for our Fourth Annual Lecture:
Hugh Raffles: Rocks, Stones, and Other Vital Things
Tuesday, October 25, 2011 ::: 4:30 p.m. Founders College 305 (Senior
Common Room)
Professor Raffles will speak about his new ethnographic project that
explores the lives of rocks and stones.
There are currently two central problems. One is familiar to
anthropologists: What are the forms of life enacted
by objects that, in "the Western philosophical tradition," are commonly
considered inanimate? The second,
although related, may be less familiar: What can we learn from stones?
Professor Raffles explores these questions
ethnographically, assuming that they are susceptible to empirical
investigation. His research considers a limited
set of cases, two of which are introduced in this talk: the ancient
monuments of the British Isles and Chinese
"scholar's rocks."
Brief respondents comments will follow the talk before discussion is
opened to the public. All are welcome.
Hugh Raffles is Professor of Anthropology at Eugene Lang College, The
New School for Social Research in New York
City. His research and writing on the cultural and historical
anthropology of "nature" explores connections among
people, other beings and "inanimate" phenomena. He is the author of
Insectopedia (Pantheon Books, 2010) and
In Amazonia: A Natural History (Princeton University Press, 2002).
This lecture is co-sponsored by the Department of Anthropology, the
Office of the Master of Founders College, The Faculty of Education, and
The Faculty of Environmental Studies.
