Diary for 30th April to 6th May 2009

THURSDAY 30th April- Listening for free

The Society for Applied Anthropology (SfAA) has undergone a podcast development project with the help and support of the University of North Texas' Anthropology department. The project provided an opportunity for student volunteers to undertake professional audio recording and editing of the SFAA's annual meetings. At this year's event there was a total of 16 sessions recorded, 7 of which are available on the SfAA podcasts website. To find out more about the team of students who took part in the project take a look here.


FRIDAY 1st May- Silk Road Music & Dance

Tonight at 7:30pm there will be a celebration of Persian and Uyghur Dance on at 78 Bishopsgate in London. Internationally acclaimed dancer Sahar Dehghan will be comming from Paris, to perform the unique Persian Dance and Sufi Whiling Darvishes. Having performed at over 30 international shows you can see videos of her performances here. Sahar will be accompanied by musicians Yusuf Mahmoud (singer and tabla player) and Peryman Heydarian (santour player) and Gulzie Yasin a Uyghur dancer. For more information about the event, email:worldmusicuk@gmail.com. Tickets are £10 in advance and £12 at the door.



SATURDAY 2nd May- Ghostly Matters

On June 4th from 9:30am-5pm, the University of Manchester will host a symposium called Haunted Futurities. The symposium aims to bring together scholars from the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities to discuss subjects that haunt us. The notion of being 'haunted' that is addressed in this symposium is quite broad. It can include looking at the ways in which past events of terror and violence haunt the present, or horrors that are imagined as 'inevitable' as well as 'hopes and dreams for difference and change'. A keynote speaker is Dr. Avery Gordon author of Ghostly Matters: Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Registration is now open, for more information and booking take a look at this website.



SUNDAY 3rd May- The Many Faces of Buddhism

A three-week long festival that explores various forms of Buddhism and its expression through performing arts, paintings, sculpture and research is being held in varous locations in London. Some of the highlights of the festival include the opening of a gallery of Buddhist sculpture at the V&A, a two week international Buddhism film festival at the Barbican, and an international forum on Buddhism and the arts also at the V &A. The festival has been supported by the Robert H.N.Ho Family Foundation. For those of you interested in learning more about Buddhism and other religions you might be interested to take a look at this Anthropology of Religion course outline and its associated readings.



MONDAY 4th May- Cooking and Chimps

What can biological anthropologists learn from studying the actions and behaviours of our furry relatives? For Dr. Wrangham Professor of Biological Anthropology at Harvard, who has spent the last four decades observing wild chimpanzees in Africa our relatives can tell us a great deal about our evolution, in ways wewould never have assumed. In Professor Wrangham's new book Catching Fire: How Cooking Made Us Human' he argues that it was cooking rather than tool making and meat eating that have set the conditions for human evolution. An interesting converstion with Professor on how and why he supports this theory can be found in this article. For an alternative article on the evolution of cooking take a look here. Those of you who are interested in learning more about biological anthropology and what it's really like to study chimpanzees in the wild, come and try one of the interactive workshops at the London Anthropology Day in July!


TUESDAY 5th May- Oxford Ethnographic Film Society is reborn

Its been several years since the Oxford Ethnographic Film Society has been in operation. With a set of enthusiastic visual anthropology students, and the support of the Oxford Academy of Documentary Film the call to action has been revived. The society which was founded in 2000 by Dr. Alison Kahn, a previous post-graduate Anthropology student at Oxford, aims to provide screenings of a range of ethnographic films which will promote discussions, debates and ideas on anthropological topics. The Film society has set up an excellent lineup this year of esteemed Visual Anthropologists (including Rebecca Savage, Michael Yorke, Andre Singer, and Zemirah Moffat) who will come and speak at the Pauling Centre in Oxford during April and May. For further information on the society, the speakers, and the topics of discussion visit this website.
For those of you who are budding filmmakers wanting to know more about techniques, courses, cameras I recommend you visit the Oxford Academy of Documentary Film website, which has a lot of very useful information.




WEDNESDAY 6th May- An evening of photography, film and debate on sex trafficking

I am going to book ahead for an evening event which will take place on the 13th of May at 7pm at the Human Rights Action Centre in London. Organised by Autograph ABP and Amnesty International the event promises a wide range of activities, discussions and films on the topic of sex trafficking. Photographer Dana Popa, will be presenting her work on Not Natasha, Amnesty International's gender policy adviser Poonam Joshi will discuss recent UK government schemes to protect victims of trafficking, and Frances Brodrick will talk about the Poppy Project's work on trafficking victims in the UK. The discussions will be accompanied by two short films, Emma Thompsons's film on sex trafficking, and Two Little Girls, narrated by Juliet Stevenson. The events is free, but booking is required. To book your place visit this website.