Here’s our list of the top 20 sessions to attend at the much-anticipated 2014 AAA meetings in Washington, DC. The list reflects our own interest in storytelling, creative ethnography, publishing, and teaching, with a few rogue selections thrown in for good measure.
Be sure to drop by the University of Toronto Booth while at the AAA, and don’t forget to check your conference kit for a notice about our new book, Stories of Culture a Place: An Introduction to Anthropology. This book is very important to us, and we are rushing copies to Washington directly from the printers so that we can share it with you in person.
Happy Thanksgiving to our American anthro friends.
We’ll see you in DC. It’d better be warm!
WEDNESDAY DECEMBER 3RD
12:00 PM – 1:45 PM
2-0025 ANTHROPOLOGY OF BECOMING (AAA Executive Program Committee)
Organizer: Joao Biehl (Princeton University) and Bridget Purcell (Princeton University)
Chair: Joao Biehl (Princeton University)
Discussant: Michael M.J. Fischer (MIT)
The Right to a Nonprojected Future: Social Becomings through Law and Medicine, Joao Biehl (Princeton University)
Beyond Constraint: Violence As Healing on the Edges of Mexico City, Angela N. Garcia (Stanford University)
Of Form and Reform: The Transformation of Ritual Place and Ritual Practice in a Turko-Syrian Border Town, Bridget Purcell (Princeton University)
Becoming-Other, Other-Becoming, Lucas Bessire (University of Oklahoma)
What Is a Horizon? Extinction and Time amid Climate Change, Adriana M. Petryna (University of Pennsylvania)
2-0160 THEORY, (AUTO)ETHNOGRAPHY, AND FICTION (Society for Humanistic Anthropology)
Organizer: Jonathan S Marion (University of Arkansas)
Chair: Sascha Goluboff
Discussant: Julia L. Offen (Independent Scholar)
Producing Anthropological Writing: How Books Turn Dull in Spite of the SHA, Karen E. Stocker (CSU Fullerton)
Reflexively Turning Toward Eros: From Ethnography to Autoethnography, Ayla Samli (Wake Forest University)
Monster’s Analysis: Vulnerable Anthropology and Deaf Superhero-Becomings, Joseph Michael Valente (The Pennsylvania State University)
Fictionalizing Affection, Theorizing Race: Examining Sentimental Attachments Among Slaves and Masters in Virginia, Sascha Goluboff (Washington & Lee University)
4:00 PM – 5:45 PM
2-0575 ETHNOGRAPHY BEYOND: CREATIVITY AND POLITICS IN THE LIFE OF ART (Society for Cultural Anthropology)
Organizers: Andrew O. Brandel (Johns Hopkins University) and Yana Stainova (Brown University)
Chair: Eric Hirsch (University of Chicago)
Discussant: Claudio Lomnitz (Columbia University)
Into the Hinterlands: Creative Practice in Detroit, Julia H Yezbick (Harvard University)
How to Talk about a Street: Lessons on the Poetics of Urban Life, Andrew O. Brandel (Johns Hopkins University)
Visual Sovereignty in Native Youth Media: Race, Power, Pedagogy, Kelly Adams (New York University)
A Sonorous Silence: The Ambiguous Politics of Classical Music in Venezuela, Yana Stainova (Brown Univeversity)
Alÿs the Ethnographer: Several Thoughts on Anthropology and Art, David L Platzer (Johns Hopkins University)
8:00 PM – 9:45 PM
2-0700 THE FIELD AS CLASSROOM: UNDERGRADUATE INSTRUCTION IN THE PRACTICES OF ETHNOGRAPHY (General Anthropology Division)
Organizer: Debra Lattanzi Shutika (George Mason University)
Chair: Debra Lattanzi Shutika (George Mason University)
Discussant: Christine A. Kray (Rochester Institute of Technology)
Students As Scholars and Ethnographers, in the Classroom and Beyond, Bethany M. Usher (George Mason University)
Bursting Free of the Higher Ed Bubble: Strategies for Getting Undergraduates Ethnographic Training, Jeffrey W. Mantz (George Mason University)
Three Brief Protocols That Teach Data Analysis to Undergraduates, Michelle LaFrance (George Mason University)
