: Mavens, Pundits and Critics. A recent blog from Beverley Gibbs, commenting on an Observer piece from Martin Ince suggested that the report deserves to come out from behind its paywall and be better known, and we are happy to make it freely available below.

The report's themes of scientific enagement, expertise and legitimacy, have recently received more attention within InSIS too, as Jerry Ravetz, Peter Healey and Steve Rayner have become interested in the increasing impact of social media on science through phenomena such as 'crowd-sourced science' and 'reality science' shows.

Scientific Connoisseurship Report (PDF, 383 KB)

2013 Distinguished Lecture Series: 'De-centering Urbanism'

Thu, 21 Feb 2013 16:14:00 +0000

Research being conducted under the Oxford Programme for the Future of Cities seeks to understand how to make cities flexible enough to cope with the emerging challenges of environmental and societal change. Paramount to this task is a theorisation of the city that steps beyond traditional canons and disciplinary divides. In the 2012 lecture series organised by the Programme, Jennifer Robinson and Neil Smith reminded us of how this approach demands new vocabularies and new ways of thinking through the city as urban futures are re-imagined and contested both in the academia and in the everyday practice. This 2013 Distinguished Lecture Series seeks to respond to this challenge. It presents scholars that are engaging with accounts of urbanism that de-center traditional urban theory and offer insights from contexts that have for too long been ‘off the map’ for urban scholars and practitioners. Tuesday 26 February, 17:30, Seminar Room, 64 Banbury Road
Thomas Blom Hansen (Stanford University)
The Sacred and the City. How religious identity shapes urban life Tuesday 05 March, 17:30, Pauling Centre Seminar Room, 58a Banbury Road
Vanessa Watson (University of Cape Town)
African Urban Fantasies: new postcolonial frontiers Monday 03 June, 14:00, Seminar Room, 64 Banbury Road
Paul Jenkins (University of Edinburgh)
Understanding urbanisation, urbanism and urbanity in African cities: home spaces and house cultures in Maputo, Mozambique All welcome, but registration is required: http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/org/1870443087