Social Anthropology Podcasts
Every week during term-time there are at least eight anthropology seminars. For a full list of seminars and events, see here. In addition, the student-run Oxford University Anthropological Society (OUAS) also hosts occasional speakers
Special lectures
The Geoffrey Harrison Prize Lecture (3 November 2017)
The inaugural Geoffrey Harrison Prize Lecture was delivered in Oxford on 3 November 2017 by Melissa Parker, Professor of Medical Anthropology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine: 'Ebola: A Biosocial Journey'.
Astor Visiting Lecture (19 October 2017)
Michael Jackson, Distinguished Visiting Professor of World Religions at Harvard Divinity School, delivered the Astor Visiting Lecture at Oxford on 19 October 2017 (introduced by Ramon Sarró, Oxford): 'Words and Deeds'.
Mary Douglas Memorial Lecture (24 May 2017)
Professor Pat Caplan (Emeritus Professor of Anthropology, Goldsmiths University of London): 'Gifts, entitlements, benefits and surplus: interrogating food poverty and food aid in the UK'.
Keynote speech, Cultural Evolution Workshop (28 February 2017)
Tim Lewens, Professor of Philosophy of Science, Cambridge, delivered the Keynote speech at the Cultural Evolution Workshop held at the Pitt Rivers Museum, Oxford, on 28 February 2017: 'The Concept of Culture in Cultural Evolution'.
Mary Douglas Memorial Lecture (3 June 2015)
Professor Jeffrey C. Alexander (Lillian Chavenson Saden Professor of Sociology, Yale University): 'The societalization of social problems: recent social crises and the civil sphere'.
Special seminars
A video presentation by Professor David Zeitlyn (School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography) from a round table discussion at AAA (15 November 2018): 'Archiving Anthropology'
Dr Fraser Sugden (Researcher - Social Sciences, International Water management Institute, Kathmandu, Nepal), 19 May 2016: 'Agrarian change, climate stress and shifting class relations in the Nepal-Bihar borderlands'.
Departmental seminars
These seminars run every week in term-time with invited guest speakers, and cover the full breadth of the discipline. You can listen to the podcasts here.
Ethnicity and Identity Seminar Series
Professor Joy Hendry (Oxford Brookes University), Learning that emerges in 'Times of Trouble': a few cases from Japan (2 March 2012)
Eric Edwards (Pitt Rivers Museum, University of Oxford), The self-management of misfortune by use of amulets and charms (3 February 2012)
Dr Gillian Tett (Assistant Editor, Financial Times), 'People losing credit: models and innovation in finance' (5 February 2010)
International Gender Studies Centre Seminars
Elinor Bastin (The Knowledge Centre, Bodleian Health Care Libraries, Oxford), Altruism in Cyberspace? An exploration of an on-line community for women and men with bipolar disorder (10 November 2011)
Lecture on Health, Environment and Development
Peter Scarborough (UL in Public Health, Oxford), 'Meat and Health' - the impact of achieving environmentally sustainable diets on deaths from cardiovascular disease and cancer in the UK (18 October 2011)
The British Centre for Durkheim Studies
Professor Philip Mellor (University of Leeds), Collective Effervescence of Embodied Intoxication (25 February 2012)
Digital Anthropology
Professor David Zeitlyn (ISCA, University of Oxford), Provocations for digital anthropology (30 May 2013)
David Zeitlyn discusses parallels between visual and digital anthropology and the dangers of historical myopia. It is too easy to disregard earlier parallels because of the mistaken claim that everything is new and different.
Professor David Zeitlyn (ISCA, University of Oxford), Looking forward looking back (18 May 2013)
David Zeitlyn argues for a pluralisation of past, present and future. There are many unconnected or only partially connected literatures on time related issues.
This presentation by Professor David Zeitlyn from DHOxSS 2014 (July 2014) is based on the practical experience of archiving 46,000+ images taken by a Cameroonian studio photographer over a 30-year period as part of the British Library 'Endangered Archive Programme' (EAP).
If a picture is worth 1000 words what's a medium quality scan worth?
Two special lectures given in January 2014 by Professor Verkijika Fanso of the Department of History, University of Yaounde in Cameroon:
Fifty years of Cameroon unification: controversies and archival echoes
Photo archives as historical resources: the Jeffreys and Dalrymple archives compared
Alternative Utopias and the Crisis of Imagination' by Professor Alexander Kiossev (Department of Cultural Studies Faculty of Philosophy, University of Sofia).
Professor Alexander Kiossev (University of Sofia in Bulgaria)drawing on his background in cultural studies, spoke about the ways in which 'alternative utopias' can enable creative imaginaries for the types of futures we are able to realise or create. 20 June 2013.
'Women and Post-2014 Afghanistan: What is the West's Responsibility?' A Weidenfeld Debate sponsored by the Institute for Strategic Dialogue and St Hilda's College, held at Ship Street Centre, Jesus College, 9 May 2013.
An Africanist's Legacy - A Workshop in Celebration of the Work of David Parkin, Oxford, 8-9 July 2010
At the beginning of the 20th century, British social anthropology could be characterised as having simple data collection as its main focus. A century later it has evolved into a highly self-conscious and relexive post-colonial discipline that endeavours to renew itself repeatedly. Anthropology's continued strength is largely due to a generation of British anthropologists who reached maturity and began to have a major impact in the 1970s. Of that post-war/post-colonial generation, the work and career of David Parkin were crucial to these developments.
This celebratory workshop included papers that explored both his inspiration and legacy in the study of African linguistics, class formation, politics, economics, non-western legal systems, therapeutic practices and medical anthropology generally, transnational religious networks, forms of Muslim prayer, ways of 'learning' religion, dance and music, forced displacement and the material culture of loss, and cognition, as well as in the formulation of the concept of a holistic anthropology.
More information about the workshop can be found here as well as the programme.
Here are the podcasts of three sessions, each of which is followed by a separate recording of the discussion that followed.
Credit societies and the search for school fees in Uganda: revisiting the anthropology of education (Dr David Mills, Oxford).
Discussion (chaired by Dr Lola Martinez).
Responsibilised citizens? Discourses and practices around care of the self among HIV positive people in Tanzania (Dr Nadine Beckmann, Leeds).
Discussion (chaired by Dr Soraya Tremayne).
Performing fragmentary movements: perspectives on the life-history of a Muslim dancer-choreographer (Asst Prof Zulfiker Hirji, University of York, Toronto).
Discussion (chaired by Dr Hélène Neveu).