The Ethnographic Field School, Debra Lattanzi Shutika (George Mason University)
THURSDAY DECEMBER 4TH
9:00 AM – 10:45 AM
3-0050 PROFESSIONAL DIVIDES III: JOURNALISTS AND ANTHROPOLOGISTS IN CONVERSATION ABOUT LANGUAGE, PRACTICE AND PUBLIC COMMUNICATION (AAA Executive Program Committee)
Organizer: Colleen M. Cotter (Queen Mary, University of London)
Chairs: Jonathan D. Rosa (University of Massachusetts Amherst) and Alexandra M. Jaffe (California State University Long Beach)
Roundtable Presenters:
Mark Allen Peterson (Miami University)
E. Moore Quinn (College of Charleston, SC)
Colleen M. Cotter (Queen Mary, University of London)
Hilary Parsons Dick (Arcadia University)
3-0185 STORYTELLING AS COLLABORATIVE METHODOLOGY: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL COLLABORATION IN THE FIVE BORO STORY PROJECT
Reviewed by: Installations
Organizer: Jill Siegel (Teachers College, Columbia University)
11:00 AM – 12:45 PM
3-0395 PRODUCING DISRUPTION, SUBVERSION, AND OTHER REALLY GOOD STORIES: ETHNOGRAPHIC STORYTELLING AND FICTION AS ALTERNATIVES TO PRODUCTION-AS-USUAL (Council on Anthropology and Education)
Organizers: Mathangi Subramanian (Columbia University) and Sally Campbell Galman (University of Massachusetts-Amherst)
Chair: Mathangi Subramanian (Columbia University)
Discussant: Maura S. Finkelstein (Mills College)
Dear Mrs. Naidu: Ethnographic Activist Fiction for Young Adults, Mathangi Subramanian (Columbia University)
How to be a Pirate: Using Pictures and Words to Destabilize “Patriarchal Constellations” in Preschool, Sally Campbell Galman (University of Massachusetts-Amherst)
“Where I’m from” Film Festival: Producing Multimodal Stories with Youth, Tiffany Dejaynes (New York City Dept of Education)
I’d like to Have the “-Abas” and “-Ibas”—the Imperfect Is so Good for Telling Stories: Second Language Acquisition in Mexico, Melisa (Misha) S. Cahnmann-Taylor (University of Georgia) and LaTasha E. Hutcherson Price (University of Georgia)
2:30 PM – 4:15 PM
3-0920 ANTHROPOLOGY AND STORYTELLING (Society for Humanistic Anthropology)
Organizer: Carole McGranahan (University of Colorado)
Chairs: Coralynn V. Davis (Bucknell University) and Gina Athena Ulysse (Wesleyan University)
Discussants: Mary M. Steedly (Harvard University) and Jason Antrosio (Hartwick College)
Storytellers As Theorists: What Maithil Women’s Tales of Tales Tell about Storytelling, Coralynn V. Davis (Bucknell University)
Anthropology As Theoretical Storytelling, Carole McGranahan (University of Colorado)
Fighting with My “Informants,” or How to Clear a Room (of Anthropologists): Bad Stories from a Good Ethnographer, John F Collins (Queens College & the Graduate Center – CUNY)
On What (Not) to Tell: Experiments in Silences, Gina Athena Ulysse (Wesleyan University)
3-0895 ANTHROPOLOGISTS AND CONTROVERSIAL ENGAGEMENTS: THE BOYCOTT OF ISRAELI ACADEMIC INSTITUTIONS (AAA Executive Program Committee)
Organizer: Lisa B. Rofel (University of California, Santa Cruz)
Chair: Ghassan Joseph Hage (University of Melbourne)
Discussants: Lori A. Allen (SOAS and SOAS) and Ann L. Stoler (New School for Social Research)
Denial in the Academy: Why Anthropologists and Academics in General Should Support the Boycott of Israeli Academic Institutions? Magid Shihade (Berzeit University)
A History of AAA Resolutions from the Viewpoint of Middle East Anthropology, Lara Deeb (Scripps College) and Jessica Winegar (Northwestern University)
In the Name of Anti-Semitism and Academic Freedom: On the Campaign Against Palestinian Activism, Nadia Abu El-Haj (Columbia University)
Knowledge As Infrastructure: Experiments in Critical Social Theory in 1980s Jerusalem, Julia Elyachar (University of California Irvine)
6:30 PM – 8:15 PM
3-1195 IMAGINATIVE ETHNOGRAPHY, OR WHAT MIGHT ETHNOGRAPHY BECOME?
