Public Events Fall 2016

Friday, December 9: Hannah Selvey
Cranial Morphology and its role in Conservation and Husbandry
Abstract: This research examines cranial metrics of Malagasy lemur and big cat specimens in local and international museum collections. The mechanical properties of diet are key drivers of variation in cranial morphology both within and across species. Oral processing of tough foods, such as skin, raw meat, and bones in carnivoran diets and tamarind seed pods in lemur diets requires increased chewing/mechanical effort compared to captive diets. Thus, cranial morphology should reflect this differential effort. Though zoological institutions attempt to mimic wild diets from a nutritional standpoint, mechanical properties are often not considered. A preliminary investigation of captivity’s impact on cranial morphology in lions and tigers showed that significant differences in robusticity of masticatory features were evident and when subjected to discriminant function analysis were able to predict captivity status of “unknown” individuals. This brownbag will discuss the role of cranial morphology in conservation and husbandry efforts and the implications of these preliminary findings for lemurs.

What's Next? Anthropologists come together after the election.
Kaifa Roland, Thursday November 10, 12:30, Hale Reading Room - Lunch will be provided
What’s Next? – Roundtable Notes

The 2016 presidential election has been stressful, divisive, and disheartening. While many of us are simply counting the hours until November 8th, this election has highlighted issues that will endure long after the polls close. Regardless of the outcome, it is evident that we have a lot of work to do as a country to address the multiple forms of inequality that persist in our society. As anthropologists, we are trained to think critically about inequality and the ways that it affects intersecting social identities. But, what can we do (as students, teachers, friends, researchers) in the aftermath of the election? Please join Professor Roland to think through the election and its broader implications for our macro and micro communities. What's next?

Dr. Sarah Kurnick, Chancellor's Postdoctoral Felow, University of Colorado Boulder
4:00pm, Friday, October 28 in Hale Science 230

In this presentation, I’ll consider two critical questions. How do political regimes use the past to justify their authority, particularly in the aftermath of drastic social change? And, how can archaeologists and descendant communities collaboratively employ the past to ameliorate inequality and produce social and economic well-being? I’ll then discuss the ancient Maya archaeological site and contemporary Maya community of Punta Laguna, where I direct an archaeological project focused on understanding the creation and mitigation of inequality. I’ll conclude by considering what archaeology – in a post-Occupy Wall Street era, where the Black Lives Matter Movement and issues of sexual violence so frequently dominate the headlines – can and should contribute to contemporary discussions of economic, racial, and gender inequities.

Anthropology Colloquium Series

For additional information, please contact Arthur Joyce

Friday, October 21: Rachel Egan
A Review of the 2016 Arenal Research Project: thoughts and future directions
Rachel Egan, Friday October 21, noon, Hale Reading Room
Abstract: This past summer I traveled to Costa Rica with Dr. Payson Sheets, Dr. Christine Dixon, and Dr. Tom Sever as part of the Arenal research project. The Arenal region, located along the continental divide in northern Costa Rica, is characterized by frequent volcanic eruptions emanating from the Arenal volcano. These eruptions have had significant impacts on present, historic, and prehistoric populations. One avenue for exploring how prehistoric populations mitigated the risk that the Arenal volcano presented is through the reconstruction of social networks. In this case, footpaths entrenched into the ground surface through repeated use. This project focused on a section of path along the now-named La Chiripa site. This brownbag will discuss the findings of the 2016 field season and the relevance for future research, including my dissertation.

Dr. Bianca Williams, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies, University of Colorado Boulder

4:00pm, Friday, October 14 in Hale Sciences 230

Anthropology Colloquium Series

For additional information, please contact Carla Jones

Dr. Sara Shneiderman, Professor of Anthropology, University of British Columbia
Professor Shneiderman's research explores the relationships between political discourse, ritual action, and cross-border mobility in producing ethnic identities and shaping social transformation. She is the author of the book Rituals of Ethnicity: Thangmi Identities Between Nepal and India (2015), which is a transnational study of the relationships between mobility, ethnicity, and ritual action.

This is co-sponsored by the Tibet Himalaya Initiative, the Center for Asian Studies, and the Department of Anthropology.

Discussant: Ayden Parish (PhD Student, Linguistics/ CLASP)

Description:
This is an early draft of the fifth chapter of my book manuscript, which is (very!) provisionally entitled Fragile Kinships: Materializing Relationships in Japanese State Care. The concept of “materializing” offers an orienting thematic for the book as a whole, which explores the ways social inequalities—particularly, an uneven distribution of care and concern—are perceived in material things and the bodies of people who have experienced separation from kin and caregivers, neglect, and sometimes violence. This chapter explores memory (both traumatic and not), narrative, and story-telling, to open up questions about the ways individual memory is also necessarily interpersonal, and to consider how memory and time are materialized and known by way of material media like bodies and documents.

"Dreaming Down the Track: The Mediation of Aboriginal Futurisms" | October 20, 4p.m. Hale Science Building Room 450
by Willi Lempert (PhD Candidate, Cultural Anthropology)
Discussant: Dawa Lokyitsang (PhD Student, Cultural Anthropology)

Description:
This is a foundational chapter in which I work through futurity as a primary analytic for my dissertation. I articulate how the construction of corporeal futures through filmmaking can mediate Australian imaginaries around what is possible, desirable, and inevitable for Aboriginal peoples. I argue for the temporal reorientation of anthropological projects toward futures, especially in relation to peoples so associated with mythic pasts and ever-fraught presents.

