Events

Academic Year 2024/2025

Loren Landau, Anne McNevin, and Noora Lori’s public talk “Border Crossing and Citizenship: Rethinking Time and Migration” will take place on October 9 at CAS B36 from 4 to 6 PM.

Professors Loren Landau (Professor of Migration and Development, University of Oxford) and Anne McNevin (Associate Professor of Politics, New School for Social Research) will discuss their collaborative research on “Time, Mobility, and Political Possibilities” in experiences of migration.  They have done this research together with Noora Lori, who will join them in the presentation and discussion.  Professors Landau, McNevin, and Lori will discuss how moving away from linear/progressive notions of time and mobility opens up new political possibilities for activism and policymaking.

José Antonio Lucero and Michael Steven Wilson’s book discussion, What Side Are You On?: A Tohono O’odham Life across Borders, will take place on November 13 at CAS B36 from 4 to 6 PM.

José Antonio Lucero (Professor and Chair at the Comparative History of Ideas Department, University of Washington, and a political scientist by training) and Michael Steven Wilson (indigenous human rights activist) are co-authors of What Side Are You On?: A Tohono O’odham Life across Borders, collaborative work on Wilson’s life history and his path from Green Beret doing service in El Salvador to minister setting out water for migrants crossing the desert on Tohono O’odham land in Arizona.  The way Lucero and Wilson practice research, activism, and writing relates directly to the key themes of the seminar.

Atossa Abrahamian’s book discussion, The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World, will take place on February 4 at Pardee from 4 to 6 PM.

Atossa Abrahamian, independent journalist and author of The Hidden Globe: How Wealth Hacks the World, will discuss the growth of economies outside of and beyond sovereign nation-states in conversation with Quinn Slobodian.  She will explore how 21st-century capitalists escape democratic government and oversight in free trade zones, offshore prisons, charter cities, oceans, war zones, and outer space.

Academic Year 2023/2024

Julie Klinger’s talk “Waste in Space: Mines, E-Waste, Launch Sites, and Asteroids in Outer Space Geographies” will be held on November 20, 2023, at 4:00 PM in Kilachand Center Colloquium Room.

This talk examines the material relations through which contemporary human engagements with outer space are being produced across four constitutive sites: mines, discarded electronics, launch sites, and asteroids. Drawing together literatures on waste, discard, supply chains, and frontiers with fieldwork in several mining and launch sites in China, Sweden, the United States and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, it argues that waste-making is constitutive of a set of contemporary space activities and shapes the manner in which the immensity of the cosmos is understood and engaged by diverse publics. The talk presents a conceptual architecture and also reflexively examines the potential epistemic violence of waste-making as a spatial analytic to link Earthly and outer space geographies.

Veronika Kusumaryati and Ernst Karel’s film screening with Q&A, “Expedition Content,” will be held on April 3, 2024, at 4:00 PM in the College of Communication (room B05).

This nearly imageless film documents the strange encounter between the 1961 Harvard-Peabody expedition to Netherlands New Guinea, and the Hubula people. This is a unique opportunity for undergraduate and graduate students and faculty members to engage with the work of an anthropologist and a sound artist in their collaborative artistic expression.

Academic Year 2022/2023

Charles Hirschkind’s talk, “Embodiment, Theology, and Anthropology,” originally scheduled for March 16, 2022, was held on December 13, 2022 at 4:00 pm in CAS Room 132, 725 Commonwealth Avenue. Read more about Hirschkind’s recent work here.

Also, in 2022/2023, Seeing and Not Seeing was pleased to provide support to two more events that align with the spirit of the Seminar:

Mothers of False Positives from Soacha and Bogotá World Tour: Truth, Justice, Integrity, No Repetition, Memory.  November 8, 2022. Speakers were Jacqueline Castillo, sister of a victim; Carlos Mora, ex-military and human rights leader; and Lilian Calvache. This visit included a screening of Hijos del Viento.

A residency by Brazilian poet and performer Ricardo Aleixo. The week of activities included a live poetic performance, a screening of his audiovisual work, and a meeting with students. Aleixo is currently considered one of the most important living artists in the country, integrating avant-garde poetry with Afro-Brazilian culture.

Dylan Robinson’s talk, originally scheduled for April 20, 2022, has been postponed until further notice. Read about Robinson’s work here.