(American Ethnological Society)
Organizers: Denielle A. Elliott (York University) and Dara Culhane (Simon Fraser University)
Chairs: Anand Pandian (Johns Hopkins University) and Stuart J. McLean (University of Minnestota)
Roundtable Presenters:
Todd Ramon Ochoa (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill)
Alexandrine Boudreault-Fournier (University of Victoria)
W. Kenneth Little (York University)
Magdalena Joanna Kazubowski-Houston (York University)
George Fitzpatrick Mentore (University of Virginia)
Cristina Moretti and Shannon Rose Riley (San Jose State University)
3-1150 GLOBAL SOCIAL MEDIA AND GLOBAL SOCIAL ANTHROPOLOGY
(AAA Executive Program Committee)
Organizer: Daniel Miller (University College London)
Chair: Heather A. Horst (Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology)
Discussants: Faye Diana Ginsburg (New York University) and George E. Marcus (University of California Irvine)
Social Media & Education: From Ethnographies of Education to Global Learning, Tom McDonald (University College London)
Social MEDIA and Being Human, Daniel Miller (University College London) and Xinyuan Wang (University College London)
Actually Comparative and Collaborative Anthropology, Juliano Andrade Spyer (University College London) and Nell Haynes (American University)
Social Media and Micropolitics: A Comparative Ethnographic Study, Elisabetta Costa (University College London) and Shriram Venkatraman (University College London)
FRIDAY DECEMBER 5TH
9:00 AM – 10:45 AM
4-0050 OPENING ACCESS, BEING PUBLISHER: A DISCUSSION ABOUT ANTHROPOLOGY, EPISTEMIC ETHICS, AND POST-PROFIT PUBLISHING
(AAA Executive Program Committee)
Organizer: Cymene Howe (Rice University)
Introductions: George E. Marcus (University of California Irvine)
Chair: Giovanni Da Col (University of Cambridge) and Jessica R. Cattelino (University of California Los Angeles)
Roundtable Presenters:
Kim Fortun (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
Francis B. Nyamnjoh (University of Cape Town)
Charlie Piot (Duke University)
Alberto Corsin Jimenez (Spanish National Research Council)
Michael A. Fortun (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)
4-0235 DIALECTICAL RUINS (Society for the Anthropology of North America)
Organizer: Christopher Matthews (Montclair State University)
Chair: Shannon Lee Dawdy (University of Chicago)
Labor History in Ruins: The Lattimer Archaeology Project and the Catastrophe of the 20th Century, Michael Peter Roller (University of Maryland)
The Feral House, Scholarly Ruination, and the Unhomely Everyday, Hannah Woodroofe (University of Chicago)
Ruins of Infrastructure in the Georgetown Neighborhood of Washington, DC, Matthew M. Palus (University of Maryland, College Park)
Bunkers Katherine McCaffrey (Montclair State University)
Ruining Orange, Christopher Matthews (Montclair State University)
Dialectical Urban Landscapes: Archaeology As Profane Illumination, Shannon Lee Dawdy (University of Chicago)
11:00 AM – 12:45 PM
4-0430 SILENCE IN/AND ETHNOGRAPHY: CARTOGRAPHIES OF POWER AND KNOWLEDGE IN ANTHROPOLOGY AND ITS PUBLICS (Association for Political and Legal Anthropology and Society for Linguistic Anthropology)
Organizer: Natasha Zaretsky (Rutgers University)
Chair: Natasha Zaretsky (Rutgers University)
Discussant: Maria-Luisa Achino-Loeb (New York University, Gallatin)
Representation As an Extractive Economy: Silencing and Multiple Marginalities, Ann E. Kingsolver (University of Kentucky)
Remembering Silence in Brazil, Robin E. Sheriff (University of New Hampshire)
Silence and Visibility: The Public Engagement of Anthropologists Writing for the Media
Rachel Newcomb (Rollins College)
Denial and Dissociation in El Salvador, Ellen E Moodie (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)
“Hidden” Transcripts: Strategies of Silence and Agency in Public Narratives of Undocumented Migrants, Natasha Zaretsky (Rutgers University)
2:30 PM – 4:15 PM
4-1010 THE ANTHROPOLOGY OF EDUCATIONAL FUTURES: MOOCS AS CULTURAL PRODUCTION, LEARNING, AND LABOR (AAA Committee on Labor Relations)
Organizers: Christine J. Walley (MIT) and Catherine M. Koehler (University of California Merced)
Chair: Graham M. Jones (MIT)
Discussant: Donald Brenneis (University of California Santa Cruz)
In the Magical Land of MOOCs, Orin Starn (Duke University)
MOOCs and the Politics of Visual Boredom, Carolyn Rouse (Princeton University)
MOOCs: Community College Inequality on Steroids? Richard Kahlenberg (The Century Foundation)
MOOCs As Media-Work: Socialization and Ideology, Graham M. Jones (MIT)
6:30 PM – 8:15 PM