"Refugee Citizenship as Political Subjectivity: Tibetan Asylum Journeys from New York City to Toronto" | October 27, 4 p.m. Hale Science Building Room 450
by Carole McGranahan (Associate Professor, Cultural Anthropology)
Discussant: Marnie Thomson (PhD Candidate, Cultural Anthropology)

Description:
This article-in-progress is part of my ongoing research of both formal and everyday practices of political subjectivity by Tibetan refugees in diaspora, specifically in Kathmandu, Dharamsala, Toronto, and New York City. Unlike the first generation who was born in Tibet, the much larger population of Tibetans born in exile have long had under or undocumented refugee status in India and Nepal, whereas escapees from Tibet also do not qualify for documentation in either India or Nepal. This article focuses on the Tibetan communities in Canada and the USA where, in contrast, the majority of Tibetans have obtained legal citizenship. My research explores how the first generation of refugees defined and debated refugee versus citizenship status, and how younger generations inhabit and redefine categories of political subjectivity established by their elders. Within this context, my primary research questions are: Given the current political order, what does it mean to live as a noncitizen in a world where rights are assigned primarily through citizenship? To follow, what forms of citizenship do Tibetan refugees claim and refuse, and with what repercussions for local, national, and global political possibilities?

"Narrative Resonance: The Mixed Marriage of Humanitarian Categories and Tribalism" | November 9, 4 p.m. Hale Science Building Room 450
by Marnie Thomson (PhD Candidate, Cultural Anthropology)
Discussant: Arielle Milkman (MA Student, Cultural Anthropology)

Description:
How do narratives take hold, grow, and amplify? In this piece, I theorize how this happens in a UN camp for Congolese refugees in Tanzania by examining the ways in which both camp residents and aid workers are bound to certain narratives about Congo in order to successfully navigate international humanitarian policy and services.

Friday, September 16: Lindsay Johansson
The Fremont Experiment: Examining the Evidence of Community Structures, Settlement Clustering, and Leadership among the Fremont
Lindsay D. Johansson, Friday September 16, noon, Hale Reading Room
Abstract: During the Fremont period, groups in the eastern Great Basin aggregated into larger and more permanent settlements, and these settlements clustered together across the landscape. Within many settlement clusters, sites exist containing architecturally distinct buildings which were used differently than typical residential structures. Broadly, these distinct buildings can be divided into two types, central structures and oversized pit structures, both of which have some evidence of communal functions. Based on correlations between settlement clustering and buildings with communal functions, this paper argues that the organization of people into larger, more settled communities played an important role in Fremont daily life. Within these communities, activities taking place either in or in association with central structures and oversized pit structures as well as the architecture of some homes suggest the presence of leaders and increasing status differentiation among those living in the eastern Great Basin ca. AD 900 to 1200.

Friday, October 7: Devin Pettigrew
Testing Basketmaker Curved, Grooved Sticks
Devin Pettigrew, Friday October 7, noon, Hale Reading Room
In the American Southwest, archaeologists have recovered multi-curved grooved sticks with pitch coated knobs tied to handles – what was their purpose? Devin’s research involves experimenting with S-shaped sticks to: fend atlatl darts, throw as rabbit sticks. The sticks are comparable in structure and mechanics to straight-flying boomerangs used in hunting and war in North America and Australia.

Friday, December 9: Hannah Selvey
Cranial Morphology and its role in Conservation and Husbandry
Abstract: This research examines cranial metrics of Malagasy lemur and big cat specimens in local and international museum collections. The mechanical properties of diet are key drivers of variation in cranial morphology both within and across species. Oral processing of tough foods, such as skin, raw meat, and bones in carnivoran diets and tamarind seed pods in lemur diets requires increased chewing/mechanical effort compared to captive diets. Thus, cranial morphology should reflect this differential effort. Though zoological institutions attempt to mimic wild diets from a nutritional standpoint, mechanical properties are often not considered. A preliminary investigation of captivity’s impact on cranial morphology in lions and tigers showed that significant differences in robusticity of masticatory features were evident and when subjected to discriminant function analysis were able to predict captivity status of “unknown” individuals. This brownbag will discuss the role of cranial morphology in conservation and husbandry efforts and the implications of these preliminary findings for lemurs.

Sponsored by Indian Peaks Chapter, Colorado Archaeology Society (IPCAS)
Most people, including most archaeologists, have a very clear image of where the American Southwest is and what it looks like. It is about where Coronado said it was in the mid-16th century, it is generally not too far from fine dining and high end art galleries, and it has pueblos and deserts, mesas and canyons. If we define the Southwest in terms of indigenous identity and try to look at that identity using archaeological data, though, Coronado's (and R.C. Gorman's) Southwest is problematic. The cultural Southwest was once much larger than it is on the maps in our textbooks, and knowing this fundamentally changes what we often think we know about topics like Plains/Pueblo interaction.

September 7, 2016 at 12:00PM in Hale 256
"Eruptions that Shook the World"
Professor Clive Oppenheimer, of Cambridge University in England, will give a special guest presentation on “Eruptions that Shook the World”.
Dr. Oppenheimer is one of the world’s authorities in volcanology, effects of explosive eruptions on ancient and recent societies, and remote sensing. He has done original research on volcanoes and their impacts and recoveries in various parts of the world including the Caribbean and Mt Erebus in the Antarctic. He published a book at Cambridge University Press in 2011 entitled “Eruptions that Shook the World.” His slide-illustrated presentation will discuss some of the greatest eruptions of ancient and more recent times, and will discuss their implications for people, their adaptations, and their cultures.
For more information, contact Payson.Sheets@colorado.edu, Rachel Egan, or Jen Deats.

September 1, 2016 at 6:30PM in Hale 270
Unexpected Buddha: The Illusory visions of contemporary Tibetan artist, Karma Phuntsok