Transcript 05xNew Stuff

New Stuff
In Anthropology
Climate Anthropology
• Climate Anthropology
For a number of years, archeology has been instrumental in
reconstruction of past climates. Brian Fagan, Emeritus
Professor at U.C. Santa Barbara, has become one of the
most prolific writers in modern archaeology.
The podcast on Big Weather originated in Camden, Maine,
in October, 2004.
EvoDevo
Chi-Hua Chiu
Assistant Professor
Departments of Genetics and Anthropology,
Center for Human Evolutionary Studies,
Rutgers University
EvoDevo
Specializes in evolutionary developmental
biology or "evo-devo", which seeks to explain
the evolution and development of
morphological characters as well as the
evolution of their underlying genetic and
developmental mechanisms using a
comparative approach. We currently use the
tetrapod limb as a model system, with focus
on the genetic basis for evolutionary diversity
in the hands and feet of primates.
Evolutionary Psychology
• Culture, Cognition, and Evolution….Dan Sperber.
Sperber, a French anthropologist, has developed an
approach to culture under the general heading of
"epidemiology of representations". Epidemiology is the
study of the distribution of certain items or conditions
in the population. One can study the distribution of
particular pathological conditions, but you can also
study the distribution of good habits, or thoughts, or
representations, artifacts, or forms of knowledge.
“When we say anthropology is in crisis we're talking
about anthropology as defined by academic institutions.
And it doesn't matter. It deserves to be in crisis; it
deserves to explode, let it do so. “
Landscape Archaeology
Marcos Llobera, a new prof at the University of Washington is a landscape
archaeologist developing new methods, based on GIS and computer models, to
understand people's interaction with and experience of the landscape. He
compliments interdisciplinary collaboration between the Department of
Anthropology and Geography, Mathematics, and Physics, as well as strengthen
our ties to existing interdisciplinary units, including the Center for Studies in
Demography and Ecology and the Center for Statistics and the Social Sciences
Spatial dimensions of cultural evolution: The evolution of
footpaths and trail systems.
Performance Ethnology
Tomie Hahn’s ethnography Sensational
Knowledge: Embody Culture Through
Japanese Dance provides a powerful
dissonance to the widely circulated
objectifying images of Japanese women.
In the introduction, Hahn invokes her
subversive impulse to “re appropriate the
exotic mystique of the ‘fan dance’
stereotype of the demure ‘Oriental lady’
who entices the onlookers’ gaze by
revealing and concealing her body… to re
appropriate the fan, kimono, and hair
ornaments to tell a very different story of
Japanese performing women” (14-5).
http://www.yellowbuzz.org/2007/09/tomiehahns-new-book-moves-with.html