4-1125 STUDYING UP, DOWN, AND SIDEWAYS: ANTHROPOLOGISTS TRACE THE PATHWAYS OF POWER (Association for Political and Legal Anthropology)
Organizer: Rachael J. Stryker (California State University, East Bay)
Chair: Roberto J. Gonzalez (San Jose State University)
Discussants: David H. Price (St. Martin’s University) and Laura Nader (University of California Berkeley)
On Dispossession: O’er Land and Sea, Liza M. Grandia (University of California Davis)
On Food: Manufacturing Food Insecurity in Oaxaca, Mexico, Roberto J. Gonzalez (San Jose State University)
On Family: Adoptive Parenting Up, Down, and Sideways, Rachael J. Stryker (California State University, East Bay)
On Common Sense: Parliament, Order, and Starting over in Post-Socialist Ukraine, Monica E. Eppinger (Saint Louis University)
On Caring: How to Keep Healthcare from Becoming Science Fiction, Adrienne Pine (American University)
SATURDAY DECEMBER 6TH
11:00 AM – 12:45 PM
5-0525 GRAPHIC MEDICINE: VISUALIZING A POTENTIAL OF MEDICAL ANTHROPOLOGY (Society for Medical Anthropology)
Organizers: Dana Walrath (University of Vermont) and Juliet M. McMullin (University of California, Riverside)
Visualizing Inequality: Community and Representing Social Suffering in Graphic Medicine, Juliet M. McMullin (University of California, Riverside)
Identity, Graphic Narrative, and the Past: Drawing the Stratigraphy of Personal Experience, John Gordon Swogger (Archaeological Illustrator)
Labor of Love: A Graphic Narrative of Precarity and Care at Fukushima Daiichi, Kyle Orion Harp (University of California, Riverside)
5-0565 VISUAL RESEARCH METHODS IN PRACTICE: PRODUCTION AND USES OF PHOTOGRAPHY, SOCIAL MEDIA, AND GRAFFITTI (Society for Visual Anthropology)
Chair: Jacqueline H. Fewkes (Florida Atlantic University)
Borrowing Methods: Theory and Practice, Carrie Ida Edinger (Independent Artist)
Laying It Down for the Layperson: Anthropology Meets the Media, Natalia Reagan (BOAS Network)
Seeing the City: A Visual Methodology for Public Engagement with Sociotechnical Futures, Carlo Altamirano-Allende (Arizona State University)
Producing Cool Anthropology: Using Interactive Technology to Support the Many Voices of Research Dissemination, Kristina Baines (City University of New York and coolanthropology.com)
Locating Graffiti: Learning about Place from Roadside Art in Ladakh, India, Jacqueline H. Fewkes (Florida Atlantic University)
Looking through the Lens of Graffiti: Analyzing Contemporary Identity through Urban Art in Mérida, Yucatán, William Lammons (Independent Scholar/Millsaps College Graduate)
2:30 PM – 4:15 PM
5-0970 DRAWING AND PAINTING IN THE PRODUCTION OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL KNOWLEDGE (Society for Visual Anthropology)
Organizers: Carol Hendrickson (Marlboro College) and Zoe Bray (Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno)
Chairs: Carol Hendrickson (Marlboro College) and Zoe Bray (Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno)
Why Draw?: Visual Fieldnotes in the Production of Anthropological Knowledge, Carol Hendrickson (Marlboro College)
Anthropology with a Paint Brush: Doing Research and Analysis through Portrait-Painting, Zoe Bray (Center for Basque Studies, University of Nevada, Reno)
“Drawn, but Lost; Still Seen” Andrew Causey (Columbia College Chicago)
Materializing Ideas through Lines and Surprise, Shelly Errington (University of California Santa Cruz)
Paintings, Drawings, and Monoprints in the Creation and Display of Ethnographic Research, Lydia N. Degarrod (California College of the Arts)
Moments of Art in Collaborative Research, Susan M. Ossman (University of California, Riverside)
SUNDAY DECEMBER 7TH
10 AM – 11:45 AM
6-0220 PRODUCING STORYTELLING IN THE DIGITAL AGE: NEW CHALLENGES (Society for Linguistic Anthropology)
Organizers: Sabina M. Perrino (University of Michigan) and Anna De Fina (Georgetown University)
Chairs: Sabina M. Perrino (University of Michigan) and Anna De Fina (Georgetown University)
Narrative Aftershocks: Digital Retellings of an Earthquake in Emilia-Romagna, Italy, Sabina M. Perrino (University of Michigan)
Narrative Genres in Online Interaction: The Telling of Accounts on Twitter Paige, Allison Arthur (Georgetown University)
From Dialectology to Youtube Accent Challenge Narratives, Betsy Rymes (University of Pennsylvania)
Storytelling in TV Commercials, Michael Bamberg (Clark University)
Where Has the Story Gone? Audience Participation and Telling in Social Media, Anna De Fina (Georgetown University)
Perudigital: Iterative Design in Digital Cultural Heritage, Natalie M. Underberg-Goode (University of Central Florida)
