Please join us Wednesday, November 16 at 5:30 pm EST for a lecture by Katina Lillios (The University of Iowa) titled “The Islamic Lives of Iberian Megaliths: Some Initial Explorations” in Rhode Island Hall, Room 108. Reception to follow.

Katina Lillios is an anthropological archaeologist interested in the ways people used material culture, the remains of the dead, and monuments to create, enhance, and challenge sociopolitical difference and inequality. She is intrigued by the ways that social phenomena and cultural values come to be materialized, and how their materiality triggers social action. Lillios is a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Iowa, and holds her degrees from Yale University (Ph.D. and M.A.) and Boston University (B.A.). Her areas of specialty are prehistoric Iberia, and mnemonics in the archaeological record. She has published widely, and is the principal investigator at the Bolores rockshelter in Portugal, and for a study of Portuguese Copper Age tools.

The Joukowsky Institute presents “Student Fieldwork: Highlights, Information, and Advice — and Maybe a Few Cautionary Tales,” an informal conversation and Q&A on fieldwork with Archaeology concentrators, the DigDUG, and Professor Felipe Rojas.

This event will take place on Wednesday, November 6 at 6:00 pm EDT in Rhode Island Hall, Room 108, and all are welcome to join!

Please join us on Tuesday, November 15 at 4 PM for a lecture by Philipp Stockhammer (Ludwig-Maximilians University) titled “Bioarchaeology in the Bronze Age Levant: Novel Insights into Mobility, Food, and Philistines.” The lecture will take place in Rhode Island Hall Room 108 with reception to follow.

Philipp W. Stockhammer is professor for prehistoric archaeology with a focus on the Eastern Mediterranean at Ludwig-Maximilians-University (LMU) Munich and co-director of Max Planck-Harvard Research Center for the Archaeoscience of the Ancient Mediterranean, Jena. His research focuses on the transformative power of intercultural encounters, human-thing-entanglements, social practices and the integration of archaeological and scientific interpretation.

Join the Archaeological Institute of America next week for an AIA Archaeology Hour lecture with Alaka Wali, Curator Emerita at the Field Museum in Chicago, as she talks about Inclusive Museum Narratives: Contextualizing Collections through Collaboration. Alaka will give the same lecture twice–on Tuesday, October 18 at 7 pm PT  (register) and Wednesday, October 19 at 7 pm ET  (register). 

Alaka will discuss how the Field Museum approached the renovation of their Native North America Hall. The process led to the beginning of reIn this lecture, Alaka will discuss how the Field Museum approached the renovation of the Native North America Hall. Collaboration proved to be key–and the museum worked with an advisory committee of Native American scholars, museum professionals, artists, and activists. They also reached out to over 100 people across the United States and Canada to bring Native American voices and perspectives into the exhibition display. The process led to the beginning of reforms in how the Field Museum provides access to the anthropology collections for source communities and how they are conceptualizing stewardship of the collections with Native American Tribes and First Nations.  A recording of Alaka’s talk will be made available on our AIA YouTube Channel.  

We also invite you to join us on Thursday, October 27 at 2 pm ET for an Archaeology Abridged talk with Alaka on Representing Native American Perspectives on Time: Examples from the Field Museum (register).

Speaker: Dr. Marjan Wardaki, Postdoctoral Associate and Lecturer in History, Yale University.

Introductory remarks: Professor Faiz Ahmed, History Department.

Reflections: Professor Benjamin Hein, History Department.

This talk is based on research for an ongoing book project, which proposes Afghanistan as a new site to study the history of science and colonialism, specifically through its encounters with not merely direct forms of colonial encounters (i.e., British Raj), but also indirect forms of imperial pursuits as seen through the technological and industrial expansion of Weimar Germany in early twentieth century Afghanistan.

The book examines lives, movements, objects, and ideas as these circulated between colonial and postcolonial sites. Professor Wardaki argues that the creation of a sovereign Islamic state in Afghanistan was a global project initially organized in the German diaspora and highly dependent on both the diasporic collaboration with other Muslims and the harnessing of science and technology for its new postcolonial industries.

This history is key to understanding new forms of postcolonial regimes and the role of South Asian categories of knowledge in developing modern scientific institutions. The chapters provide insight into different models of autochthonous Muslim experiments with science and statecraft, as they drew on wide migrant networks in Germany to mobilize politically and intellectually in an era of Empire’s twilight.

About the speaker: Marjan Wardaki is Postdoctoral Associate in the Program in Iranian Studies at Yale University. She is an intellectual historian of modern Middle East and South Asia, with research interests in the history of science and migration studies. Her work has been published in Modern Asian Studies, and she is currently working on several articles on Indo-Persianate medical traditions and​ the history of the camera and photographic practices in India. This talk is from her first book project, which traces the birth of scientific and medical institutions in Afghanistan through the lens of itinerant scientists and state makers.

Date: October 12, 2022

Time: 1:00pm – 2:30pm EDT

Location: 111 Thayer Street

Room: Joukowsky Forum

Cost: Free

Dr. Elizabeth Chin is a Professor at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, CA teaching in the MFA program Media Design Practices. She is also Editor-in-Chief of American Anthropologist.

Dr. Chin’s work spans a variety of topics — race, consumption, Barbie — but nearly always engages marginalized youth in collaboratively taking on the complexities of the world around them. She has current projects in Los Angeles, and Haiti and have engaged partners including the Los Angeles Police Department, numerous public schools, Jovenes, Inc. in Boyle Heights, and Lekòl Kominotè Matènwa in Haiti. A specialist in Haitian Folkloric dance, she has performed professionally and still occasionally teaches dance. 

Taking writing very, very seriously, her work increasingly investigates the ethnographic voice with an eye toward decolonizing anthropological knowledge as it appears on the page.

Date: November 15, 2022

Time: 12:00pm – 1:00pm EST

Location: 128 Hope Street

Room: Room 212

Cost: Free

Join us on November 10, 2022 from 12:00pm to 1:00pm EST to discuss Brown University’s land acknowledgement statement. This event is part of the Department of History’s Fall 2022 What History Looks Like series. The event will be held at the Pavilion Room of the Peter Green Building of the Brown History Department (79 Brown Street).

Event speakers include:

Ethan Pollock, Chair, Department of History, Brown University

Kimonee Burke, Ph.D. Student, Department of History, Brown University

Patricia Rubertone, Professor, Department of Anthropology, Brown University

Lunch will be served at 11:30AM. RSVP requested to help us with food and seating arrangements.

RSVP here.

How do interactions between empires and Indigenous communities change ritualized behavior and produce new relationships of power? This talk explores the relationship between local mortuary practice and the Inca (15th century) and European (16th century) conquests of the Chincha Valley on Peru’s South Coast. 

Dr. Jacob Bongers employs various methods ranging from survey and excavation to drone photography and Bayesian statistical modeling to study a landscape of over 500 graves. Transformation in tomb use and post-mortem manipulation of the dead coincided with Inca and European incursion, demonstrating mortuary practice as a means of agency and adaptability of Chincha communities during one of the most turbulent periods of Peruvian history. It widens the scope of imperialism studies to include a mortuary perspective on the dynamics between empires and local peoples. 

Presented by Dr. Jacob Bongers, Society of Fellows Postdoctoral Scholar at Boston University

About the speaker: 

Jacob Bongers is an anthropological archaeologist with a PhD in archaeology from the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA. He employs multidisciplinary methodologies built around archaeological science and digital archaeology to investigate how Indigenous communities confront social and environmental change. His doctoral research examined how groups configured ritualized behaviors to deal with imperial conquest in southern Peru. His current research explores how Indigenous communities in highland and coastal Peru mitigate climatic hazards and conflict in everyday life. Prior to joining BU, Bongers conducted archaeological fieldwork in Portugal, Chile, Ethiopia, Oman, and Peru.

Date: November 4, 2022

Time: 3:00pm – 4:00pm EDT

Location: 128 Hope Street, Giddings House

Room: Room 212

Cost: Free

In 2018, the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology at Brown University received the Engaging the Americas grant from the Mellon Foundation “to support improving physical and intellectual stewardship” of the Museum’s “Native American and Indigenous collections and further their integration in the Brown curriculum.” Much of this ongoing work has focused on re-inventorying, cataloging, photographing, and rehousing the extensive lithic assemblages in our archaeological collection. In this presentation, Dr. Jessica Nelson, Curatorial Assistant on the Engaging the Americas grant, will share highlights of the project with an emphasis on the New England assemblages in our collection. Join us on zoom on October 19, 2022 from 6:00pm to 7:00pm EDT.

Click here to register!